CHAPTER XXVI. THE LITERARY AMPHITRYON. WHEN M. Soyer, the Head Centre of the Reform Club below stairs, and the benevolent inventor of portable kitchens for the British army in the Crimea, lost his wife for even great cooks are in the roll of common men in this respect, and lose their wives, their places, and their tempers, like ordinary mortals he was inconsolable. His attachment for her had been tender, tender as one of his own beefsteaks, and in all his troubles he had been accustomed to find in her a willing and eager aide de cuisine. If his inspiration flickered for a moment like a dying bougie, and then went out, leaving him in culinary darkness; if a dindon en daube failed to blossom into a delicacy fit for Apicius, or a ragout of most exquisite invention, instead of appearing to titillate the palate like the very L'Allegro of dishes, came up heavy and indigestible as the last dregs of the Tupperian swamp, he did not commit hari-kari forthwith, like Vatel, the great chef of Louis XIV., when the fish failed to arrive in time, or throw himself headlong into the coal-hole, moaning, "Oh would I were dead now, To cover my head now, And have a good cry," but more wisely simmered his sobs like pancakes in her assuaging tears, and dissolved his griefs in the new receipts which she helped him—“Ah! quelle douce réciprocité" to devise. He thus found comfort for past sorrows, and hope for the future. Being anxious to do justice to her memory through a monument of floury whiteness, he asked a member of the club whose digestion he superintended, who was well-known for his wit, to write an epitaph which should properly set forth her virtues, that she might not lead these graces to the grave and leave the world no copy. Mr. — replied that he was all unused to gilding tombstones, and had given quite a different range to his ideas for the most part, but still was willing to do his best, and then asked him how he thought "Soyez tranquille" would answer. I do not know whether these words were ever placed over the remnants of the unfortunate deceased, doubly unfortunate if they had been; but as that immortal work, "The Shilling Cookery for the People" appeared not long after her departure, I presume M. Soyer took refuge in an exalted style of literary labor as a relief to his loneliness. There, as any one can read, the letters addressed to his chère Eloise, testify better than any epitaph the depth of his attachment, and the sincerity of his grief, while they show the poetical thoughts that can be made to cluster around even so prosaic a subject as a “toad-in-the-hole batter." They are worthy of one who proved so ardent a disciple of the author of Méditations de Gastronomie Transcendente! Abelard and he will go down to posterity together through the touching epistles that were wrung from them; one by disappointed love, and the other by the stern dispensation of a "cuisine sérieuse." Baron Brisse, the originator of this last phrase, and inheritor of the mantle that fell from the great Soyer, has come to grief. The Apicius of Paris no longer contributes to La Liberté those dainty menus which have for so many months daily graced its columns, and saved its readers the trouble of taking thought for the morrow in the preparation of their dinners. Le Siécle says the reason of this hiatus was the indigestion suffered by those who carried the Baron's suggestions into practice. The truth however is, that a letter bearing his signature appeared in the principal journal of the wine-producers, calling upon them to send their best samples to a series of orgies held by him, and styled Diners de Baron Brisse. It concluded with the remark that "the priest must live by the offerings on the altar." On seeing this the guileless and consistent Girardin waxed wroth, and gave the writer a curt dismissal. The latter now says that the missive sent to the Moniteur Vinicole was a forgery, and writes to all the papers to inform them of the fact, adding that he shall resort to the courts for redress from the impudent perpetrator. La Liberté publishes this contradiction, but apparently is skeptical on the subject, for it adds thereto the following observation, which can hardly be called complimentary: "Baron Brisse says that the letter imputed to him was forged; this will be shown by the result of the action brought against the forger, if forger there be." It is to be hoped, for the sake of that cuisine sérieuse of which he is the highpriest, that he was more successful in his action than the elder Dumas, who has just been obliged to pay the costs of his suit against the photographers who had exhibited him and the Menken in all the shop windows in a variety of affectionate attitudes, all more or less improper, and suggesting an old Othello with a dubious Desdemona. Being thus, like his famous predecessor, the victim of misfortune, Baron Brisse - Baron Sans-Argent, as one of the most prominent of his affectionate competitors one day styled him to me-has followed his example, and taken refuge in the flowing pen. He has just started a paper on his own account, to which, with becoming modesty, he gives his own name. At the top of the first page, in letters as large as its breadth will admit, are the words Le Baron Brisse. Under these inspiring characters are a row of saucepans, a bottle of champagne, a tureen of soup, sending up a cloud of incense in the new editor's honor, a defunct turkey, smilingly awaiting the epicurean embalmment that the Baron will doubtless give it before placing it in the tomb of its predecessors, and various other "offerings on the altar." In front of all is a flowing beaker of that liquor, doubtless, of which he requested the wine-growers to send him their choicest samples. The paper appears every Sunday, and costs three cents per number. It contains eight pages, with two broad columns on each. The opening sounds well, and savors both of calm philosophy and fierce defiance. "Combien il est bon d'être chez soi!""How good it is to be at home!" This This may be regarded as a taunt flung by the David of the press at the Goliath who has insulted him, or as an expression of deep contentment, like the inscription on Ariosto's house at Ferrara: "Parva sed apta mihi." Like the motto which I once saw over the door of a Dutch burgomaster's tea-garden near Amsterdam, -"The Flesh-pots of Egypt," it may also be designed to suggest the comfortable delights to be found within. A little farther the Baron says, "Before its birth the child which I have christened with my name was devoted to the ladies. It will wear their colors, and they never will have a slave more humble or more faithful. I place it under their care, that they may protect it in case of need." Could anything be more gallant? On the next page we notice a column having the title "Cuisine Classique." Let not this, however, excite a shudder among those of my readers who have feasted at the spread in the manner of the ancients, set forth in "Peregrine Pickle." Here are no Roman |