akers' ovens; thus opening a wide field
for the exercise of that culinary ingenuity which has rendered the
names of Glasse and Kitchiner immortal. Of such importance is the
gastronomic art to the well-being of England, that we question much if
the "wooden walls," which have been the theme of many a song, afford
her the same protection as her dinners. The ancients sought, by the
distribution of crowns and flowers, to stimulate the enterprising and
reward the successful; but England, despising such empty honours and
distinctions, tempts the diffident with a haunch of venison, and
rewards the daring with real turtle.

If charity seeks the aid of the benevolent, she no longer trusts to the
magic of oratory to "melt the tender soul to pity," and untie the
purse-strings; but, grown wise by experience, she sends in her card in
the shape of "a guinea ticket, bottle of wine included;" and thus
appeals, if not to the heart, at least to its next-door neighbour--the
stomach.

The hero is no longer conducted to the temple of Victory amid the
shouts of his grateful and admiring countrymen, but to the Freemason's,
the Crown and Anchor, or the Town Hall, there to have his plate heaped
with the choicest viands, his glass tilled from the best bins, and "his
health drank with three times three, and a little one in."

The bard has now to experience "the happiest moment of his life" amid
the jingling of glasses, the rattle of dessert plates, and the
stentorian vociferations of the toast-master to "charge your glasses,
gentlemen--Mr. Dionysius Dactyl, the ornament of the age, with nine
times nine," and to pour out the flood of his poetic gratitude, with
half a glass of port in one hand and a table-napkin in the other.

The Cicero who has persuaded an enlightened body of electors to receive
L10,000 decimated amongst them, and has in return the honour of
sleeping in "St. Stephen's," and smoking in "Bellamy's," or, to be less
figurative, who has been returned as their representative in
Parliament, receives the foretaste of his importance in a "public
dinner," which commemorates his election; or should he desire to
express "the deep sense of his gratitude," like Lord Mahon at Hertford,
he cannot better prove his sincerity than by the liberal distribution
of invitations for the unrestrained consumption of mutton, and the
unlimited imbibition of "foreign wines and spirituous liquors."

If a renegade, like Sir Francis Burdett, is desirous of m