must look to find clients, I need not say it is necessary that the agent should be as high-born as possible, and that he should be able to tack, if possible, an honorable or some other handle to his respectable name. He must have it on his professional card How should he know better, poor | ticular class of Britons that our agent benighted creature; or she, dear good soul that she is? If they would have a leg of mutton and an apple pudding, and a glass of sherry and port (or simple brandy and water called by its own name) after dinner, all would be very well; but they must shine, they must dine as their neighbors. There is no difference in the style of dinners in London; people with five hundred a year treat you exactly as those of five thousand. They will have their Moselle or hock, their fatal side-dishes brought in the green trays from the pastrycook's. Well, there is no harm done; not as regards the dinner-givers at least, Or, though the dinner-eaters may have to suffer somewhat; it only shows that the former are hospitably inclined, and wish to do the very best in their power, good honest fellows! If they do wrong, how can they help it? they know no better. The Honorable George Gormand Gobbleton, Apician Chambers, Pall Mall. Sir Augustus Carver Cramley Cramley, Amphitryonic Council Office, Swallow St. of-arms and supporters, or the bloodred hand of baronetcy duly displayed. Depend on it plenty of guineas will fall in it, and that Gobbleton's supporters will support him comfortably enough. And now, is it not as clear as the sun at noon-day, that A WANT exists or, in some such neat way, Gothic in London for a superintendent of the letters on a large handsome crockerytable- - a gastronomic agent - -a din-ware card, with possibly a gilt coatner-master, as I have called him before? A man of such a profession would be a metropolitan benefit; hundreds of thousands of people of the respectable sort, people in white waistcoats, would thank him daily. Calculate how many dinners are given in the City of London, and calculate the numbers of benedictions that "the Agency" might win. And as no doubt the observant man of the world has remarked that the freeborn Englishman of the respectable class is, of all others, the most slavish and truckling to a lord; that there is no fly-blown peer but he is pleased to have him at his table, proud beyond measure to call him by his surname (without the lordly prefix); and that those lords whom he does not know, he yet (the freeborn Englishman) takes care to have their pedigrees and ages by heart from his world-bible, the "Peerage: as this is an indisputable fact, and as it is in this par For this profession is not like that of the auctioneer, which I take to be a far more noble one, because more varied and more truthful; but in the Agency case, a little humbug at least is necessary. A man cannot be a successful agent by the mere force of his simple merit or genius in eating and drinking. He must of necessity impose upon the vulgar to a certain degree. He must be of that rank which will lead them naturally to respect him, otherwise they might be led to jeer at his profession; but let a noble exercise, it, and bless your soul, all the "Court Guide is dumb! He will then give out in a manly and somewhat pompous address what has before been mentioned, namely, that he has seen the fatal way in which the hospitality of England has been perverted hitherto, accapare'd by a few cooks with green trays. (He must use a good deal of French in his language, for that is considered very gentleman-like by vulgar people.) He will take a set of chambers in Carlton Gardens, which will be richly though severely furnished, and the door of which will be opened by a French valet (he must be a Frenchman, remember), who will say, on letting Mr. Snorter or Sir Benjamin Pogson in, that "Milor is at home." Pogson will then be shown into a library furnished with massive bookcases, containing all the works on cookery and wines (the titles of them) in all the known languages in the world. Any books, of course, will do, as you will have them handsomely bound, and keep them under plateglass. On a side-table will be little sample-bottles of wine, a few truffles on a white porcelain saucer, a prodigious strawberry or two, perhaps, at the time when such fruit costs much money. On the library will be busts marked Ude, Carème, Béchamel, in marble (never mind what heads, of course); and, perhaps, on the clock should be a figure of the Prince of Condé's cook killing himself because the fish had not arrived in time: there may be a wreath of immortelles on the figure to give it a more decidedly Frenchified air. The walls will be of a dark rich paper, hung round with neat gilt frames, containing plans of menus of various great dinners, those of Cambacères, Napoleon, Louis XIV., Louis XVIII., Heliogabalus, if you like, each signed by the respective cook. After the stranger has looked about him at these things, which he does not understand in the least, especially the truffles, which look like dirty potatoes, you will make your appearance, dressed in a dark dress, with one handsome enormous gold chain, and one large diamond ring; a gold snuff-box, of course, which you will thrust into the visitor's paw before saying a word. You will be yourself a portly grave man, with your hair a little bald and gray. In fact, in this, as in all other professions, you had best try to look as like Canning as you can. When Pogson has done sneezing with the snuff, you will say to him, "Take a fauteuil. I have the honor of addressing Sir Benjamin Pogson, I believe? And then you will explain to him your system. This, of course, must vary with every person you address. But let us lay down a few of the heads of a plan which may be useful, or may be modified infinitely, or may be cast aside altogether, just as circumstances dictate. After all I am not going to turn gastronomic agent, and speak only for the benefit perhaps of the very person who is reading this: "THE traversed the best Gastronomic Agent having Europe, and dined with society of the world, has been led naturally, as a patriot, to turn his thoughts howeward, and cannot but deplore the lamentable ignorance regarding gastronomy displayed in a country for which Nature has done almost every thing. "But it is ever singularly thus. Inherent ignorance belongs to man; and The Agent, in his Continental travels, has always remarked, that the countries most fertile in themselves were invariably worse tilled than those more barren. The Italians and the Spaniards leave their fields to Nature, as we leave our vegetables, fish, and meat. And, heavens! what richness do we fling away,- what dormant qualities in our dishes do we disregard, — what glorious gastronomic crops (if The Agent may be permitted the expression) what glorious gastronomic crops do we sacrifice, allowing our goodly meats and fishes to lie fallow! ، Chance,' | membered, that our native country it is said by an ingenious historian, possesses these altogether, while othwho, having been long a secretary in er lands only know them separately; the East India House, must certainly that, above all, whitebait is peculiarly have had access to the best informa- | our country's our city's own ! Blesstion upon Eastern matters - Chance | ings and eternal praises be on it, and, it is said by Mr. Charles Lamb, of course, on brown bread and butter! 'which burnt down a Chinaman's And the Briton should further rememhouse, with a litter of sucking-pigs | ber, with honest pride and thankfulthat were unable to escape from the interior, discovered to the world the excellence of roast-pig.' Gunpowder, we know, was invented by a similar fortuity." [The reader will observe that my style in the supposed character of a Gastronomic Agent is purposely pompous and loud.] "So, 'tis said, was printing, so glass. We should have drunk our wine poisoned with the villanous odor of the borachio, had not some Eastern merchants, lighting their fires in the Desert, marked the strange composition which now glitters on our sideboards, and holds the costly produce of our vines. "We have spoken of the natural riches of a country. Let the reader think but for one moment of the gastronomic wealth of our country of England, and he will be lost in thankful amazement as he watches the astonishing riches poured out upon us from Nature's bounteous cornucopia! Look at our fisheries! the trout and salmon tossing in our brawling streams; the white and full-breasted turbot struggling in the mariner's net; the purple lobster lured by hopes of greed into his basket-prison, which he quits only for the red ordeal of the pot. Look at whitebait, great heavens! look at whitebait, and a thousand frisking, glittering, silvery things besides, which the nymphs of our native streams bear kindly to the deities of our kitch ens ness, the situation of his capital, of London: the lordly turtle floats from the sea into the stream, and from the stream to the city; the rapid fleets of all the world se donnent rendezvous in the docks of our silvery Thames; the produce of our coasts and provincial cities, east and west, is borne to us on the swift lines of lightning railroads. In a word and no man but one who, like The Agent, has travelled Europe over, can appreciate the gift- there is no city on earth's surface so well supplied with fish as London! "With respect to our meats, all praise is supererogatory. Ask the wretched hunter of chevreuil, the poor devourer of rehbraten, what they think of the noble English haunch, that after bounding in the Park of Knole or Windsor, exposes its magnificent flank upon some broad silver platter at our tables? It is enough to say of foreign venison, that they are obliged to lard it. Away! ours is the palm of roast; whether of the crisp mutton that crops the thymy herbage of our downs, or the noble ox who revels on lush Althorpian oil-cakes. What game is like to ours? Mans excels us in poultry, 'tis true; but 'tis only in merry England that the partridge has a flavor, that the turkey can almost se passer de truffes, that the jolly juicy goose can be eaten deserves. as he -our kitchens such as they are. "Our vegetables, moreover, sur"And though it may be said that pass all comment; Art (by the means other countries produce the freckle- of glass) has wrung fruit out of the backed salmon and the dark broad- bosom of Nature, such as she grants shouldered turbot; though trout fre- to no other clime. And if we have quent many a stream besides those of no vineyards on our hills, we have England, and lobsters sprawl on oth-gold to purchase their best produce. er sands than ours; yet, let it be re- | Nature, and enterprise that masters Nature, have done every thing for our | fore her Majesty, when at Killingworth land. Castle, mackerel with the famous gooseberry sauce, &c. "But with all these prodigious riches in our power, is it not painful to reflect how absurdly we employ them? Can we say that we are in the habit of dining well? Alas, no! and The Agent, roaming o'er foreign lands, and seeing how, with small means and great ingenuity and perseverance, great ends were effected, comes back sadly to his own country, whose wealth he sees absurdly wasted, whose energies are misdirected, and whose vast capabilities are allowed to lie idle." [Here should follow what I have only hinted at previously, a vivid and terrible picture of the degradation of our table.] "Oh, for a master spirit, to give an impetus to the land, to see its great power directed in the right way, and its wealth not squandered or hidden, but nobly put out to interest and spent! "2. He has, through life, devoted himself to no other study than that of the table, and has visited to that end the courts of all the monarchs of Europe; taking the receipts of the cooks, with whom he lives on terms of intimate friendship, often at enormous expense to himself. "3. He has the same acquaintance with all the vintages of the Continent; having passed the autumn of 1811 (the comet year) on the great Weinberg of Johannisberg; being employed similarly at Bordeaux, in 1834: at Oporto, in 1820; and at Xeres de la Frontera, with his excellent friends, Duff, Gordon, and Co., the year after. He travelled to India and back in company with fourteen pipes of Madeira (on board of The Samuel Snob' East Indiaman, Captain Scuttler), and spent the vintage season in the island, with unlimited powers of observation granted to him by the "The Agent dares not hope to win that proud station to be the destroyer of a barbarous system wallow-great houses there. ing in abusive prodigality-to become a dietetic reformer- -the Luther of the table. "But convinced of the wrongs which exist, he will do his humble endeavor to set them right, and to those who know that they are ignorant (and this is a vast step to knowledge) he offers his counsels, his active co-operation, his frank and kindly sympathy. The Agent's qualifica tions are these: "1. He is of one of the best families in England; and has in himself, or through his ancestors, been accustomed to good living for centuries. In the reign of Henry V., his maternal great-great-grandfather, Roger de Gobylton" [the name may be varied, of course, or the king's reign, or the dish invented], was the first who discovered the method of roasting a peacock whole with his tail-feathers displayed; and the dish was served to the two kings at Rouen. Sir Walter Cramley, in Elizabeth's reign, produced be "4. He has attended Mr. Groves of Charing Cross, and Mr. Giblett of Bond Street, in a course of purchases of fish and meat; and is able at a glance to recognize the age of mutton, the primeness of beef, the firmness and freshness of fish of all kinds. "5. He has visited the parks, the grouse-manors, and the principal gardens of England, in a similar professional point of view." The Agent then, through his subordinates, engages to provide gentlemen who are about to give dinner-parties "1. With cooks to dress the dinners; a list of which gentlemen he has by him, and will recommend none who are not worthy of the strictest confidence. "2. With a menu for the table, according to the price which the Amphitryon chooses to incur. "3. He will, through correspondences with the various fournisseurs of the metropolis, provide them with | remembered, that a personal interview viands, fruit, wine, &c., sending to is always the best for it is greatly Paris, if need be, where he has a necessary to know not only the numregular correspondence with Messrs. Chevet. "4. He has a list of dexterous table-waiters (all answering to the name of John for fear of mistakes, the butler's name to be settled according to pleasure), and would strongly recommend that the servants of the house should be locked in the backkitchen or servants' hall during the time the dinner takes place. "5. He will receive and examine all the accounts of the fournisseurs, of course pledging his honor as a gentleman not to receive one shilling of paltry gratification from the tradesmen he employs, but to see that the bills are more moderate, and their goods of better quality, than they would provide to any person of less experience than himself. 6. His fee for superintending a dinner will be five guineas: and The Agent entreats his clients to trust entirely to him and his subordinates for the arrangement of the repast, not to think of inserting dishes of their own invention, or producing wine from their own cellars, as he engages to have it brought in the best order, and fit for immediate drinking. Should the Amphitryon, however, desire some particular dish or wine, he must consult The Agent in the first case by writing, in the second, by sending a sample to The Agent's chambers. For it is manifest that the whole complexion of a dinner may be altered by the insertion of a single dish; and, therefore, parties will do well to mention their wishes on the first interview with The Agent. He cannot be called upon to recompose his bill of fare, except at great risk to the ensemble of the dinner and enormous inconvenience to himself. "7. The Agent will be at home for consultation from ten o'clock until two earlier, if gentlemen who are engaged at early hours in the City desire to have an interview: and be it ber but the character of the guests whom the Amphitryon proposes to entertain, whether they are fond of any particular wine or dish, what is their state of health, rank, style, profession, &c. "8. At two o'clock, he will commence his rounds; for as the metropolis is wide, it is clear that he must be early in the field in some districts. From 2 to 3 he will be in Russell Square and the neighborhood; 3 to 33, Harley Street, Portland Place, Cavendish Square, and the environs; 33 to 44, Portman Square, Gloucester Place, Baker Street, &c.; 44 to 5, the new district about Hyde Park Terrace; 5 to 52, St. John's Wood and the Regent's Park. He will be in Grosvenor Square by 6, and in Belgrave Square, Pimlico, and its vicinity, by 7. Parties there are requested not to dine until 8 o'clock; and The Agent, once for all, peremptorily announces that he will NOT go to the palace, where it is utterly impossible to serve a good dinner." "TO TRADESMEN. "Every Monday evening during the season the Gastronomic Agent proposes to give a series of trial-dinners, to which the principal gourmands of the metropolis, and a few of The Agent's most respectable clients, will be invited. Covers will be laid for ten at nine o'clock precisely. And as The Agent does not propose to exact a single shilling of profit from their bills, and as his recommendation will be of infinite value to them, the tradesmen he employs will furnish the weekly dinner gratis. Cooks will attend (who have acknowledged characters) upon the same terms. To save trouble, a book will be kept where butchers, poulterers, fishmongers, &c., may inscribe their names in order, taking it by turns to supply the trial-table. Wine-merchants will naturally com |