stuffing turkeys? and don't we send our sons to a crammer when we are anxious that they should obtain a Government clerkship or a direct commission?

"In the lamb roasted whole," says Apicius (or J. L., Esq.), “we have one of the earliest dishes on record in the history of cookery. Stuffed with pistachio-nuts and served with pilaff, it at the same time illustrates the antiquity of the art, and gives an example of the food upon which millions of our fellow-creatures are sustained. The lamb proves the excellent flavour of the Ong-Ti breed of Chinese sheep, the introduction of which is one of the special objects of the Society." Thus far Apicius; but I take the liberty of stating that I should prefer Ong-Ti mutton to Ong-Ti lamb. The Chinese lamb was decidedly flabby, and, as is usually the case when an animal is cooked entire, the fire had burnt up one part and left the others nearly raw. The carver did not love or fear me sufficiently to give me a liberal allowance of pistachio, and the pilaff stood in need of a little ghee or fluid butter (rancid, if you please) being poured over it. However, it was a noble experiment, and shows that the Society are disposed to adopt no half-measures.

"Fawn of fallow deer," "ribs of beef between buffalo and Kerry cow,"-these were pièces de resistance whose presence only I am enabled to record. "Their names," says J. L. Apicius, Esq., pithily, "explain their intention." There was a red-deer ham, and one of bear-very succulent; but why couldn't the Society have made an arrangement with an enterprising hair-dresser, and caused "another fine bear" to be slaughtered, in order that the company might taste a bearsteak and a tender sirloin? I ate bear once at a Russian dinner-party (where it was introduced, I admit, as a curiosity, and not as an ordinary dish), and half a dozen mouthfuls made me sick for a fortnight afterwards. The meat was tough, glutinous, and had, besides, a dreadful half-aromatic, halfputrescent flavour, as though it had first been rubbed with assafoetida and then hung up for a month in Mr. Rimmel's shop.

Bison tongues, Chinese yam, Bayonne ham, I dismiss; but was disappointed at not seeing on the table any of the famous donkey-flesh sausages of Bologna. A roast monkey too (most delicious eating when stuffed with chestnuts) was a desideratum; and I asked in vain for rat. Snails, too, were absent; but en revanche I took my fill of frogs.

When you were a little boy at school, you probably ate a good many frogs. Our practice was, when we had caught them, to pinch our nostrils with the fingers of one hand, and holding the dapper little froggee lightly with the other, to allow him to jump down our throats. There was a tradition among us that to swallow live frogs (for the process could not be called eating) made a boy strong and valorous, and almost unsentient to the cuts of the cane. As we advanced in years, we took a distaste for frogs. We were patriots. We grew to hate frogs because we heard that the French liked them, and that they formed a principal item in the diet of that vivacious and ingenious people. The truth is, however, that

frogs are regarded in France as a most luxurious delicacy, and are correspondingly expensive. The Marché St. Honoré is the most usual place for their vendition; and as only the hind-legs are eaten by the Parisians, and the price is seldom under fifteen francs a dozen, a dish of frogs is only seen at the table of a millionaire. Of their tenderness, succulence, and delicacy of flavour, there can be no question. The grenouilles à la poulette at the Acclimatisation dinner were superb. The white sauce left nothing to be desired. I ate as much frog as ever I could get; and, as related above, I brought the bones home in my waistcoat-pocket as a trophy of victory over a stupid and irrational prejudice. We eat the dirty pig, the dirtier duck, and yet we turn up our noses at the cleanliving and clean-feeding frog. Had not the Acclimatisation Society a hundred other claims to public support, our gratitude would be due to them for thus bravely teaching Englishmen to eat frogs. This Homeric, this Apician, this Vitellian, this Gargantuan banquet,-the like of which I never saw before, but fondly hope to see again,—was washed down by copious streams of Sherry, Hock, Meursault (very good), Red Burgundy, Champagne, and Moselle. Among exceptional wines we had a whole host of Greek ones, which, together with the Hungarian vintages, were presented to the Society by J. L. Denman, Esq., whose firm in Fenchurch Street are endeavouring (and with constantly increasing success) to introduce these wines into England. Santorin we quaffed, and Thera, and St. Elie, and Corinth, and Mount Hymettus, Vi Santo, Cyprus, and Lacrima Cristi; while from the Magyar vineyards came Muscat, Badasconyer, Dioszeger Bakatar, Hock, Ruszte, Szamarodny, Adlerberger Ofner, and Tokay. Among the Greeks, my humble verdict is recorded in favour of St. Elie. The Hungarian are stout wines, of a swashbuckling flavour; but a man needs a strong head to drink pottle deep of them.

Such was the dinner to which I came a little late, and whence I brought away the Bones. Tardè venientibus, ossa. I laughed, as well as I could for eating and drinking strange things all the evening. The room was very hot, and crammed besides with nearly all the notabilities of the day; but the feast was so rich and so rare that we should have cheerfully partaken of it even in a Turkish bath. There were but few drawbacks to the entertainment. The chairman, it is true, talked Colonial Office and Quarterly Review in a torrent of fluent platitudes, till I ran my eye down the bill of fare to see if red tape au naturel wasn't included in the removes; but we were not there for the purpose of listening to speechifying. The "exceptional" dishes had deprived the waiters of the few wits conferred on them by nature; and one or two of their body appeared to have been partaking surreptitiously of white soup of the Channel Islands until the decomposed conger eel had got into their heads. The ostrich-eggs, again, were not forthcoming, to the bitter disappointment of Mr. Bernal Osborne; and there was no horse. Almost every thing else, however, in the way of edible or potable rarity was to be found on the table; and I believe that, had those latest lions of London, the Maori

chiefs, been among the guests, the Council of the Society would have revolved, at least, the expediency of serving up a cold boiled missionary, with a stewed baby and a baked young woman to follow, as a delicate attention to the distinguished New Zealanders. They were not there, however; nor, unfortunately, was another gentleman, whose absence was most sincerely to be deplored, not only for our sakes, but for his own. The joint secretaries to the Acclimatisation Society are Messrs. Frank Buckland, the distinguished naturalist and promoter of pisciculture, and James Lowe, who in a gastronomical tournament would cheerfully give the ghost of Brillat-Savarin twenty, and with his arms tied behind his back defeat Dr. Kitchener, Prince Cambacérès, and Mr. Hayward. At the last moment Mr. Lowe was attacked by sudden illness, and his attendance at the banquet was compulsorily foregone. It was a heavy blow for every body, including Mr. Lowe. But such is life.

The Trials of the Tredgolds.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A PRODIGAL SON," &c.

CHAPTER XIX.

"DUST TO DUST."

BRYAN was sinking-dying. The struggle between life and death was nearly over. Active resistance to the attack of the terrible foe was now hardly possible to the sufferer. He was prostrate-motionless from exhaustion and weakness; he could do little more than passively endure, and wait the end. The strong man was overcome; hopelessly a prisoner in the bonds of death.

"Speak to me, Bryan," said John Moyle, in a tone of piteous appeal. The eyelids of the dying were raised slowly, wearily, and for a moment a look of kindly recognition gleamed in the paling, glassing eyes; a murmur stole from the white lips, but so faint as to be barely audible. Then the semblance of a corpse came over him again.

"He sees me; he knows me."

"He is going from us."

"Is he asleep, or-?" and John Moyle stopped, terrified at his own unfinished question, writhing as with pain.

Indeed, the evidences that Bryan still lived were now very few and faint: the broad chest heaved ever so slightly; the heart pulsed very, very feebly; his eyes were closed again; and his jaw was dropping.

They waited for some time, watching with a troubled, strained eagerness. There was no change. Noel, in an agony of grief, vainly endeavouring to restrain the sobs that would rise from his wounded heart, halfchoking him, bent down, to press yet again to his lips the large, hard hand of his dying friend.

There was the sound as of the quick pattering of a pony's hoofs upon the road outside the house.

"It is the doctor," cried Noel, and he quitted the room hurriedly. The noise of the door closing behind him seemed to rouse the sufferer; he stirred, started, glapced round him.

"He will be here again in a minute," John Moyle said, fancying that Bryan's eyes were searching for Noel.

"Hush!" Bryan said, with sudden excitement, but in a weak, hoarse voice. "Stoop down, John. Promise me he shall never be told; promise me that. Let the disgrace be mine only; let none ever attach to him. Promise me he shall never know!" and he sank back, exhausted with the effort it had cost him to speak.

"I promise, Bryan," the old man answered breathlessly, tremulously; then, after a pause to recover himself, to regain control over his broken

quavering voice, to stay the turbulent, painful throbbing of his heart, he went on : 66 But, O Bryan, I have been a faithless, treacherous friend to you. I have done you cruel wrong, shameful injustice!"

eyes.

"What is it, John?" Bryan asked, with a tender look in his fading

"God knows it was done unwillingly; that I struggled hard to do what was right by you, Bryan. But it was not to be; it was not to be. Only say you forgive me, Bryan. Tell me that. Don't, for Heaven's sake, don't leave me with those words unsaid!"

A bewildered expression crossed Bryan's face-a frown-as though in an effort of thought; then a sad, self-pitying smile at his own weakness, at his inability to follow the purport of the old man's appeal.

"My head's in a poor way, John," he said faintly. "I can make nothing of it all. I don't think you ever did me a wrong knowingly. Surely I forgive you, if you ever did, old friend. It matters little now, John. I'm going away from you fast."

"Don't say that."

"It will soon be over, John. It would be sad to part-from Noeland from you, old friend—but that"-his voice failed here, and the tears filled his eyes" but that I go to meet her. I have cause to thank even Death. It gives me to her. I shall see her again. That thought makes my going away easy to bear."

John Moyle sprang forward with a passionate cry.

"O Bryan, there's the wrong, there's the wrong! I have lied to you. I have joined with others in a wicked plot. Forgive me!" "What-what are you saying?"

"She lives, Bryan; she lives yet!"

The sick man started; a violent trembling seized him.

"It's true, Bryan; indeed it is! She lives-lives still."

"Who? who? O God, am I mad? What are you saying? Who lives? Who? Quick, quick, tell me who?"

"Ann !"

John Moyle fell on his knees as he spoke, burying his face in the coverlet of the bed, in an agony of remorse.

"Ann!" Bryan repeated, with a strange, wild cry.

Then he pressed his hand upon his forehead, clammy with the dew of death; the muscles of his face twitched convulsively; his eyes rolled wide open, with a half-insane amazement.

"Ann?-yet lives? Speak to me. Say that again.”

"It is true, Bryan; it is true."

"Ann?-lives still? Do you mean that? Don't mock me; for God's

sake, don't mock me-a dying man.

"It is true; indeed, Bryan, it is."

She lives ?"

"O Heaven! Here, give me your arm; help me, quick!"

"What would you do?"

"Help me to get up. Let me go to her."