ROASTED APPLES.

Some foreigners said rather wittily that we have no ripe fruit. in England but roasted apples. As the season for ripening after this fashion is not far off, I offer a greatly improved mode, which was brought from Paris, and which, when well managed, makes rather a rich dish of rather an insipid one. Select the largest apples; scoop out the core, without cutting quite through; fili the hollow with butter and fine soft sugar; let them roast in a slow oven, and serve them up with the syrup.

As I am on the subject of receipts, I will give another, which is also applicable to the season. It is a receipt for a salad, which I have seen at a few houses, but I think it deserves to be much

more common.

Boil one or two large onions till soft and perfectly mild. When cold, mix the onion with celery and sliced beet-root, roasted in the oven, which has more flavour than when boiled. Dress this salad with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. The onion and beet-root are very good without celery. Roast beef, with this salad and potatoes browned in the dripping-pan, or in the oven, is a dish to delight the constitution of an Englishman in the winter months.

The best lettuce salads I know are dressed by my friend Dr. Forbes, of Argyle Street, who is a proficient in aristology. His receipt is as follows:

Take the finest lettuces you can get; strip off the leaves with the hand, using only those which are well blanched. Put them into the bowl whole, and, if wet, wipe each with a napkin. Put a sufficient quantity of salt and pepper into the salad-spoon, and mix them with a little tarragon vinegar. Throw the mixture over the lettuce, and add vinegar and oil in the proportion of rather more than two spoonfuls of oil to one of vinegar. Stir the salad very well. It is best when not prepared till it is wanted. But if that is not convenient it should be kept in a cold place, or the lettuce loses its crispness. It is only by experience that the proper quantities of the ingredients for dressing can be accurately measured; but there should be great liberality of oil, and the quantity of vinegar depends in a great degree upon its sourness. This mode of dressing applies equally to my first receipt, with the exception, I think, of the tarragon.

HOT WATER.

Having said much about wine, I will not omit all praise of hot water, the efficacy of which on many occasions in life is very

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great, and cannot be too generally known. I will begin with a remarkable cure effected by it on myself. Many years ago, when I was labouring under what I supposed to be an attack of common sore-throat, I rode some miles on horseback, with a north wind in my face. I then got into the mail, and travelled nearly two hundred miles, and at the end of my journey I could scarcely speak or swallow. In the morning I was still worse, and on attempting to force down a little coffee I found it utterly impossible. In this extremity, a physician, now among the most eminent of his profession, called upon me partly through accident. He told me I had got a very bad quinsy, and he immediately ordered a kettle of hot water, recommending me to gargle with it as hot as I could bear, and continually. As we were on intimate terms, and he was then only commencing practice, he remained with me two or three hours to enforce his prescription. I found so much benefit, that after he was gone I persevered till night, at which time I was enabled to take food without difficulty, and in the morning there was no trace whatever of the attack, nor have I ever experienced another, though I was told it would most probably be the case. The medicine ordered me I did not taste, and the sole glory of my rapid and complete cure is due to the hot water. I have never had even a common sorethroat since, or I should certainly try the same remedy, though I never heard of its being so applied. In bruises I have found hot water most efficacious, both by means of insertion and fomentation, in removing pain, and totally preventing discoloration and stiffness. It has the same effect after a blow. It should be applied as quickly as possible, and as hot as it can be borne. Very cold water, applied immediately, will produce the same effect, though for a different reason. I was told the other day, by very high authority, that insertion in hot water would cure that troublesome and very painful thing, called a whitlow. The efficacy of hot water in preventing the ill effects of fatigue is too well known to require notice. I should think where water cannot be procured, that in the case of a bruise or blow immediate and continued friction with the hand would partly answer the purpose, by keeping up the action of the vessels. I infer this particularly, because I once avoided any inconvenience from a very severe bruise, by keeping myself in vigorous action. As I was crossing Smithfield one evening at a quick pace on my way to my office, I ran against a bar, and struck myself a little above the knees with such violence as to make me stagger. The pain was very great, but as I had no time to lose, and there was no vehicle at hand, I hurried on, at first with much difficulty, but by degrees more easily. The distance is about two

miles, and, on my arrival, all sensation of pain was gone, nor was there afterwards either stiffness or discoloration. If I had not kept in action, I am sure I should have felt the effects of the blow for a very long time.

It may be useful to some people to be informed, that sealingwax dropped upon the hand will cause no injury beyond momentary pain, if it is suffered to remain till quite cold.

MISCELLANEOUS.

In training youth, care should be taken from the first, not only to instil into their minds a desire for excelling in those things which are worthy of excellence, but they should be taught to hold in contempt what is useless and prejudicial. Strength is excellent; but the waste of strength is folly. To be equal to every occasion is glorious; but to do more than the occasion requires is vainglorious. Men are taught to pique themselves upon excess, instead of upon economy, in their resources, and the vanity of parents leads them to encourage their children in that prodigality of effort which is sure to be followed by regret. In fasting and in feasting, in exercise and in amusement, we are not content to observe the happy medium, but strive to distinguish ourselves by overstepping the bounds of reason. In what is useful we introduce abuse, and in what is pernicious, we exceed our inclinations, merely for the sake of boasting. Men ride, and drink, and fast unreasonably, solely to say that they have done so, and indulge in extravagance and profligacy, and vice and frivolity, only for the name. If youth were taught to glory in health and prudence, and all their consequences, and to be ashamed of the opposites, their habits would be as easily formed to what is profitable and becoming, as to the reverse. Fashion is all. To suffer real inconvenience from useless, or worse than useless feats, for the empty pleasure of talking of them, is barbarous folly, to which sound training would make men superior. What a perversion is it to glory in riding or walking long distances, without rest or refreshment, in drinking several bottles of wine at a sitting, or in slaughtering game by heaps! The true glory is to use a good constitution well, and for worthy ends. In my foolish days I have been foot-sore for a fortnight from toiling at one start over that distance, which now, by good management, I should perform with ease and benefit. I once set out, with a friend of mine, to walk thirty miles. He was quite unused to that mode of travelling, and, besides, at starting found himself not altogether well. From consideration for him I was obliged to be very careful, much more so than I should have been if

alone. We set off gently, and at the end of four miles breakfasted, after which he quite recovered. At the end of eleven miles further we had mutton-chops and spiced ale, both in moderation. My companion was so fresh at the end of his journey, that he ran over Waterloo Bridge, and we both went out to parties the same evening, as if we had only taken a walk in the Park. I have performed the same distance more than once at one start, but never without inconvenience for some time after. It is not calculable what may be accomplished in everything in life, as well as in walking, by moderate beginnings and judicious perseverance. It is the great secret of success.

SUPPERS.

I do not know how I came to dismiss the subject of the art of dining without saying a few words in favour of that agreeable, but now neglected meal, supper. The two repasts used to hold divided empire, but dinners have in later years obtained all but an exclusive monopoly, to the decay, I am afraid, of wit, and brilliancy, and ease. Supper has been in all times the meal peculiarly consecrated to mental enjoyment, and it is not possible that any other meal should be so well adapted to that object. Dinner may be considered the meal of the body, and supper that of the mind. The first has for its proper object the maintenance or restoration of the corporeal powers; the second is intended in the hours of relaxation from the cares and business of the day, to light up and invigorate the mind. It comes after everything else is over, and all distraction and interruption have ceased, as a pleasing prelude and preparation for the hour of rest, and has a tendency to fill the mind with agreeable images as the last impressions of the day. Compared with dinner, it is in its nature light, and free from state. Dinner is a business; supper an amusement. It is inexpensive, and free from trouble. The attempt to unite the two meals in one, in the manner now practised, is a miserable failure, unfavourable to health and to the play of the mind. Nothing places sociability on so good a footing, and so much within the reach of all, as the custom of supping. There is an objection made to suppers, that they are unwholesome. Nothing, I think, can be more unfounded; indeed, I believe them, if properly used, to be most wholesome, and quite in accordance with the dictates of nature. Undoubtedly large suppers are unwholesome after large dinners; but not so, light suppers after moderate dinners. I think, if I were to choose, my ordinary course of living would be a simple well-conceived dinner, instead of the luncheon now in vogue; then tea,

with that excellent adjunct scarcely ever enjoyed in these days, buttered toast, about the present dinner-hour, and a savoury little supper about half-past nine or ten o'clock, with a bowl of negus, or some other grateful diluted potation after. I am of opinion there is no system so favourable to vigorous and joyous health as the moderate indulgence of a moderate appetite about a couple of hours before retiring to rest, those hours filled up with the enjoyment of agreeable society. In the colder months I have great faith in finishing the day with a warm and nourishing potation. It is the best preparation for one's daily end, sleep, or, as Shakspeare calls it," the death of each day's life;" and those, with whom it does not agree, may be sure it is not the drink's fault, but their own, in not having pursued the proper course previously. A good drink over a cheerful fire, with a cheerful friend or two, is a good finish, much better than the unsatisfactory ending of a modern dinner party.-Here I must mention that, in order to have good negus, it is necessary to use good wine, and not, as some people seem to think, any sort of stuff, in any condition. Port negus is delicious, if it is made thus. Pour boiling water upon a sufficient quantity of sugar; stir it well; then pour some excellent port, not what has been opened two or three days, into the water, the wine having been heated in a saucepan. Stir the wine and water well together as the wine is poured in, and add a little grated nutmeg. A slice of lemon put in with the sugar, and a little of the yellow rind scraped with it, make the negus perfect; but it is very good without, though then, properly speaking, it should be called wine and water. Supper is an excellent time to enjoy game, and all meat of a delicate nature, and many other little things, which are never introduced at dinners. I am far from wishing to explode dinners as a social meal, but I object to their enjoying a monopoly, and the adoption of the two meals on different occasions would furnish opportunities for an agreeable variety. One frequently hears people object to dining early, on the ground that they feel themselves disinclined to do anything after dinner; but this is a false mode of reasoning. After a late dinner there is a disinclination to action, especially if it is an overloaded repast; but the reason of this is, that the powers have become exhausted, which is a solid argument against late dining with reference to health and spirits. But a moderate dinner, in the middle of the day, when the digestive powers are the strongest, instead of unfitting for action, has the very contrary effect, and a person rises from table refreshed, and more actively inclined than before. No one, whose digestion is in good order, complains of the incapacitating effects of luncheon, which is in reality a dinner without its pleasures.