him, he sprang without one backward glance from the low casement and the cottage walls-and almost at a bound he cleared the garden path, and dashed through the little gate which swung back from his desperate hand with jarring violence.

Those awaited him without, from whom he could not brook the sneer of ridicule with whom he had mocked at and abjured all good and holy things, and with whose desperate fortunes he had voluntarily embarked his own; and well they knew the hold they had upon him, and having at that time especial motives to desire his faithful adherence, they had dodged his steps to the lone cottage, under a vague suspicion that if an interview should take place between the father and son, Nature might powerfully assert her rights, and yet detach the youth from their unholy coalition.

"The children of this world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light." They guessed well, and too well succeeded in securing their victim-and before Josiah had half retraced the townward way with his profligate companions, his mind was again engrossed by their nefarious projects, and all that had so recently affected him-the whole familiar scene the low white cottage-the little chamber, and the aged man who knelt beside that lonely bed in prayer for an offending child-all these things had faded like a vision from his unstable mind; and secretly humiliated at the recollection of his momentary weakness, the miserable youth bade an eternal adieu to the paths of peace and innocence, and gave himself up to work evil unreservedly.

MINCED-PIE; A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
To Miss S

Rerum concordia discors.

HORACE.

I SING Minced-Pie, the pride of Christmas cheer,
And teach the walls of crumbling paste to rear ;-
Inspiring Belly-Gods from Heaven descend,
And every hungry Muse, my verse befriend!
'Tis sweet whate'er we taste, or hear, or see,
To find Variety in Unity:

So the ethereal bow enchants the sight
With many-tinted luxury of light:

So the grave organ, and the festive harp,

Pour their commingling streams of flat and sharp:

And so the faint voluptuous Indian breeze

Wafts blended odours o'er the gladden'd seas.

An Iris edible invites your throats

A symphony of palatable notes;

Of luscious savours a complex Idea,
Full as the bounteous horn of Amalthea;
Bouquet compact of multifarious blossom,—
Of toothsome elements, a microcosm-
Fain would I tell, but greatly fear the Muse,
Of mind unearthly as terrestrial Blues,
Disdains the humble knowledge of a cook,
Nor e'er in Mrs Raffle deigns to look ;
Nor kens the "Lady,"* not unknown to fame,
(Though her coy title not reveal her name,)
Who crams her volume, to enhance its price,
With that unsavoury compound, good advice;
Nor him, whose deeper lore, in later age,

With peptic precepts drugs the glutton page.

A.

The works of Mrs Raffle and Dr Kitchiner must be well known to all gastronomic readers. As the "Lady" has not given her name to the public, I do not think myself at liberty to deprive her of the pleasure of throwing off the mask a la the Author of Waverley. I am credibly informed, that great part of her volume was composed at a romantic village in my own neighbourhood; and that the poor were

Fain would I sing how various sweets combine,
And swell with dainty terms the luscious line-
What fabled, hard-named heathen Muse need I,
To praise an honest Church-of-England pie ?
If not the Goddess, let the Cook inspire
My glowing soul with culinary fire.-
Slow o'er the plain the ox majestic roams-
Fast by the mill the brook impetuous foams-
The mill to grind, the ox is doom'd to die,
By fate subservient to the unborn pie;
The ruddy milk-maid labours at the churn-
May fairy Puck* his cream-bowl duly earn!
So Thalest taught how all the solid earth
To one vast fluid owes its wondrous birth,
Like butter curdling on its natal day—
Like butter, perhaps, at last to melt away.
These form the bases of my chemic theme,
Beef, fine Farina, and coagulate cream,
These Britons give to form the compound sweet :
For rich her soil, but richer far her fleet-
Her fleet, that bears from Oriental groves
Bandanian nutmegs, aromatic cloves;
That wafts from-really I forget the place—
The hot pimento and the scaly mace-
The powdery sugar from the distant isles,
Where first Columbus met with human smiles;
Small currants cultured by the Zantian swain,‡
And raisins ripened by the suns of Spain.
The acid fruit, to social joy consign'd,
And golden orange lend their candied rind-
Add salt, not attic, water ever handy

In our moist clime, and all-convincing brandy-
With apples, sung by Phillips in blank verse,
Some trifles more, too tedious to rehearse.
Then mingle, mingle, those that mingle may—
Let the keen chopper ring a merry lay,
Till all the mass, in one confusion hurl'd,
Like embryo atoms of a destined world,
Own it the due return of a festive time
That bids the perfect pie arise sublime.

That merry Christmas now is obsolete,
When bards and curates had a chance to eat;
When e'en the proudest and the coyest maid,
Nor wrath nor scorn affecting, duly paid

bountifully fed upon the caput mortuum of her culinary sublimations. Science and humanity should always go hand in hand. The Lady is a great (not political) economist, full of wise saws and modern instances, if any modern instances of her sort of economy are to be found. She is not by any means original in foisting good advice into a cookery book. Many are the "Complete Gentlewomen," "Cabinets of rare Secrets," &c., indited in the olden time, wherein may be read promiscuous receipts for paint, possets, and piety.

The exploits of Puck, in the buttery, cannot be obscure in the present age, when his diminutive race have been recently celebrated by the author of Whims and Oddities. Why does not a writer, who has done so well, do a great deal better? A word to the wise-I love a pun to my heart; but puns should not be print ed. They seldom read well-even Shakespeare's were made to be acted.

+ Probably the old philosopher meant no more by his water than others by chaos, and later world-makers by hyle, or the first matter, i.e. potentiality-an ens rationis capable of all forms, but actually endued with none.

I cannot answer for the correctness of this culinary formula. Aristotle (Poetics, sub finem) remarks, that poets should not be censured for technical mistakes in arts which they do not profess.

The forfeit kiss beneath the pendent holly,
And none would blame the periodic folly;
When the grey master of the village school
Could gravely prove it wise to play the fool;
When such a monster never yet was seen
As a prim Doctor made at Aberdeen,
Empiric dealer in cheap education,
Who advertises, "N.B. No Vacation;"

When loyal hearts were warm with old October,

And Orthodoxy was not always sober;

When "Church and King," and "Britain's Trade and Glory,"
Were pledged in equal cups by Whig and Tory-

At some small peril of a dizzy pate,

But were not watchwords of contempt and hate;
When high and low partook one common glee,
As brethren of one happy family-

In short, when times were good,-but when they were
I find it not in Newton, nor in Blair-

Is nothing then of Christmas left behind,

Besides foul ways, and bleak December wind?
Yes, Pies there are, in this degenerate age
That might disarm a hungry poet's rage-
Hearts so benign, and looks so kind and warm,
No change can chill them, and no time deform.
Then why lament, with unavailing sighs,
Departed seasons, or departed pies-
Since Bards are still inspired by eyes as bright,
And pies shall still be made by hands as white?

The parting year, benignant in decay,
Bequeaths mankind a genial holiday-

Brisk, welcome storms announce the liberal week
That frees the slaves of Prosody and Greek,
And gives, bright gleaming from its rubric mark,*
Emancipation to the city clerk.

Then, while the blazing chimney roars and rocks,
The careful housewife all her stores unlocks-
Oh! guard these treasures with a Lynx's eye,
Should children enter, or a Bard be nigh ;-
For Bards, by Nature's unresisted doom,
Are children from the cradle to the tomb.
But oh what horrors smite the venturous eye,
That dares invade the cave of Cookery-
Heads without bodies-trunks without a head,
And mangled limbs in wild disorder spread;
Knives, axes, faggots-tools of persecution,
And whirring wheels, in restless revolution;
Transfixing spits, in orderly array,
Like Demon lances, for Tartarean fray-
Fierce Dragon throats, expiring hotter breatht
Than the still Simoom's desert blast of death;
Lame Vulcan's Jack-of-all-Tradest-hungry fire,
And hottest far, the Cook's industrious ire-
Less bold than Kitchiner, or Gallic Ude,
I may not in this Torrid Zone intrude
The smoke of battle, and the smoke of flues,
Alike distasteful to my timid Muse,

• Red letters in the Calendar denote holidays. +Fierce, &c. Anglice, Flues.

Jack-of-all-trades is the best version I can give of Eschylus's tavtíxva muțèc has. Prometheus Vinctus. V. 6.

Warn me to make a swift, well-timed retreat,
And scud away on my poetic feet-

The dire mishaps that mar the housewife's toil,
The sooty avalanche, the woeful spoil

Of pastry burn'd, and butter turn'd to oil,

Are themes, from which my tender thoughts recoil.
The moving accident is not my trade,*

Of fractured platter, or of scolded maid,
If plates are broken, or if despots fall,
I cannot mourn in verse, nor mourn at all.
I warble best in warm, sequester'd nooks,
Cheer'd by the lovely light of sunny looks,
Where pensive puss demurely purrs and basks,
And white-arm'd maidens urge their gentle tasks.

At length, behold the perfect pie complete,
By moisture temper'd, and matured by heat,
Like Magisterium,† famed in times of old,
Youth to renew, and manufacture gold;
With farinaceous bulwarks fenced around,
Breast-work, and bastion, and embattled mound,
In shape fantastic as Egyptian bower,

In substance frailer than the porcelain tower-
When the white turkey and brown-haunch give place,
It crowns the board, and ushers in the grace,
Welcome to all.-No more the stern Precision
Condemns the harmless pie‡ of superstition-
Nor stands it now the rebel to defy,

A perilous proof of desperate loyalty.
Now all agree, the tonsure and the wig,
The croaking Tory§ and the crowing Whig,

High-church, and Low-church, Shakers, Dippers, Ranters,
And every species of the genus Canters-

True brothers, all, as at a Bible-meeting,

Join to promote the blessed work of eating.

With fire and sword they urge the fierce attack-
Drive the keen blade, and burn the rich Cognac-
Pale, azure flames, attend the dainty's doom,
Like death-lights hovering o'er a hero's tomb-
'Tis done-'tis vanish'd from the mortal scene-
The Pie is rank'd with things that once have been,
But the fair maker yet in beauty breathes,
Fresh as the flowers in amaranthine wreaths,
Outlives her work, as modern authors do,
And may, perhaps, next year, the work renew.

The moving accident is not my trade,
To freeze your blood I have no ready arts;
"Tis my delight alone, in summer shade,
To pipe a simple tale to thinking hearts.

WORDSWORTH'S Heartleap Well.

+ Magisterium-the Philosopher's stone.

The antipathy of the Puritans to minced-pies was as decided as their aversion to the Liturgy.

§ The line, as originally written, stood thus,

The crowing Tory and the croaking Whig.

Recent events have suggested the change.-AUTHOR.

Still more recent events have suggested the propriety of retaining the original line.-C. N.

VOL. XXIII.

2 I