edition, before us, is a bulky _tome_ of about 500 pages, with an
appendix of observations on the meals of the day; mode of giving suppers
at Routs and soirées, as practised when the author was in the employ of
Lord Sefton; and above all, a brief history of the rise and progress of
Cookery, from an admirable French treatise. This is literally the _sauce
piquante_ of the volume, and we serve a little to our readers:--

It appears that the science of Cookery was in a very inferior state
under the first and second race of the French kings. Gregory of Tours
has preserved the account of a repast of French warriors, at which,
in this refined age, we should be absolutely astounded. According to
Eginhard, Charlemagne lived poorly, and ate but little--however, this
trait of resemblance in Charlemagne and Napoleon, the modern Eginhards
have forgotten in their comparison of these two great men. Philippe le
Bel was hardly half an hour at table, and Francis I. thought more of
women than of eating and drinking; nevertheless, it was under this
gallant monarch that the science of gastronomy took rise in France.

Few have heard the name of Gonthier d'Andernach. What Bacon was to
philosophy, Dante and Petrarch to poetry, Michael Angelo and Raphael
to painting, Columbus and Gama to geography, Copernicus and Galileo to
astronomy, Gonthier was in France to the art of cookery. Before him,
their code of eating was formed only of loose scraps picked up here and
there; the names of dishes were strange and barbarous, like the dishes
themselves.

Gonthier is the father of cookery, as Descartes, of French philosophy.
It is said that Gonthier, in less than ten years, invented seven
cullises, nine ragoûts, thirty-one sauces, and twenty-one soups.