in earlier and more comprehensive undertakings. It is a curious aid
to our knowledge of the manner in which the table of the well-to-do
Englishman was furnished in the time of Henry VI., and it is so far
special, that it deals with the subject more from a middle-class point
of view than the "Regulations for the Royal Household," and other
similar compilations, which I have to bring under notice. The names,
as usual, are often misleading, as in _blanc manger_, which is very
different from our _blanc-mange_; and the receipt for "goose in a hog
pot" leaves one in doubt as to its adaptability to the modern
palate. The poetical ambition of the author has proved a source of
embarrassment here and there; and in the receipt "for a service on a
fish-day" the practitioner is prayed within four lines to cover his
white herring for God's sake, and lay mustard over his red for God's
love, because _sake_ and _love_ rhyme with _take_ and _above_.

The next collection of receipts, which exists in a complete and
homogeneous shape, is the "Noble Book of Cookery," of which an early
MS. copy at Holkham was edited in 1882 by Mrs. Napier, but which
had already been printed by Pynson in 1500, and subsequently by
his successor, John Byddell. This interesting and important volume
commences with a series of descriptions of certain royal and noble
entertainments given on various occasions from the time of Henry
IV. to that of Edward IV., and then proceeds to furnish a series
of directions for the cook of a king's or prince's household; for,
although both at the outset and the conclusion we are told that these
dishes were calculated for all estates, it is abundantly obvious that
they were such as never then, or very long subsequently, reached much
lower than the court or the aristocracy. There is a less complete copy
here of the feast at the enthronement of Archbishop Nevile. I regret
that neither of the old printed copies is at present accessible. That