the physical construction; and a man who has it not in cookery, must want
it in literature. Fried sole and potatoes!! If I had written a volume,
whose merit was in elegance, I would not show it to such a man!--but he
might be an admirable critic upon 'Cobbett's Register,' or 'Every Man his
own Brewer.'"

"Excessively true," said I; "what shall we order?"

"D'abord des huitres d'Ostende," said Vincent; "as to the rest," taking
hold of the carte, "deliberare utilia mora utilissima est."

We were soon engaged in all the pleasures and pains of a dinner.

"Petimus," said Lord Vincent, helping himself to some poulet a
l'Austerlitz, "petimus bene vivere--quod petis, hic est?"

We were not, however, assured of that fact at the termination of dinner.
If half the dishes were well conceived and better executed, the other
half were proportionably bad. Very is, indeed, no longer the prince of
Restaurateurs. The low English who have flocked there, have entirely
ruined the place. What waiter--what cook can possibly respect men who
take no soup, and begin with a roti; who know neither what is good nor
what is bad; who eat rognons at dinner instead of at breakfast, and fall
into raptures over sauce Robert and pieds de cochon; who cannot tell, at
the first taste, whether the beaune is premiere qualite, or the fricassee
made of yesterday's chicken; who suffer in the stomach after champignon,
and die with indigestion of a truffle? O! English people, English people!
why can you not stay and perish of apoplexy and Yorkshire pudding at
home?