he English People" (1880-3, 4
vols. 8vo), does not seem to have concerned himself about the kitchens
or gardens of the nation which he undertook to describe. Yet, what
conspicuous elements these have been in our social and domestic
progress, and what civilising factors!

To a proper and accurate appreciation of the cookery of ancient times
among ourselves, a knowledge of its condition in other more or
less neighbouring countries, and of the surrounding influences and
conditions which marked the dawn of the art in England, and its slow
transition to a luxurious excess, would be in strictness necessary;
but I am tempted to refer the reader to an admirable series of papers
which appeared on this subject in Barker's "Domestic Architecture,"
and were collected in 1861, under the title of "Our English Home: its
Early History and Progress." In this little volume the author, who
does not give his name, has drawn together in a succinct compass the
collateral information which will help to render the following pages
more luminous and interesting. An essay might be written on the
appointments of the table only, their introduction, development, and
multiplication.

The history and antiquities of the Culinary Art among the Greeks
are handled with his usual care and skill by M.J.A. St. John in his
"Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece," 1842; and in the _Biblia_
or Hebrew Scriptures we get an indirect insight into the method of
cooking from the forms of sacrifice.

The earliest legend which remains to us of Hellenic gastronomy is
associated with cannibalism. It is the story of Pelops--an episode
almost pre-Homeric, where a certain rudimentary knowledge of dressing
flesh, and even of disguising its real nature, is implied in the tale,
as it descends to us; and the next in order of times is perhaps
the familiar passage in the _Odyssey_, recounting the adventures of
Odysseus and his companions in the cave of Polyphemus. Here, again,
we are introduced to a rude society of cave-dwellers, who eat human
flesh, if not as an habitual diet, yet not only without reluctance,
but with relish and enjoyment.

The _Phagetica_ of Ennius, of which fragments remain, seems to be the
most ancient treatise of the kind in Roman literature. It is supposed
to relate an account of edible fishes; but in a complete state the
work may very well have amounted to a general Manual on the subject.
In relation even to Homer, the _Phagetica_ is comparatively mod