e 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
of 1500 was formerly in the library at Bulstrode, and I was given by
the late Mr. Bradshaw to understand that the same copy (no other
being known) is probably at Longleat. By referring to Herbert's
"Typographical Antiquities," anyone may see that, if his account (so
far as it goes) is to be trusted, the printed copy varies from the
Holkham MS. in many verbal particulars, and gives the date of Nevile's
Feast as 1465.

The compilation usually known as the "Book of St. Albans," 1486, is,
perhaps, next to the "Noble Book of Cookery," the oldest receptacle
for information on the subject in hand. The former, however, deals
with cookery only in an incidental and special way. Like Arnold's
Chronicle, the St. Albans volume is a miscellany comprehending nearly
all the matters that were apt to interest the few educated persons
who were qualified to peruse its pages; and ami