ney (ask guards,
coachmen, inn-waiters, whether this be not the case). They will give
their all, heaven bless them to serve a son, a grandson, or a
dear relative, but they have not the heart to pay for small things
magnificently. They are jealous of good dinners, and no wonder. I have
shown in a former discourse how they are jealous of smoking, and other
personal enjoyments of the male. I say, then, that Lady Pogson or Mrs.
Snorter can never conduct their husbands' table properly. Fancy either
of them consenting to allow a calf to be stewed down into gravy for one
dish, or a dozen hares to be sacrificed to a single puree of game, or
the best Madeira to be used for a sauce, or half a dozen of champagne to
boil a ham in. They will be for bringing a bottle of Marsala in place of
the old particular, or for having the ham cooked in water. But of
these matters--of kitchen philosophy--I have no practical or theoretic
knowledge; and must beg pardon if, only understanding the goodness of a
dish when cooked, I may have unconsciously made some blunder regarding
the preparation.

Let it, then, be set down as an axiom, without further trouble of
demonstration, that a woman is a bad dinner-caterer; either too great
and simple for it, or too mean--I don't know which it is; and gentlemen,
according as they admire or contemn the sex, may settle that matter
their own way. In brief, the mental constitution of lovely woman is such
that she cannot give a great dinner. It must be done by a man. It can't
be done by an ordinary man, because he does not understand it. Vain
fool! and he sends off to the pastry-cook in Great Russell Street or
Baker Street, he lays on a couple of extra waiters (green-grocers in the
neighborhood), he makes a great pother with his butler in the cellar,
and fancies he has done the business.

Bon Dieu! Who has not been at those dinners?--those monstrous
exhibitions of the pastry-cook's art? Who does not know those made
dishes with the universal sauce to each: fricandeaux, sweet-breads, damp
dumpy cutlets, &c., seasoned with the compound of grease, onions, bad
port-wine, cayenne pepper, curry-powder (Warren's blacking, for what
I know, but the taste is always the same)--there they lie in the old
corner dishes, the poor wiry Moselle and sparkling Burgundy in the
ice-coolers, and the old story of white and brown soup, turbot, little
smelts, boiled turkey, saddle-of-mutton, and so forth? "Try a little of
that fricandeau