_Sunbeam_," pp. 268-272.

[35] Lady Brassey: "A Voyage in the _Sunbeam_," pp. 309-312. With this
Japanese bill of fare we may contrast a Chinese bill of fare which Lady
Brassey preserves:--

_Four courses of small bowls_, one to each guest, viz.--Bird's-nest
Soup, Pigeon's Eggs, Ice Fungus (said to grow on ice), Shark's Fins
(chopped).

_Eight large bowls_, viz.--Stewed Shark's Fins, Fine Shell Fish,
Mandarin Bird's Nest, Canton Fish Maw, Fish Brain, Meat Balls with Rock
Fungus, Pigeons stewed with Wai Shau (a strengthening herb), Stewed
Mushroom.

_Four dishes_, viz.--Sliced Ham, Roast Mutton, Fowls, Roast Sucking Pig.

_One large dish_, viz.--Boiled Rock Fish.

_Eight small bowls_, viz.--Stewed Pig's Palate, Minced Quails, Stewed
Fungus, Sinews of the Whale Fish, Rolled Roast Fowl, Sliced Seals,
Stewed Duck's Paws, Peas Stewed.

[36] Lady Brassey: "Sunshine and Storm in the East," pp. 41-44.

[37] Lady Brassey: "Sunshine and Storm in the East," p. 431.

LADY MORGAN AND OTHERS.

Among literary travellers a place must be assigned to Lady Morgan (born
1777), the novelist, who in her books of travel exhibits most of the
qualities which lend a characteristic zest to her fictions. She and her
husband, Sir Charles Morgan, visited France in 1815, and compounded a
book upon it, which, as France had been for so many years shut against
English tourists, produced a considerable sensation, and was eagerly
read. Its sketches are very bright and amusing, and its _naive_ egotism
was pardonable, considering the flatteries which Parisian society had
heaped upon its author. Its liberal opinions, which the Conservatives of
to-day would pronounce milk-and-water, fluttered the dove-cotes of
Toryism under the _regime_ of Lord Liverpool, and provoked Wilson
Croker, the "Rigby" of Lord Beaconsfield's "Coningsby," to fall upon it
tooth and nail. Lady Morgan revenged herself by putting her scurrilous
_attache_ into her next novel, "Florence Macarthy," where he figures as
_Crawley_. In 1819 the book-making couple repaired to Italy, and, of
course, a sojourn in Italy meant a book upon Italy, which Lord Byron
declared to be very faithful. It is said to have produced a greater
impression than even the book upon France; and as a tolerably accurate
representation of the moral and political condition of Italy at the
period of the Bourbon restoration, it has still some value.

In 1830 Lady Morgan's fecund pen compiled a second book