your plate, instead of the whole sheep set bodily on
the table,--the sole presentation appreciated by your true Briton, who,
with the traditions of his island home still clinging to him, conceives
himself able, I suppose, in no other way to make sure that his meat and
maccaroni are not the remnants of somebody else's feast. But let
Britannia's son not flatter himself that so he shall escape
contamination. His precautions are entirely fruitless. Suppose he
does see the whole beast before him, and the very bean-vines, proof
positive of first-fruits; cannot the economical landlord gather up
heave-shoulder and wave-breast and serve them out to him in next day's
mince-pie? Matter revolves, but is never annihilated. Ultimate and
penultimate meals mingle in the colors of shot-silk. Where there is a
will, there is a way. If the cook is of a frugal mind, and wills you to
eat driblets, driblets you shall eat, under one shape or another. The
only way to preserve your peace, is to be content with appearances.
Take what is set before you, asking no questions for conscience' sake.
If it looks nice, that is enough. Eat and be thankful.

Trollope says he never made a single comfortable meal at an American
hotel. The meat was swimming in grease, and the female servants
uncivil, impudent, dirty, slow, and provoking. Occasionally they are a
little slow, it must be confessed; but I never met with one, male or
female, who was uncivil, impudent, or provoking. If I supposed it
possible that my voice should ever reach our late critic, whose good
sense and good spirit Americans appreciate, and whose name they would
be glad to honor if everything English had not become suspicious to us,
the possible synonyme of Pharisaism or stupidity, I should recommend to
him Lord Chesterfield's assertion, that a man's own good breeding is
the best security against other people's bad manners. For the greasy
meats, let him forego meats altogether and take chickens, and he will
not find grease enough to soil his best coat, if he should carry the
chick away in his pocket. We always found a sufficient variety to
enable us to choose a wholesome and a toothsome dinner, with many
tempting dainties, and scores of dishes that I never heard of before,
and ordered dubiously by way of experiment, and tasted timorously in
pursuit of knowledge. As for the corn-cake of the White Hills, if I
live a thousand years, I never expect anything in the line of biscuit,
loa