The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-18 00:00:00

her royal spouse was well buried at Windsor ;
others were " unqueened " by divorce, as the
first and the fourth of henry VIII.'s Queens,
the former of which, Katharine of Arragon,
maintained to the day of her death the dignity of
which she had been despoiled by a sentence of
more than doubtful justice, while the latter,
Anne of Cleves, meekly resigning herself to her
fate, subsided into " the Lady Anne ";—the
strange catalogue being closed by one whose
case has no parallel in history, Maria Louisa, who,
the daughter of one Emperor and the consort of
another, thought the descent to the ducal throne
of cheese-producing Parma not a sufficient humi-
liation, but was no sooner become her own mis-
tress by the death of the once all-powerful Con-
queror of Europe than she hastened to superadd
the degradation of wedding a German officer of
obscure position, whose only title to distinction
was that of having been selected by her for
the " strange bedfellow " of her day of calamity.
A series of chapters is devoted to some
remarkable specimens of the pious impostures
of Romish idolatry, such as " the ungra-
cious rood of grace," at Boxley, in Kent ; the
shrines of St. Rumbald or Grimbald at Sutton,
Brackley, Buckingham, Boxley, and elsewhere ;
the carved image (by St. Luke) of Our Lady of
Boulogne, and the flowery legend of Our Lady
of Guadaloupe.—the two latter—•with a side-
glance at the modern apparition of Our Lady
of La Salette—not inaptly introduced by
the pagan legend of the appearance of Venus to
Aspasia. Some facts worth remembering in con-
nection with the origin and observance of the
festival of the Nativity are thrown together under
the heading " Pictures of Old and Young
Christmas ; " a goodly array of romantic legends
and ghost stories is drawn from the traditions of
the Rhineland ; and much entertaining matter of
a miscellaneous kind, chiefly of a critical cha-
racter, is collected together in " Pictures of
England by Foreign Sketchers," " Foreign
Scenes drawn by English llands," " llistorical
Portraits by Romantic Painters," and a far from
uninstructive chapter on " The things we don't
know."

A Such are, as far as they admit of classifica-
tion, the ingredients of the literary treat pro-
vided in this volume. The bill of fare is not
deficient either in copiousness or in variety : we
may add that the dishes are prepared and served
up in Dr. Doran's best style, and will, we doubt
not, be abundantly relished by those capable of
enjoying " the feast of reason."

1. _Memoirs of Alexis Soger. IVritten by his
Secretaries. London : Kent and Co.
2. Curiosities of Food. By Peter Lund Simmons.
London : Bentley.

THERE is something rather curious in the
simultaneous publication of these two little
volumes—the latter of which seems almost
intended to remind us how limited after all
is the sphere of mortal grandeur, and how
little the greatest of us can do. If Alexander
sighed for new worlds to conquer, it was only
through his ignorance of geography; and the
shade of Alexis may well utter a faint vagitus
over the wide regions of edibles which yet remain
to be brought under the dominion of the stew-
pan. The cook is the great civilizer. What can
literature do for a race that habitually gorges it-
self into torpor ? What can missionaries accom-
plish for a man who has nothing better to eat than
his spiritual adviser ? Even in communities which
call themselves civilized, how frequently are the
most primary institutions of all rendered useless
for want of this beneficent artificer ! How often
are men, to all appearance " tame and mild," like
Enceladus converted into " perfect brutes "
credite feeminis), by a deficiency in this human-
izing department ! And we have often fancied
that the ancient badge of the fraternity, the white
cap, may have been derived from that white
fillet which Virgil tells us was bound round the
temples of the first benefactors of mankind :
inveutas ant qui Titan) exeoluere per arses
Quique sui memores ulioa fecere merendn
Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempura vitro.
However, we trust that the cook is no longer in
any danger of meeting with neglect in Europe.
Our savage ancestors, who " deemed his harmless
art a crime," the great raw-beef-eating English-
men, have long since gone to their account, and