The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-10 00:00:00

MELANCHOLY FATE OF VATEL.

"At this period we have the celebrated Vatel, one of
the most illustrious officers of the household that ever
flourished in the palaces of the Princes of Conde. This
inimitable major-domo understood that a dinner without
fish was a cheerless one. One day, when his noble master
entertained Louis XIV. at a royal banquet, at. Chantilly,
which the genius of Vatel rendered more brilliant, the
fish from the coast failed ; he sent everywhere, but none
could be found. He was completely bewildered : he met
his august master, whose kind words, full of benevolence,
only served to increase his desperation ; he left him, ran
to his chamber, took his sword, and three times pierced
his heart. Shortly after fish arrived from all quarters.
Vatel was called—no Vatel ! He was sought for, and at
last discovered—Vatel was no more !"

Alas, for the glorious departed ! But if, even ac-
cording to nature, a Vatel must, under any circum-
stances, by this time have vanished from the sub-
stantial regions of cookery, we may be consoled
under the sorrow of his departure by the possession
amongst us of a Soyer—a chef capable of presiding
over the fabrication of a thousand made-dishes
—vulgar English for the entremets—just as Doctor
Johnson was described as capable of grappling with
a whole library. Upwards of forty steel plate em -
bellishments lend to the text of our gustatory sage
the charm and pomp of illustration. Presiding
over these, of course, is the semblance of the
plump and comely Victua, the appetising goddess
of gastronomy. Conspicuous among the curiosities
engraved are representations of the kitchen
utensils of antiquity, classic spoons, and tri-
vets, and kettles, and gridirons. There are
the wine-skins, too, and the drinking-cups, and
the vessels for holding your choice falerian—the
dolium or the amphora. As worthy representa-
tives, moreover, of the more renewed gourmets of
ancient times, we are presented at p. 201 with
the heads of Apicius and Epicurus, and at ;-). 398
with those of Nero and Heliogabalus. Speaking
of the last-mentioned personage, the Sardanapalus
of Rome, the precocious monster whose reign ex-
tended only from his accession to the imperial
throne at fourteen to his assassination at eighteen,
our author, inspired by a love of science, says with
becoming leniency after referring to his crimes,
" the gastronomic art is, however, indebted to the
odious Heliogabalus for some useful discoveries."
Enviable epitaph ! A funereal panegyric surely
little short of the glory of apotheosis.
It was observed by A. Soyer in 1846, in the
course of his production on cookery called " The
Gastronomic Regenerator," it was observed by
him, at page 650 of that renowned production that,
" if any author were to write a work on the History
of Food and Cookery, it would not only be very
interesting, but an extremely useful production."
Useful, undoubtedly, if only as illustrative, on a
gigantic scale, of the truth of that diction of Brillat
Savarin, in his Physiologic du Gott : " Dis-moi
ce que tu manges, je to dirai ce que tu es." , Re-
ferring to this prophetic remark in the " Gastrono-
mic Regenerator," p. 650, M. Soyer observes, in
a Note to his new volume " Pantropheon," p. 476,
" No one, however, having entertained my sugges-
tion, I determined to undertake the task, and after
several years of deep study and perseverance, have
completed this voluminous work." It is accom-
plished. The researches, of the illustrious chef have
been rewarded in other particulars besides iu that
of his discovery (p. 269) of the celebrated garum,
the most esteemed and expensive sauce of antiquity
—the sauce praised by Horace, and manufactured
at Byzantium. Those researches have now enabled
him to lay before the world something more deli-
cious even than Salades de grouses a la Soyer,
namely, Soyer's " Pantropheon." It was said by
Napoleon that he should go down to posterity
with his Code in his hand. Alexis will accomplish
that descent in a manner more savoury, and quite
as appropriate—with the bonnet blame on his head,
a stewpan at his elbow, a tasting spoon between
his fingers, and on his knee the witnesses of his
magiric genius the " Regenerator " and the
" Pantropheon."
Audrey. A Novel. By_ Laura Jewry. 3 vols.

Newby.
Charliowood is the name of the little village
within the precincts of which the majority of the
incidents of this singular fiction are supposed to
occur—the interest of the tale sometimes extend-
ing as far as the neighbouring park of Crowhurst ;
sometimes carrying the reader to a seapor:: on the
coast of Yorkshire ; sometimes to Paris ; sometimes
to London ; and sometimes even to the snowy fast-
nesses of the mountains of Switzerland. Strictly
speaking, we take " Audrey" to be a curiosity—a
sort of phenomenon in imaginative literature. It
appears to us as though the authoress had deter-
mined to test her capacity for extracting a charm
solely from what to the general observer would ap-
pear to be in itself the most repulsive. To our
thinking, she seems to have resolved to try her skill
in fixing attention upon themes which the public at
large are usually disposed to deem the most unat-
tractive. It is in this particular sense that we
speak of the novel before us as a curiosity and a
sort of phenomenon in literature. Conspicuous
among the figures in the foreground of the picture
are—a surly old sexton, Jonathan Dabney, intensely
selfish and profoundly ignorant—a shrewish little
milliner, Annette Skrimpton, who marries him
shortly after his becoming a widower—a half-witted
old woman, Dame Page, to whose friends it would
have been a blessing if she could possibly have been
got a little out of the way by being bedridden—a
fretful lameter, Johnnie, who is a genius in scrib-
bling verses, and a blunderer in falling in love
where his tenderness is not wanted—and a variety
of such like characters. Audrey Dabney is the
rustic heroine of the story, while the lady heroine
is Helen, the only daughter and heiress of the rich
Sir Philip Beaumont. Between these two—linking
their fates together—comes the hero of the tale, a
Tyrolese peasant, who travels through England as
a concert singer, and wins the heart of each of
these fair damsels, one Herr Basil Findelkind.
Audrey's excellence shines amiable enough
throughout the three volumes but Helen's
position as a heroine is not by any means agreeable
from first to last as a subject of contemplation.
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marrying Audrey, and Vauu becoming entrapped
into wedlock by a horrid little designing dependent,ha
Louisa De lvi l 1 e, a faint reflection
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u
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Basil's regard, is the dr.
of felon's situation in