The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-09-13 00:00:00

tant, for him to read a chapter of Scripture

to the Commons, " to suit his purpc
certain antique personage can do.
MUCK took out the sacred volume,
verhans. bP.OTP. h 44, 1, ouse was ftwar(

it esp

ose," as we are told a
lolls ARTHUR ROE-
read a verse or two,
e what he was about.

So it appeared to me. ROEBUCK rend on, solemnly, sono-
rously, emphatically,—every member uncovered ; that
simple act had a rand effect ! The simple but reveren-
tial act told much for the prosperity of believing England !
As the hon. member read, I remembered RICHARD 111.
and EDMUND KEAN ; and then I looked at ROEBUCK,
and thought of all three.

" And see, a book of prayer in his hand
True ornament to know a holy man ; "-

ROEBUCK would be right welcome, were he to take a run
over for two or three days to Cannes, and see his dear
friend, Lord BROUGHAM, who has cut his stick, and gone
to his estate in the south of France. BROUGHAM has got
a grand work on the anvil. Brnow, or somebody like him,
if ever there were such, says that avarice is the vice of
age; so LEIGII HUNT prettily says, that polished writing
is the virtue of aged authors. Lord 13novarte.m's seclusion
at Cannes may yet be made manifest in a work distin-
guished in style by the finely marshalled phrases of MA-
CAULAY, and the more colloquial ones of his lordship's
other friend, Joicx CAMPBELL.
Unquestionably the book of the week is The Pan-
iropheon, or history of food from the earliest ages of the
world, by A. SOYER. I remember the late Sir HENRY
HALFORD, the kind and skilled physician, gentleman and
scholar, at one of those learned and graceful rAtnions
which made lustrous the evening of a long and honourable
life, say, that, in the treatment of many diseases, we had
not improved upon the system laid down by the early
Greek physicians. Sir HENRY adduced several proofs
from the time of ARETIEUS to his own day. It is not to
my purpose to enumerate these. A perusal of the tome
of the great culinary artist, ALEXIS SOYER, bears out the
startling fact, that the opinion of Sir HENRY HALFORD,
as regarded medicine, is almost equally true with respect
to that most important matter—having to do with the
preservation of body and soul—the preparation of food,
our meats and our drinks ; both of which, doubtless, have
great effects, for good or for evil, on our acts and affections.
CA STLEREA GU, it was mentioned, cut the carotid artery,
from having caused an excess of bile by eating too many
buttered muffins (so it was said). The proximate cause of
GEORGE CANNING'S death wasthat great statesman's eating
too robustly of baked turtle. How much, then, should—not
the base gourment, but the diletante, hail with delight
the advent of SOYER'S new book, which is written in a
most learned yet playful spirit. One heaves a sigh as the
classical pages are turned over, and sees that the book—
the Pantropheon—is only for the aristocracy. The space
allotted to me in your columns, even during this our
dullest solstice, forbids me going much into SOYER'S
volume, or its savoury contents. I open it hap-hazard ;.I
read about servants, for the " knowing" Frenchman
touches on everything in connection with his subject. I
won't quote SOYER—that would be too formal—in this
place ; I shall describe here a little and there a little of
the aforesaid chapter. Let us begin with a joke of
PLAUTUS, culled and collated by SOYER, in reference to
the servants or slaves of the ancients ; they were often
marked with a hot iron on the back, the hands, the cheeks,
or the forehead. PLAUTUS, whose comic vein respected
neither the power of the gods nor the sanctity of misfor-
tune, called these unfortunate creatures "lettered slaves"
(servos literatos). Apropos. The postmen are punned
upon much in the same way, by being called men of
letters. Among the ancients there was the steward,
called the dispensator, who apportioned the labour, the
food, and the chastisements. Happily, we have stewards
yet for all the pm-poses of the ancients, save and except
punishment, Which I really think is an improvement on
their social code. The house-porter of the olden time
(ostiarius) must have been a "rum 'un"; to make sure
of his vigilance, he was chained to his post. The voca-
tores were great men in their way. The penny-postage
among ourselyes has done away with them, except at the
opera, the theatres, and so forth. The vocatores carried
the invitations. Their functions required a peculiar kind
of urbanity and long experience on the part of the person
who attempted to fulfil them. The vocatores of the opera
know every inch of the metropolis, however fractionally

fashionable it may be, however semi-obscure the invited.
The nomenculatores still exist in season at the Mansion-
house, Guildhall, Devonshire-house, when the duke gives
a party, and at one or two °thin. places where usages
" most consecrate of old" still remain ; they named the
guests, and went a step further than we do when festively
given—they named the dishes and their qualities. At this
migrating part of the year, the nomenculatores are emi-
nently useful on the Continent. The structor among the
Greeks and Romans arranged the dishes symmetrically ;
our table-dresser, as he is humbly called, does the same
thing. The antique banquet over,—servants with torches
and lanterns, called adversitores, conducted their masters
home, and pointed out to them the stones that might be
lying in their path, and which repeated libations might
have'prevented their visual organ from discovering. Our
cab is an improvement upon the adversitores. These are
but a few of the servitors mentioned by SOYER. He gives
also a list of miserable, obscure beggars ; among them
the "stokers," not of steam-boat or railway engine, but
buffers, who cut the wood, lighted and attended to the
fires : they were called foscarii. The sweepers were styled
scoparii ; and kept the apartments and furniture clean.
The author will excuse me for the liberty I have taken
with his text, in superadding familiar applications. As
far as he has been tried, his classical allusions, with which
the book is crammed, have not been found wrong. The
illustrations are numerous, and the finest I have ever
seen of the sort. Altogether I do not regret having

pounced upon this chapter, since it bri
tion a remark made by that amiabl
prince, the Consort of the SOVEREIGN
. .

servants; on one occasion I
entitled to our strong reg
ceive us, all helpless, and,

gs to my recolle;
and accomplished
when speaking of

aid feelingly, that they were

11.1 throug

and best(

When 1

the first to re-
e, they tended

them. But' Co;1-1;e1;ofy to relat
the poisonous system of brincinc.

an't do without

has been, and is

are not two in a hundred
71% last remark, beit un,
rrora experience, and not
l'et.'"red to, who ha-,
hiss testified every day
Paternal roof, Great
domestics seemed only
Only t° bis wishes, but
needPane4 hi
i not here h y tlie se
esita ti
placed a 4°°al nab

nts, that th

;0 those of

), when his

of the repreaetrativE
kill game, and eat it
why sandhould I not story the d
citizen butcher ? do m
two or three days ago, at the rip(
rubs and turmoil ef
for the

Lond

1 ugliness

.v..‘,..kable in that
MICHAEL was one of three noted bntehers : JOHN
the father of the Countess of GLENGALL, and
the Right Hon. Tholtes CulLLts, Lord Mayor of Lon-
bpng the other two, They were luckiv 04131 Saa3,4f4

lICIIAEL SCAT

way.
111ELLT