The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-08-22 00:00:00

rieace of it, we advise the having recourse to a method
which tends to distance the risk of drinking when dry.
At many a mountain rill have we put it in practice, with
confidence in its expediency and good service.
61. Hanger and thirst seem bound together by natu-
ral ties so strong, that it were unnatural to sever them
by any interval of cruel divorce in writing about them •
so we betake ourselves to the few remarks upon Dinner
and Dinner-time, which we have to offer, in all sub-
inissimi to the feelings, wants, capacities, and habits of
the different classes of society ; all of whom, if setting
out on our pedestrian's pilgrimage, will then and thereby
become obnoxious to the operation of the common laws
of exhaustion, and consequent need for replenishing.
The valetudinarian, the epicure, the fashionable elegant,
the student, the tradesman, will here, after a few hours'
good walking and cheerful conversation by the way,
gradually find themselves growing hungry after the turn
of the day; especially if they have, whilst making a
tolerably good breakfast even on our much-commended
cocoa, been still alive to the fact, that it is best to take
" light food before the journey, and more substantial
after ;" that is, light refers to quantity, not quality—
the " qualitative and quantitive analysis" of food being a
system of combined scientific research, by general con-
sent reserved for the hour of dining we opine.
It is not well to drive dinner too late. Though cir-
cumstances must often be allowed to have the principal
meal under their sway, rendering dinner hour elastic, yet
where it is practicable the middle of the afternoon, about
three or four o'clock, is best. This may generally be
contrived beforehand, by so planning the day's work as
that some decent " hostelry" may be holding out its in-
viting emblems about this period_of your performance ; in
case, however, you should be a denizen of some far-off
and barren waste, where the chances of obtaining re-
freshment at all before nightfall are down at zero, then
we presume that your olfactory nerves presciently dis-
covering the same calamitous state of things, will adver-
tise you not to leave the last hospitable quarters without
exercising the sagacious forethought of stowing away
some sandwiches (whether plain meat, or anchovy paste
between respectable folds of bread and butter, as is the
fashion in the present day, deponent saith not.) The
hour we name is a little in advance of our Latin pre-
scription lately recited ; and the old Romans who con-
quered this fair land might have chosen to vote for the
arrival of sunset, before proceedii:g to such grave doings
as dinner always supposes; but really we must desert
antique, though illustrious exemplars, when our modern
stomachs grow rebellious, and in hollow ventriloquial
murmurs utter the scholastic adage, " Necessitas non
habet legem ;" (necessity has no law:) especially when
we the stomach have generously undertaken to " get up
the steam" for ail the rapid locomotions of the body, and
all the sparkling creations of the brain, you can do no
less than, in order to these ends, duly to cater " fuel" for
our gastronomic boiler !

A dinner of plain animal food ig the best, without
many sauces or partaking of made up dishes. The main
part of the day's excursion will have been accomplished,
and only a few miles afterwards should be attempted to
close the day's enjoyment. After the first process of diges-
tion is pretty well over, usually occupying about an hour
after the repast, the body, ifnot over fatigued, is usually dis-
posed for a little further rambling—if also the party be
in tolerable health—half a dozen miles will be done at
nearly, if not at quite the same smart pace as previously.
Such forms a pleasant division of the day's allotted task,
and is by no means prejudicial.
Whilst matters of a substantial class are occupying
some necessary time in preparing, comfort will be con-
sulted by a grateful ablution of the face and hands from
the dust, &c.; and the recital of a stave out of " Croker's
Legends of Killarney" will not diminish the appetite of
our travellers whilst the courses are removing, though
that be fast evanishing in the glancing sheen of knives
and forks.

Father Cuddy sang for entertainment to his assembled
friends the following, with mirth in his eye and melody
on his tongue
. .

" Quam pulchra sunt ova
Cum alba et nova
In stabulo scite legunter,
Et a 11argery bella
Quae festiva puella!
Pinguis lardi cum frustis coquuntur

" tit belles in prato
Aprico et lato
Sub sole tam Iwte renident,
Ova tosta in mensa
Mappa bene extensa
Nitidissima lance consident."
Croker furnishes very kindly a fair and elegant trans-
[ation—thus :

" 0 'tis eggs are are a treat,
When, so white and so sweet,
From kinder the manger they're taken,
And by fair Margery,
Oeh 'tis she's full of glee,
They are fried with fat rashers of bacon."

Just like daisies all spread
O'er a broad sunny mead,
In the sunbeams so beauteously shining,
Are fried eggs well displayed
On a dish, when we've laid
The cloth, and are thinking of dining."

" The Legends of Killarney" abound with humour
and wit, and very likely our readers will feel tempted,
from this specimen, to hunt up therein more racy latin
verses, by the celebrated Abbot of " Sweet Innisfallen."
A glass of beer, ale, or porter during dinner, along with
a couple or three glasses of wine alter, where the party
prefers to take anything stronger than Adam's ale, will
be amply sufficient in reason ; or the wine may be ren-
dered, according to the dictate of either custom or in-
validedness, into its equivalent tumbler of spirit and
water. For the safe conduct of the person, and purposes
of health, as well as from the dictates of good morals, we
shall not mind the jeer or laugh which many accustomed
to excess in revellings and wine may choose to assail our
next quotation, which we shall make in favour of tem-
perance, from an old-fashioned writer of as-ured high
name :

"Drink not the third glass:—which thou canst not tame,
When once it is within thee ; but, before,
Isilay'st rule it as thou list :—and pour the shame,
Which it would pour on thee, upon the door.
It is most just to throw that on the ground
Which would throw me there, if I keep the round.
Be not a beast in courtesy; but stay,
Stay at the third cup, or forego the place,
Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface."

Father Matthew's modern cold alternative is the direct
result of Father Cuddy's old fashioned merriment carried to
excess, Leewise " extremes meet !"

If you have fixed to turn out again into the air, whe-
ther in cold or warn weather, (though, generally, our
observations refer to summer time,) we advise you to use
cold water, and not hot, to dilute your spirits or wine,
as the hot spirituous potation renders you more obnoxious
to catching cold, on the subsidence of the glow which the
heat produces. Our recommendation may be disre-
garded by many, but those who follow it will find them-
selves the best otf. Along with cold water, and in great
moderation, as to the dose of spirits, we believe that such
as a single glass of brandy and water is innocent of many
counts of the indictment foraged up by the teetotal ad-
vocates !

Our readers will perceive that our plan is to avoid
sanctioning either extremes, of stimulating drinks, or ab-
stinence unmitigated in its rigorous exaction : and the
following will serve to rectify any mistaken views travel-
lers may take of the temperance moderation, or of our
own recommendations thereof.

" Nor are the denunciations," writes a first-rate me-
dical man and physiologist of the present day,• " some-
times issued against all fermented liquors, upon the plea
that they are as unnatural to man as to the inferior ani-
mals, less canting and injudicious. It is not natural to
man to abuse any- of the gifts of Providence ; but it is
quite natural to him to use with temperance all the lux-
uries which his superior faculties at once enable him to
procure and qualify him to enjoy, and this among the
rest. With respect also to fermented liquors, slow in-
deed must those poisons be, which, used in moderation,
frequently take half a century or more to produce their
effects. We commonly say that a man makes a beast
of himself when he gets tipsy ; but it appears that it is
from not making a beast of himself that this accident is
apt to overtake him. But the world is too old for this
kind of trash at present. Even the good folks of the
temperance societies do not restrict their proselytes to
acorns and water. They know better than to cut off
the arm because it may sometimes be employed in mis-
chief ; and their injunctions are in general as judicious
as their object is philanthropic and praiseworthy."
There is one caution about taking food we should
have given, viz.,—that it is necessary, especially for
the dyspeptic invalid, to wait ten or fifteen minutes be-
fore sitting down to a hearty meal, if fatigued with ex-
ercise. If you infringe this rule, the stomach will not
be in a fit state to digest the food wherewith your eager-
ness and sense of exhausted strength may greedily cram
it. Flatulence, feverishness, and oppression are the
fruits of such hasty work.
Never walk immediately after a meal, for the
same reasons interrupting digestion in its ear-
lier stage ; towards the close, however, on the other
hand, as before remarked, a gentle exertion of the body
is indicated by fidgettiness coming on ; prompting to
such leisurely walking on as is grateful and healthful.
Before we leave the subject of potations we must en-
ter our gravest protest against the habit of taking stimu-
lants early in the day, especially the stronger kind, as
spirits : such is injurious, and a slavery of depraved
habit.

* Dr. Fletcher's Physiology, page 121.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)

A CHEAP LUXURY.—" Last Summer," says a corres-
pondent of the Bristol Mirror, " I, by way of experiment,
when strawberries were plentiful, attached threads to their
stalks, and hung up a few, which were over-ripe, to dry.
I placed them inside a window facing the south, where
they remained from June until March, when I tasted them
and the result was most satisfactory. That sweet refresh-
ing acid, peculiar to the strawberry, was in full perfection;
the flavour of the fruit, without any watery taste, was
delicious ; it dissolves in the mouth as slowly as a losenge,
and is infinitely superior to the raisin. The strawberry,
thus preserved, is a stomachic."