Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846
The Regenerator is too conversant with universal history not to know that his book, in crossing the Tweed northwards, approaches a people more familiar with its fundamental principles than any other inhabitants of these Fortunate Isles. England, for any thing we care, may deserve the opprobrious title of perfidious Albion. Scotland – ("Stands Scotland where it did?") – was ever the firm friend of France. Ages ago, when our southern cousins were incessantly fighting, we were constantly dining, with the French. Our royal and noblest families were mingled by the dearest ties with the purest and proudest blood of the adopted land of Mary. For centuries uninterruptedly was maintained an interchange of every gentle courtesy, and every friendly succour; and when the broadsword was not needed to gleam in the front ranks of Gallic chivalry, the dirk never failed to emit the first flash in the onslaughts of Gallic hospitality. The Soyers of those times – dim precursors of the Regenerator – did not disdain to alight on our hungry shores, and leave monuments of their beneficence, which are grateful to this hour in the nostrils and to the palate of prince and peasant. Nay, we shrewdly conjecture that some time-honoured secrets still dwell with us, of which the memory has long since perished in their birth-place. Boastful we may not suffer ourselves to be. But if M. Soyer ever heard of, or dressed or tasted precisely as we have dressed and tasted, what is known to us and a very limited circle of acquaintances as "Lamb-toasty," we shall start instantly from the penultimate habitation of Ultima Thule, commonly known as John O'Groat's House, expressly to test his veracity, and gratify our voracity. Perhaps he may think it would not be too polite in us to transmit him the receipt. Not for a wilderness of Regenerators! Could we unfold to him the awful legend in connexion with it, of which we are almost the exclusive depositaries, the cap so lightly lying on his brow would be projected upwards to the roof by the instantaneous starting of his hair. The Last Minstrel himself, to whom it was narrated, shook his head when he heard it, and was never known to allude to it again; in reference to which circumstance, all that the bitterest malice could insinuate was, that if the story had been worth remembering, he was not likely to have forgotten it. "One December midnight, a shriek" – is probably as far as we can now venture to proceed. There are some descendants of the parties, whose feelings, even after the lapse of five hundred years, which is but as yesterday in a Highlander's genealogy, we are bound to respect. In other five hundred years, we shall, with more safety to ourselves, let them "sup full of horrors."
The Gastronomic Regenerator reminds us of no book so much as the Despatches of Arthur Duke of Wellington. The orders of Soyer emanate from a man with a clear, cool, determined mind – possessing a complete mastery of his weapons and materials, and prompt to make them available for meeting every contingency – singularly fertile in conceiving, and fortunate without a check in executing, sudden, rapid, and difficult combinations – overlooking nothing with his eagle eye, and, by the powerful felicity of his resources, making the most of every thing – matchless in his "Hors-d'Œuvres" – unassailable in his "Removes" – impregnable in his "Pièces de resistance" – and unconquerable with his "Flanks." His directions are lucid, precise, brief, and unmistakeable. There is not a word in them superfluous – or off the matter immediately on hand – or not directly to the point. They are not the dreams of a visionary theorist and enthusiast, but the hard, solid, real results of the vast experience of a tried veteran, who has personally superintended or executed all the operations of which he writes. It may be matter of dispute whether Wellington or Soyer acquired their knowledge in the face of the hotter fire. They are both great Chiefs – whose mental and intellectual faculties have a wonderful similarity – and whose sayings and doings are characterised by an astonishing resemblance in nerve, perspicuity, vigour, and success. In one respect M. Soyer has an advantage over his illustrious contemporary. His Despatches are addressed to an army which as far outnumbers any force every commanded or handled by the Hero of Waterloo, as the stars in the blue empyrean exceed the gas-lamps of London – an army which, instead of diminishing under any circumstances, evinces a tendency, we fear, of steadily swelling its ranks year by year, and day by day – a standing army, which the strong hand of the most jealous republicanism cannot suppress, and which the realization of the bright chimera of universal peace will fail to disband. Before many months are gone, thousands and tens of thousands will be marching and countermarching, cutting and skewering, broiling and freezing, in blind obedience to the commands of the Regenerator. "Peace hath her victories no less than those of war." But it is not to be forgotten that if the sword of Wellington had not restored and confirmed the tranquillity of the world, the carving-knife of Soyer might not have been so bright.
The confidence of Soyer in his own handiwork is not the arrogant presumption of vanity, but the calm self-reliance of genius. There is a deal of good sense in the paragraph which we now quote: —
"Although I am entirely satisfied with the composition, distribution, and arrangement of my book, should some few little mistakes be discovered they will be the more excusable under those circumstances, as in many instances I was unable to devote that tedious time required for correction; and although I have taken all possible care to prescribe, by weight and measure, the exact quantity of ingredients used in the following receipts for the seasoning and preparing of all kinds of comestibles, I must observe that the ingredients are not all either of the same size or quality; for instance, some eggs are much larger than others, some pepper stronger, salt salter, and even some sugar sweeter. In vegetables, again, there is a considerable difference in point of size and quality; fruit is subject to the same variation, and, in fact all description of food is subject to a similar fluctuation. I am far, however, from taking these disproportions for excuses, but feel satisfied, if the medium of the specified ingredients be used, and the receipts in other respects closely followed, nothing can hinder success."
It seems a childish remark to make, that all salts do not coincide in their saltness, nor sugars in their sweetness. The principle, however, which the observation contains within it, is any thing but childish. It implies, that, supposing the accuracy of a Soyer to be nearly infallible, the faith in his instructions must never be so implicit as to supersede the testimony of one's own senses, and the admonitions of one's own judgment. It is with the most poignant recollections that we acknowledge the justice of the Regenerator's caution on this head. We once, with a friend who shared our martyrdom, tried to make onion soup in exact conformity with what was set down in an Oracle of Cookery, which a foul mischance had placed across our path. With unerring but inflecting fidelity, we filled, and mixed, and stirred, and watched, the fatal caldron. The result was to the eye inexpressibly alarming. A thick oily fluid, repulsive in colour, but infinitely more so in smell, fell with a flabby, heavy, lazy stream, into the soup-plate. Having swallowed, with a Laocoonic contortion of countenance, two or three mouthfuls, our individual eyes wandered stealthily towards our neighbour. Evidently we were fellow-sufferers; but pride, which has occasioned so many lamentable catastrophes, made us both dumb and obdurate in our agony. Slowly and sadly, at lengthened intervals, the spoon, with its abominable freight, continued to make silent voyages from the platters to our lips. How long we made fools of ourselves it is not necessary to calculate. Suddenly, by a simultaneous impulse, the two windows of the room favoured the headlong exit of two wretches whose accumulated grievances were heavier than they could endure. Hours rolled away, while the beautiful face of Winandermere looked as ugly as Styx, as we writhed along its banks, more miserably moaning than the hopeless beggar who sighed for the propitiatory obolus to Charon. And from that irrevocable hour we have abandoned onions to the heroines of tragedy. Fools, in spite of all warning, are taught by such a process as that to which we submitted. Wise men, take a hint.
"Nature, says I to myself" – Soyer is speaking – "compels us to dine more or less once a-day." The average which oscillates between the "more" and the "less," it requires considerable dexterity to catch. Having read six hundred pages and fourteen hundred receipts, the question is, where are we to begin? Our helplessness is confessed. Is it possible the Regenerator is, after all, more tantalizing than the Barmecide? No – here is the very aid we desiderate. Our readers shall judge of a
"DINNER PARTY AT HOME."
BILL OF FARE FOR EIGHT PERSONS
"Nothing but light wine is drunk at the first course, but at the second my guests are at liberty to drink wines of any other description, intercepting them with several hors-d'œuvres, which are small dishes of French pickled olives and sardines, thin slices of Bologna sausage, fillets of anchovies, ciboulettes, or very small green onions, radishes, &c.; also a plain dressed salade à la Français, (for which see end of the entrées, Kitchen at Home), fromage de brie Neufchatel, or even Windsor cheese, when it can be procured. The coffee and dessert I usually leave to the good taste and economy of my menagere."
We shall be exceedingly curious to hear how many hundred parties of eight persons, upon reading this bill of fare in our pages, will, without loss of time, congregate in order to do it substantial honour. Such clattering of brass and brandishing of steel may strike a new government as symptomatical or preparatory of a popular rising. We may therefore reassure them with the information, that those who sit down with M. Soyer, will have little thought of rising for a long time afterwards.
We have introduced the Gastronomic Regenerator to public notice in that strain which its external appearance, its title, its scheme and its contents, demand and justify. But we must not, even good-humouredly, mislead those for whose use its publication is principally intended. To all intents and purposes M. Soyer's work is strictly and most intelligibly practical. It is as full of matter as an egg is full of meat; and the household which would travel through its multitudinous lessons must be as full of meat as the Regenerator is full of matter. The humblest, as well as the wealthiest kitchen economy, is considered and instructed; nor will the three hundred receipts at the conclusion of the volume, which are more peculiarly applicable to the "Kitchen at Home," be, probably the portion of the book least agreeable and valuable to the general community. For example, just before shaking hands with him, let us listen to M. Soyer, beginning admirably to discourse
Of the Choosing and Roasting of Plain Joints
"Here I must claim all the attention of my readers. Many of the profession will, I have no doubt, be surprised that I should dwell upon a subject, which appears of so little importance, saying that, from the plain cook to the most professed, all know how to roast or boil a piece of meat; but there I must beg their pardon. I will instance myself, for, previously to my forming any intention of writing the present work, I had not devoted the time necessary to become professionally acquainted with it, always depending upon my roasting cook, who had constant practice, myself only having the knowledge of whether or not properly done. I have since not only studied it closely, but have made in many respects improvements upon the old system, and many discoveries in that branch which I am sure is the most beneficial to all classes of society, (remembering, as I have before stated, that three parts of the animal food of this country is served either plain-roasted or boiled) My first study was the fire, which I soon perceived as too deep, consumed too much coal, and required poking every half hour, thus sending dust and dirt all over the joints, which were immediately basted to wash it off; seeing plainly this inconvenience, I immediately remedied it by inventing my new roasting fire-place, by which means I saved two hundred-weight of coals per day, besides the advantage of never requiring to be poked, being narrow and perpendicular; the fire is lighted with the greatest facility, and the front of the fire being placed a foot back in the chimney-piece, throws the heat of the fire direct upon the meat, and not out at the sides, as many persons know, from the old roasting ranges. I have many times placed ladies or gentlemen, visiting the club, within two feet of the fire when six large joints have been roasting, and they have been in perfect ignorance that it was near them, until, upon opening the wing of the screen by surprise, they have appeared quite terrified to think they were so near such an immense furnace. My next idea was to discontinue basting, perhaps a bold attempt to change and upset at once the custom of almost all nations and ages, but being so confident of its evil effects and tediousness, I at once did away with it, and derived the greatest benefit (for explanation, see remarks at the commencement of the roasts in the Kitchen of the Wealthy,) for the quality of meat in England is, I may say, superior to any other nation; its moist soil producing fine grass almost all the year round, which is the best food for every description of cattle; whilst in some countries not so favoured by nature they are obliged to have recourse to artificial food, which fattens the animals but decreases the flavour of the meat: and, again, we, must take into consideration the care and attention paid by the farmers and graziers to improve the stock of those unfortunate benefactors of the human family."
How full of milky kindness is his language, still breathing the spirit of that predominant idea – the tranquillisation of the universe by "Copious Dinners!" He has given up "basting" with success. Men may as well give up basting one another. Nobody will envy the Regenerator the bloodless fillets worthily encircling his forehead, should the aspirations of his benevolent soul in his lifetime assume any tangible shape. But if a more distant futurity is destined to witness the lofty triumph, he may yet depart in the confidence of its occurrence. The most precious fruits ripen the most slowly. The sun itself does not burst at once into meridian splendour. Gradually breaks the morning; and the mellow light glides noiselessly along, tinging mountain, forest, and city spire, till a stealthy possession seems to be taken of the whole upper surface of creation, and the mighty monarch at last uprises on a world prepared to expect, to hail, and to reverence his perfect and unclouded majesty.
THE LATE AND THE PRESENT MINISTRY
Our sentiments with regard to the change of policy on the part of Sir Robert Peel and his coadjutors, were early, and we hope forcibly, expressed. We advocated then, as ever, the principle of protection to native industry and agriculture, not as a class-benefit, but on far deeper and more important considerations. We deprecated the rash experiment of departing from a system under which we had flourished so long – of yielding to the clamours of a grasping and interested faction, whose object in raising the cry of cheap bread, was less the welfare of the working man, than the depression of his wages, and a corresponding additional profit to themselves. The decline of agricultural prosperity – inevitable if the anticipations of the free traders should be fulfilled – seems to us an evil of the greatest possible magnitude, and the more dangerous because the operation must be necessarily slow. And in particular, we protested against the introduction of free-trade measures, at a period when their consideration was not called for by the pressure of any exigency, when the demand for labour was almost without parallel, and before the merits of the sliding-scale of duty, introduced by Sir Robert Peel himself in the present Parliament, had been sufficiently tested or observed. Those who make extravagant boast of the soundness and sagacity of their leader cannot deny, that the facts upon which he based his plan of financial reform, were in reality not facts, but fallacies. The political Churchill enunciated his Prophecy of Famine, not hesitatingly nor doubtfully, but in the broadest and the strongest language. Month after month glided away, and still the famine came not; until men, marvelling at the unaccountable delay, looked for it as the ignorant do for the coming of a predicted eclipse, and were informed by the great astrologer of the day that it was put off for an indefinite period! Now, when another and a more beautiful harvest is just beginning, we find that in reality the prophecy was a mere delusion; that there were no grounds whatever to justify any such anticipation, and that the pseudo-famine was a mere stalking-horse, erected for the purpose of concealing the stealthy advance of free-trade.
If this measure of free-trade was in itself right and proper, it required no such paltry accessories and stage tricks to make it palatable to the nation at large. Nay, we go further, and say, that under no circumstances ought the distress of a single year to be assigned as a sufficient reason for a great fiscal change which must derange the whole internal economy and foreign relations of the country, and which must be permanent in its effects. There is, and can be, no such thing as a permanent provision for exigencies. Were it so, the art of government might be reduced to principles as unerring in their operation as the tables of an assurance company – every evil would be provided for before it occurred, and fluctuations become as unknown among us as the recurrence of an earthquake. A famine, had it really occurred, would have been no apology for a total repeal of the corn-laws, though it might have been a good reason for their suspension. As, however, no famine took place, we take the prophecy at its proper value, and dismiss it at once to the limbo of popular delusions; at the same time, we trust that future historians, when they write this chapter of our chronicles, will not altogether overlook the nature of the foundation upon which this change has been placed.
It requires no great penetration to discover how the repeal of the corn-laws has been carried. The leaders of a powerful party who for ten years misgoverned the country, were naturally desirous, after an exile of half that period, to retaste the sweets of office – and were urged thereunto, not only by their own appetites, but by the clamour of a ravenous crew behind them, who cared nothing for principle. While in power, they had remained most dogmatically opposed to the repeal of the corn-laws. Lord Melbourne denounced the idea as maniacal – he was supported in that view by almost every one of his colleagues; nor was it until they found themselves upon the eve of ejectment, that any new light ever dawned upon the minds of the steadfast myrmidons of Whiggery. The election of 1841, which turned them out of office made matters worse instead of better. They now saw no prospect of a restoration to power, unless they could adopt some blatant cry similar to that which formerly brought them in. Such a cry was rather difficult to be found. Their ignorance of finance, their mismanagement abroad, their gross bungling of almost every measure which they touched, had made them so unpopular that the nation at large regarded their return to office much as a sufferer from nightmare contemplates the arrival of his nocturnal visitant. Undeterred by scruple or by conscience, they would with the greatest readiness have handed over the national churches to the tender mercies of the Dissenters, if such a measure could have facilitated their recall to the pleasant Goshen of Downing Street. It was not however, either advisable or necessary to carry matters quite so far. Midway between them and revolution lay the corn-law question once despised but now very valuable as a workable engine. The original advocates of abolition were not prime favourites with the Whigs. The leaders of that party have always been painfully and even ludicrously particular abut their associates. Liberal in appearance they yet bind themselves together with a thin belt of aristocratic prejudice and though insatiable in their lust for public applause, they obstinately refuse to strengthen their coterie by any more popular addition. They found the corn-law question in the hands of Messrs Cobden, Bright and Wilson – men of the people – who by their own untiring energy and the efforts of the subsidiary League, had brought the question prominently forward, and were fighting independent of party, a sort of guerilla battle in support of their favourite principle. Our regard for these gentlemen is not of the highest order, but we should do them great injustice if we did not bear testimony to the zeal and perseverance they have exhibited throughout. These are qualities which may be displayed alike in a good and in an evil cause; and yet earnestness of purpose is at all times a high attribute of manhood, and enforces the respect of an enemy. With the constitution of the League we have at present nothing to do. The organization and existence of such a body, for the purposes of avowed agitation, was a fact thoroughly within the cognisance of ministers – it was checked, and is now triumphant, and may therefore prove the precursor of greater democratic movements.
The question of the corn-laws was, however, emphatically theirs. A body of men, consisting almost entirely of master manufacturers, had conceived the project of getting rid of a law which interfered materially, according to their views, with the profit and interests of their class. Their arguments were specious, their enthusiasm in the cause unbounded. They spared no exertions, grudged no expense, to obtain converts; they set up gratuitous newspapers, hired orators, held meetings, established bazars – in short erected such a complicated machine of agitation as had never before entered into the minds of democrats to conceive. With all this however, their success, save for political accident, was doubtful. The leaders of the League were not popular even with their own workmen. Some of the simpler rules of political economy are tolerably well known among the operative classes, and of these none is better understood than the relationship betwixt the prices of labour and of food. Cheap bread, if accompanied at the same time by a reduction of wages, was at best but a questionable blessing; nor were these doubts at all dispelled by the determined resistance of the master manufacturers to every scheme proposed for shortening the hours of labour, and ameliorating the social as well as the moral condition of the poor. All that the taskmaster cared for was the completion of the daily tale. The truck system – that most infamous species of cruel and tyrannical robbery – gave sad testimony of the extent, as well as the meanness, of the avarice which could wring profit even from the most degraded source, and which absolutely sought to establish, here, within the heart of Britain, a slavery as complete and more odious than that which is the disgrace of the American republic. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if the great mass of the working population regarded the proceedings of the Anti-Corn-law League with apathy and indifference. For, be it remarked, that the original Leaguers were by no means thorough-paced free-traders. Their motive was to deal most summarily with every restriction which stood in the way of their business, both as regarded export and import, and the establishment of a lower rate of wages. For such purposes they were ready to sacrifice every interest in the commonwealth except their own; but they showed no symptoms whatever of anxiety to discard restriction wherever it was felt to be advantageous to themselves. They were, in fact, the aspiring monopolists of the country. In their disordered imagination, the future position of Britain was to be that of one mighty workshop, from which the whole world was to be supplied – a commonalty of cotton, calico, and iron, with a Birmingham and Manchester aristocracy.
Such was the position of the League at the moment when the Whigs, eager for a gathering-cry, came forward as auxiliaries; and yet we have some doubt as to the propriety of that latter term. They did not come as helpers – as men who, devoted in singleness of heart to the welfare of their country, were anxious to assist in the promotion of a measure which the sagacity of others had discovered – but claiming a sort of divine right of opposition, similar to that which the lion exercises when the jackal has run down the prey. Accordingly, upon the corn-laws did the magnanimous Whig lion place its paw, and wheeze out a note of defiance against all interlopers whatsoever. Henceforward that question was to be a Whig one. English agriculture was not to receive its death from the ignoble hands of Cobden and Co.
Such was the move of the Whigs in the month of November last. A paltrier one, in every sense of the word, was never yet attempted nor did the simultaneous conversion of the whole party, with scarcely more than one or two honourable exceptions, present a very creditable specimen of the integrity of her Majesty's Opposition. They had become convinced – why or wherefore was not stated – that "the time had now arrived" for a total repeal of the corn-laws, and there was an end of the matter. They were prepared to vote for it in Parliament – to go to the country with it as their rallying-cry – to adopt it, in short, as their readiest stepping-stone into office. The old champions of repeal – the Leaguers – might go about their business. The conduct of the question was now transferred into the same hands which had become imbecile and paralysed in 1841, but which had since been renovated and invigorated by a wholesome course of five years' banishment from office.
It is somewhat remarkable, but rather instructive, that the Whigs do not seem to have contemplated any other financial alteration beyond the repeal of the corn-laws. Of an equitable adjustment of clashing interests, they appear to have had no idea. It is quite true that they had been of old well accustomed to a deep defalcation of the public revenue, and the probability of the recurrence of that fact, may have been viewed by them as a mere bagatelle. From vague and general protestations of economy, we can form no proper estimate of the real nature of their plans. Economy, or that paltry system of paring, which passes with the Whigs for such, is, after all, a political virtue of minor import. What we require from every administration is the adoption of such measures only as shall tend to promote the general wealth and prosperity of the country; and, in consequence, render more easy the payment of the national burdens. Any fiscal change which affects the revenue, must, as a matter of course, affect some particular class of the community. A certain yearly sum has to be made up – no matter how – and every million which is remitted from one source of the revenue must be supplied by another. It is this necessity which renders the administration of our finances so difficult. Great Britain, when she obtained her place in the foremost rank of nations, had to pay a fancy price for that supremacy. Our system of taxation is not the growth of a few years, but of a large tract of time, embracing periods of enormous expenditure and of intense excitement. It is of the most complex and artificial nature; for the reservoir of the state is filled from a thousand separate sources, and not one of these can be cut off without occasioning a greater drain upon the rest.
In such a state of things, it is quite natural that each particular interest should be desirous to shift the burden from itself. This may not be right nor proper, but it is natural; and the desire is greatly fostered by the frequent changes which have of late been made in the financial department, and by the alteration and adjustment of duties. The attack of the League upon the agriculturists is a specimen of this, though upon the largest scale; and the Whigs were quite ready to have lent it their support, without any further consideration. That they were really and sincerely converts to the new doctrine, we do not believe – but, if so, it is little creditable to their understanding. The repeal of the corn-laws, as a solitary and isolated measure, is, we maintain, an act of gross injustice and impolicy – as part of a great financial reform, or rather remodelment of our whole system, it may bear a different character. The Whigs, however, in adopting it, gave no promise of an altered system. The creed and articles of the League were ready made, and sufficient for them, nor did they think it necessary to enlarge the sphere of their financial relief; and so, towards the end of last year, they presented themselves in the quality of aspirants for office.
It is to us matter of great and lasting regret, that this move was not met by Sir Robert Peel and his cabinet with a front of determined resistance. Whatever may be the opinions of the late premier, of Lords Aberdeen and Lincoln, or any other members of that cabinet, on the abstract advantages of free-trade, we still hold that they were bound, in justice to the great body of gentlemen whose suffrages in the House of Commons had carried them into power, to have pursued a very different course. It is in vain for them to take shelter under their privileges or their duties as ministers of the crown. Their official dignity by no means relieved them from the pledges, direct or implied, in virtue of which alone they were elevated to that position. The understanding of the country at large was broad and clear upon the point, that the agricultural interest should not suffer from the acts of the late administration; and it was their duty, as well as their true interest, to have kept that confidence inviolate.