reforms

a vivid side-light upon the whole question of educational to a memorable remark addressed to his Council of State by the Great Napoleon, when commenting upon the opposition which had been awakened by one of his boldest innovations. "We have gone a little too far, that must be allowed. But we had reason on our side," added the emperor; "and when one has reason on one's side, ore should have the courage to run some risks." Having quoted which, Mr. Arnold exclaims, emphatically, "Noble words of a profound and truly creative genius, which employed in administration something solider than makeshifts!" Prior to the formal publication of this work, the gist of it had been submitted, in the shape of a report, to her Majesty's Government. In 1864, as the record of a visit paid by him five years previously to Sorèze, then presided over by the great Dominican preacher, Lacordaire, the last of the grand pulpit orators of France, and who, as such, is second only to Bossuet, Matthew Arnold brought out a work significantly entitled, "A French Eton, or Middle-class Education and the State." A twelvemonth afterwards, that is, in 1865, he collected together a number of hitherto scattered papers contributed by him in the few preceding years to one or other of the periodicals. The volume was simply entitled, "Essays in Criticism." In it he descanted successively upon Maurice de Guérin, and upon Eugénie de Guérin, upon Joubert, and upon Marcus Aurelius. In one of the ablest of these Essays, after treating of Baruch Spinoza, he summed up admirably his whole character in one antithetical sentence: "His foot is in the vera vita, his eye on the beatific vision." It was in the course of his Essay on the genius of Heinrich Heine that he made such effective use of the now famous phrase of Philistinism, observing, as quietly as cynically, “Perhaps we have not the word, because we have so much of the thing;" this said Philistinism, by the way, being something baser even than what Mr. Carlyle whimsically typified long ago as "gig respectability."

During the year which saw the publication of this attractive as well as discursive volume, Mr. Arnold again visited the continent, having been despatched thither on this occasion for the express purpose of procuring for the Royal Commission, in regard to middle-class education, as much additional information as might be found procurable in respect to foreign educational systems among the upper and middle classes. The fruits of his widely scattered and searching investigations occupied his attention for some considerable time in the mere process of their accumulation. They were afterwards thoroughly digested by him, as one who to the full realized the responsibility of the important duty devolved upon him in his office as foreign assistant commissioner. The result appeared three years afterwards, that is, in 1868, in the form of a valuable, we had almost said an invaluable, report in respect to "Schools and Universities on the Continent." In it he discussed, in no one instance superficially, the whole complex scheme, or rather schemes, of secondary instruction, as well as of superior, or university instruction, throughout Europe, German, French, Swiss, Italian, Prussian. The probable issue of the conflict so long maintained between what may be called real, as contradistinguished from purely classical studies, the contest in other terms still fiercely waged between the Gymnasium and the Realschule, he unhesitatingly indicated. The circle of knowledge, he argued with irresistible force and cogency of logic, embraces within it both the humanities and the study of nature, a truth hitherto certainly not sufficiently appreciated. He deprecated with dispassionate fervor alike the tyranny of the Realists, and the tyranny of those who were sticklers for the Humanities. The excessive preponderance of grammatical studies, as well as of Greek and Latin composition, he scouted as little less than ridiculous, certainly as most mistaken. What he urged was this that the ancient languages, and, for that matter, the modern likewise, should be studied henceforth less, so to express it, philologically, and more as literature. Not in any way, be it understood, that he depreciated the true worth of the science of antiquity, that is especially of Greek and Roman antiquity- what is signified by the expressive

German word of Alterthumswissenschaft. It is no doubt
with the aspiring student of every age and of every country,
at the outset, as it is, in Schiller's weird imagining, with
the youth who stands before the veiled statue at Sais:-
"Was hab' ich,

Wenn ich nicht Alles habe,' sprach der Jüngling;
'Gibt's etwa hier ein Weniger und Mehr?""

If any thing, all. If a part, why not the whole of the vast cycle of knowledge? As if, in the wild ambition of inexperience, human capacity were in itself illimitable! Wisely, most sagaciously, as it seems to us, the author of the masterly digest we are here referring to, this comprehensive work of Matthew Arnold's, in relation to the schools and universities of the European continent, hesitates not to lay down resolutely this really courageous opinion, that a Latin grammar of thirty pages for philology, with a purely elementary outline of arithmetic and geometry, would be all-sufficient in the way of an universally imposed preparatory discipline.

While he yet filled the chair of his professorship at the university, Matthew Arnold, in 1865-6, delivered four lectures on the study of Celtic literature. These were first of all published in the Cornhill Magazine, from which they were, later on, in 1867, reprinted as a separate publication. The subject was originally suggested to the author by his reflections while upon a holiday excursion on the Welsh coast at Llandudno. In 1869 he produced a work of larger importance in the shape of an essay at once in political and social criticism. It was entitled suggestively "Culture and Anarchy." There was something eminently characteristic in the very opening of the elaborate preface to this volume, written, as the author intimated, because of his having been dismayed at the frank acknowledgment to him by a bril liant and distinguished votary of the natural sciences that he had never so much as even heard of Bishop Wilson. Whereupon, Matthew Arnold acknowledges in his turn to his heart burning within him to further in some sort the cause of the society for promoting Christian knowledge. The "Maxims of Piety," of good Bishop Wilson, he entha siastically estimates as only upon a little lower range, but, at the same time, as actually more practical than the peerless "De Imitatione." The whole scope of this eminently original essay of Mr. Arnold's is to recommend culture as the surest help out of all our present difficulties; what is here meant by culture having within it nothing whatever that is either bookish or pedantic. The work contains in one part of it in a few plain words what may be regarded as its author's profession of faith, secially and politically. “I am a Liberal,” he says, "yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflection, and renouncement, and I am above all, a believer in culture." Almost as, in some measure, a corollary to the work upon which we have been just now commenting, avowedly as a reply or corrective to M. Renan's hollow and audacious book on the great Apostle of the Gentiles, Matthew Arnold, as recently as in 1870, pullished his last able and vigorous work, the introduction to which relates directly to puritanism and the Church of England, the title of the volume as a whole being "St. Paul and Protestantism." As to the author's religious profession of faith, it is here also in its turn pretty clearly discernible. As Mr. Arnold boldly puts it- Protestantism with its three notable tenets of predestination, original sin, and jus tification, has, during as many centuries, been "pounding away at St. Paul's wrong words and missing his essential doctrine." Referring to what Dr. Newman says of the im pression once made on his mind by the sentence "securus judicat orbis terrarum," he declares that for his own part he should be rather inclined to lay down the very contrary affirmation, securus delirat orbis terrarum." In the jaz gle and dissonance of opinion among believers he clings none the less tenaciously to the hope of an ulterior general

66

union of Christendom.

In his threefold capacity as critic, as scholiast, and as dialectician, Matthew Arnold is strong, as it seems to us, almost more by right of the clearness and the calmness of

MANKIND has been divided into "those who live to eat," and those "who eat to live." In a very clever Dutch novel called the "Burgomaster's Family," which has just been charmingly translated by Sir John Shaw Lefevre, the Burgomaster is described as belonging to the first category: "He had one idol which he worshipped with all his heart and soul, and on whose altar he would in case of necessity have sacrificed every thing belonging to him." "What a good dinner was to Burgomaster Welters no words can tell; it was the realization of all his dreams and wishes." No doubt such people exist, but there is surely a third and a very numerous class who, though preferring good cooking to bad, yet consider eating as a mere adjunct to the real pleasure of society, and look upon the actual dinner as very secondary in importance to the enjoyment of the agreeable qualities of those assembled to eat it.

Much has been written about cookery, much about gastronomy in general, and much about the various domestic arrangements connected with eating and drinking, and especially with the important meal of the day. But I do not recollect meeting with any thing in print which fully enters into the question of London dinners, considered in their bearing upon social intercourse in its most agreeable form, as well as with reference to their gastronomic excellence; and yet few of those who have been in the habit of dining out in London, during the last twenty-five or thirty years, can fail to remember with extreme pleasure those dinner-parties in London where they have met Sydney Smith, Macaulay, Milman, Quin, Charles Villiers, Strzelecki, B. Osborn, A. Hayward, and a host of others who have kept up a lively conversation with a degree of wit and spirit which has resulted in the greatest intellectual enjoyment, and with an amount of gayety which is the most wholesome relaxation after the fatigues of the day, whilst at the same time the gastronomic part of the entertainment has been perfectly well maintained.

I think it was in the year 1835 that a Mr. Walker, a well-known London police magistrate, published a series of periodical papers called "The Original," devoted to "The Arts of Dining and giving Dinners," "The Art of Travelling, and the Art of attaining High Health." They were amusing, but Mr. Walker appeared to be a sort of social cynic, he liked society mainly so far as it contributed to his own personal enjoyment; for, though he says that he considers eight as the number for a dinner-party, I believe he would have been quite satisfied with a party of two, or even to have dined by himself, provided he was at that time in the enjoyment of perfect health, and provided the dinner was served up according to his own somewhat peculiar notions.

Mr. Hayward's book on dining is open to no such criticism, but those who have read his article on this subject as it appeared in the Quarterly Review many years since, or in its subsequent republication by Murray, will not find fault with me, I think, for inviting a little further consideration as to the best mode of arranging private dinner-parties in London.

In so doing, I entirely exclude public dinners, which are for specific purposes, and which require to be conducted on different principles from ordinary entertainments; these remarks apply entirely to dinners at private houses, espe

cially during the scrambling months succeeding Easter. Previous to Easter, London society is almost perfect; for the same materials, intellectual and gastronomic, are attainable, while they are brought together in a less formal way than is possible later in the year. After Easter the state of affairs is quite altered. A three-weeks' invitation is not considered too long to secure a pleasant party, or, what by many is considered a synonymous term, a large party. A room thirty feet by twenty is supposed to be large enough to hold twenty or twenty-four guests in comfort. Dinner begins about half-past eight, and does not end till half-past ten, the party being too numerous for any thing like general conversation during dinner; carriages are announced, and the guests hurry away, without having had the opportunity of exchanging a dozen words with any but the couple right and left of them at the table. The great fault of these so-called entertainments is that the party is too large (and consequently the room too hot) and the dinner too long. Can these assertions be contradicted? and if not, may it not be worth while to consider whether some reform might not be advantageously introduced? It is not in the power of every one to command wit or great social qualifications, but it must certainly be for the general advantage of society to give facilities to all for displaying whatever powers they possess, and it may be as well to begin by pointing out the disadvantages of the present arrangements.

It is not necessary to discuss the art of cookery, or to enter into details respecting the arrangements of the cuisine. As good cooks may be found in England as in any part of Europe, and the cost of a dinner must of course be regulated by the taste and the purse of the host, though there is no greater mistake than to suppose that the most expensive dinner is necessarily the best. Good wine is indispensable, but the quantity consumed is in general too small to make it a formidable item of expense, and, with the exception of a few sorts of fruit, all articles of consumption are best where they are the most plentiful, and consequently cheapest. There are certain large houses and establishments which seem to require large parties or banquets; but as a rule in London houses, fourteen, or at the utmost sixteen, are as many as can be well accommodated, and it is not easy to enjoy general conversation with a larger number. If invitations are given for a quarter before eight, it is generally understood that eight is the hour intended; after that time ten minutes or a quarter of an hour is enough law to give for accidental delays. To keep a whole party waiting, because one or two ladies or gentlemen will not take the trouble to dress in time, is a very questionable act of politeness. It used to be said of two distinguished brothers who were habitually unpunctual, that if one was asked to dine at seven on Tuesday, the other came at eight on Wednesday; but such eccentricities can only be pardoned in men whose minds are so absorbed by public business as to make them forgetful of the courtesies of society.

In England, where people do not converse freely with each other without an introduction, any foreigner should be specially introduced by host or hostess; and the only good reason which can be given for not doing the same to every guest, is that in our vast London society, those may be inadvertently asked together who have been trying to avoid each other all their lives, and then an introduction becomes awkward. A little arrangement is of course necessary as to sending down the right ladies and gentlemen together, and also as to seating them properly at table, so that husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, &c., are not placed next to each other; and for want of this previous for thought the best-assorted parties are sometimes quite spoiled. Having begun with the assumption that parties of fourteen or sixteen are best suited for the size of ordinary London dining-rooms, as well as for conversation, the number of attendants upon such a party must of course be regulated by the fortune of the entertainer; but to insure perfect attendance, one servant to every three guests is about the necessary number. Much of general comfort, and more of mental activity than is generally supposed, depends upon the temperature and ventilation of a room. With the thermometer at 62°, conversation may flow easily,

and wits may be at their brightest and sharpest; but raise the temperature to 75° or 80°, and the most elastic spirits become subdued, the most bri.liant genius subsides into mediocrity. I am always tempted to ask, when I hear that some wit "was not himself last night," what was the state of the thermometer? No dinner should last more than an hour and a quarter, or at longest an hour and a half; if it does, a pleasure becomes a pain. There is no country in Europe, I believe, where so much time is spent at the dinner-table as in England, and this is owing to the greater number of dishes which we think necessary. I have on this point consulted a lady friend in Russia, whose table there is considered as well and plentifully supplied as that of any one at the Court, and her answer is as follows:

ST. PETERSBURG, June 17, 1871. "I send you menus of our own three last dinners, which are very good specimens. The one for twenty-two was got up in a hurry for Marshall Comte Berg and other Government generals, only here for a few days; otherwise two soups, one clear and one purée, would have been better: it is the very largest dinner as to dishes ever given here. The dinners in Berlin, at the King's and Crown Princes's, I remember, were even smaller. Sometimes at very State dinners a Punch à la Romaine is put in between the cold entrée and the roits; that is all. Of course beyond twelve or fourteen there are doubles and trebles of each dish handed round at the same time, and each dish comes in separately and is quite done with before another comes. The dessert and flowers are on the table. It is thought a very badly served dinner if it takes more than an hour or an hour and a quarter. The dessert is then handed round, each dish, and the plates changed for each dish; then the finger-glasses and water put down on a plate each, which is the signal for the end. The serving of the dessert is included in the time I have named. It would be a most happy revolution in London if you could bring it about. Here they wait very dexterously, and no one is ever forgotten in handing a dish, as each goes regularly round."

A letter, dated 5th May, 1871, from a friend in Copenhagen, an excellent authority on even more important affairs than dinners, is much to the same effect: "I enclose a couple of menus such as you ask for. One is of a dinner at our Minister's for Foreign Affairs, and the other at Count Moltke's. I do not myself approve of putting down the wines on a bill of fare, as it savors too much of the restaurant. I never do, and my dinners, I think I may say, are considered the best given here, or certainly amongst the best. I had a very formidable rival in the Russian Minister, who had positively a genius for house decoration, but he is no longer here." I insert the Copenhagen menus : — JEUDI LE 12 JANVIER, 1871.

DINER DU 23 MAI, 1868.

Potage tortue à l'Anglaise.

Jardinière à l'impériale au consommé.

Petites bouchées à la reine.

Filets de saumon à la Chambord.
Filet de bœuf Madère à l'Espagnole.

Poulardes à la Montmorency, sauce Périgueux.
Cótelettes d'agneau aux concombres.
Cailles farcies à la Bohémienne.
Aspics de crevettes en bellevue sur socle.
Punch à l'Impératrice.

Canetons et gélinottes rôtis.
Buisson de truffes au vin de Champagne.

Asperges, sauce hollandaise.

Croustades d'abricots nouveaux à la Condé. Macédoine de fruits Marasquin. Bombes cardinal.

DINER DU 7 FÉVRIER, 1867.

Printanier à la royale.
Purée à la Jussienne.

I am told that at Buckingham Palace, her Majesty's dinners are entirely concluded within the hour; but it must be remembered that the Queen's habits in this particular appear to have been formed without much reference to social requirements. Her Majesty partakes of a good luncheon and tea, and makes her dinner a short meal.

To return, however, to my subject of considering dinners as a means of promoting social intercourse in its most agreeable form. No one can deny the importance which is attached to this subject in London society, when it is remembered the infinite trouble taken by many in the arrangement of the company to be asked, as well as in the decoration of the table, and other matters connected with the entertainment. Much pains are bestowed, and much money spent, in endeavoring to give agreeable dinners, and both are often thrown away by an attempt to do too much. Nothing is more true than the old saw of "enough is as good as a feast." More food than any one can enjoy, more wit than any one can listen to, are alike to be avoided. People are often so much exhausted by the heated atmosphere of a dining-room, and by long sitting during and after a protracted dinner, that conversation languishes when the adjournment to the drawing-room takes place, and the only anxiety is to get away either to some fresh scene of overcrowded amusement, or to bed, worn out instead of refreshed by the so-called evening's entertainment. It is to be hoped that hereafter the custom may be adopted, which obtains everywhere but amongst the Anglo-Saxon race, of ladies and gentlemen leaving the table together; so that conversation may go on without a break, and the grouping of gentlemen in one part of the room and ladies in another be avoided. It also enables those who wish to go elsewhere, to leave at an earlier hour which is of more consequence, Abroad however, with foreign habits than with our own. people visit in the evening when they wish to find their friends at home, and thus avoid a great amount of cardleaving and loss of time. I heard the present American Minister, Gen. Schenck, observe that London visiting might be arranged more effectually and economically (as to time) by a system of visiting-clearing-houses, one for each district; boxes, like post-office letter-boxes, bearing the names of all one's acquaintance, being arranged round a room, with a key belonging to the respective families, into which cards or invitations could be dropped, the boxes to be emptied each day by some one sent from each family. Our Transatlantic brethren are certainly far ahead of us in practical suggestions, and might perhaps give us valuable hints upon the subject of the present article, as well as upon the art of visiting, or rather card-leaving. In this country it is difficult to prevent politics from forming too large a portion of conversation; the addition of music or cards in the evening tends to prevent this, and to give a fair chance of amusement for all tastes.

A few words, before I conclude, about the arrangements of the dinner-table. Although a dining-room should be

well lighted throughout, the brightest spot, the high light of the picture, should be the table itself. Wax candles are the most perfectly unobjectionable mode of lighting, the most pleasing to the eyes, and without the distress to the organs of smell which may arise from lamps. Small shades upon the candles throw the light upon the cloth and table, and prevent any glare upon the eyes. Gas-light is to many quite intolerable, at least, as managed in England, for it frequently produces a feeling of weight on the head, and general discomfort, even if discomfort to the olfactory organs can be avoided. The present fashion of flower decoration is extremely pretty, and can be carried out without any great expense, if bright colors and general effect are more considered than mere cost. All table ornaments should be kept low, so as not to intercept the view of any one by all the other guests. For the number of dishes for a party of twelve or sixteen, I recommend the Russian menu, No. 3.

Having now gone through what seem to me the defects of the present system of London dinners, and pointed out some of the remedies, thinking that most people admit that some reform is desirable, I must leave the matter in the hands of those able and willing to head the great reform movement. A clever author who has written upon the art of "putting things," says that if you want to commend a subject to a Tory leader, you talk of it as a sovereign remedy; if to a Whig, you call it a radical improvement; so that in my wishing to please all parties I have been, perhaps, injudicious in calling a diminution of the hours and the quantity of food at dinners, a reform movement. A moderate constitutional change would best express what

I want.

The question now is, Who is to bell the cat? Who is bold enough to reform the present system by shortening the hours and decreasing the quantity of food at our London dinners? Will the movement originate on the Liberal side? I remember hearing a remark made by a gentleman in the House of Commons, whose eyes were directed from the front bench on the Conservative to the Liberal side, "Is it possible that a ministry formed by those men can stand? I do not believe they have a cook amongst them who can dress a good dinner." If this be so, we must look elsewhere. Is there no lady of high rank, no Baring or no Rothschild, who, with cooks about whose merits there can be no difference of opinion, will set an example of constitutional reform in this matter by,

1. Limiting the number of guests to twelve or fourteen; 2. Keeping the dining-room cool and well-ventilated; 3. Sitting down to dinner at quarter-past eight without waiting for guests who may be absent;

4. Returning to the drawing-room by half-past nine to quarter before ten;

5. Reducing the present number of dishes?

If this were done, London dinners might be, what they ought to be, from the materials to be collected in London society, the most agreeable reunions in the world; and much useless expense would be avoided, so that these entertainments might be within reach of even very moderate fortunes, and our nation be rescued from the reproach so often cast upon us by foreigners, of preferring quantity to quality, and a large party to a sociable and lively dinner. ́A French gentleman once said to me, "En Angleterre on se nourrit bien, mais on ne dîne pas."

THOMSON HANKEY.

THE TROIS FRERES PROVENCAUX.

THE latest obituary announcement from Paris is the demise of the Trois Frères Provençaux. The famous brothers will be sadly missed by foreigners whose acquaintance with them was of the slightest, while they will leave many a Parisian habitué inconsolable. These are the events that speak to us eloquently of the uncertainty of life and the instability of prosperity. We know that occasionally a great Parisian restaurant collapses in the effulgence of seem

It was

ing success, with a crash that must shake the crys tal in the salons of its compeers. We remember the melancholy fate of the great Café de Paris, although it boasted the brightest dining windows on the Boulevards, and rumor had never trifled with the credit of its cellars and cuisine. Yet had the impression of its sudden end been more recent and more vivid, it would scarcely have prepared us for this latest shock. The Trois Frères had grown from small beginnings into an international institution. Since the days when the Brothers Maneilh entertained the happy thought of starting it in a suite of modest salons au premier, it had thriven alike through domestic revolution and foreign occupation. It had overrun its old home, and burrowed away in depths far beneath the pavements of the Palais Royal. It had blazed out in more than the usual magnificence of plate-glass and gilding, frescoes and spotless marble. It garnished the golden balustrades of its staircases and its little salons with the rarest exotics. Yet there was a winning decency about its luxurious coquetry of decoration. It made itself attractive to all, and it scared no one. There are rivals of the Brothers we could name, but will not, whose fame is rather the notoriety of the small hours. Their specialité is the suppers, regardless of expense, where it is the supremest chic to throw the dessert to the coachmen in the street, and pelt the rakish attendants with napoleons. Accidents may hap pen in the best-regulated establishments, but as a rule noting of that sort was tolerated at the Trois Frères. partly its luck that it was far removed from the opera. But even on a Saturday night in the season you could lead your wife or sister down stairs from a late dinner, without finding the place swarming with screeching pierrots and columbines offensively décolletées. Consequently its relatively ostentatious respectability made it the family house of call; while at the same the quiet bon vivant knew he might rely upon dinner more carefully served and attendance more respectful than he was likely to find elsewhere. The cooks had not been kept up all night; the waiters had not been demoralized by ridiculous "tips," or besotted with mixing wine from bottle ends. Its connection was consequently promiscuous and extensive as might be. Enter it early, passing the trio of graces behind the counter to the right and already the earlier native birds had begun to dally with their deliberate meal; men for the most part of the middle age or more, with carefully elaborated exteriors and bits of ribbon glowing in their button-holes. This grave gentleman had secured his fau'ueil at the neighboring Français, that other with more of the roué is chuckling in anticipation of the farce at the easy-principled house in the There are some French family groups, too, who cannot contribute much to the caisse, for they wash down the simplest fare with ordi aire. We do not say they are wrong. A simple dinner admirably cooked gives pleasure sufficient in the present, while it carries no thought of care for the morrow. But very different family parties came dropping in. Mamma and the girls and a shy English father caught in the country, and floundering hopelessly in the mysteries of the multifarious carte. Taking shots at random, and ordering wildly whole portions for each, they play freely into the hands of the establishment. Yet they scarcely pay so well as that sallow New Yorker used to the prices of Delmonico's, who is entertaining half a dozen dames of shoddy who have learned to identify cost and quality. Then there are all the single men who come solitarily in pairs and quartettes from all nations and countries, from the English plunger heavily in debt at home to the olive-colored creole who owns a Mexican mine or two, besides Heaven knows how many haciendas in the tierra caliente. We need not diverge into the grand apartments with the rosy cupids dis porting themselves in flights among the looking-glasses, on the occasion of a bourgeois fes'in de noces. But such was the connection of the Trois Frères, and in happier times such was the aspect of its sa'ons pretty much all the year round. When fashionable Paris was at the waters the wandering stranger came to the rescue.

corner.

Why then should the venerable establishment have sue cumbed in the seeming bloom of its perennial you? We