OLD-FASHIONED FRIENDS.

What a horrible thing it is to be ashamed of one’s old friends, merely because they are old-fashioned. The other day some “English epicures,” top-sawyers of London ton, dined with us, when a dropper-in, from Connaught, took a place (left vacant by a late apology). I had dined with my provincial guest many years back, and thought it the greatest possible honour to be asked to his Castle Rackrent. He then appeared to me a very fine person, and his table a very fine table. But, horror of horrors! what were my feelings when, uncovering the entrée next him, before the soup was removed, he asked one of the most noted Amphitryons of the day, if he should help him to some of the savories; and when, after calling bouilli, bully-beef! petits-pâtés, mutton-pies! soup, broth! crême-au-pistache, “raspberry crame!” and fondue, “podden!” he ended by sending back his glass of ale, not because he “never touched malt,” but, because, as he told the servant, “he preferred his porther out of a pewther pot, after the ould fashion.” French cookery has made but slow progress among the “mere Irish,” in the remote provinces; and “the jug-day” at Bogmore (far below the original from which it was copied) is still to be found in nearly all its details among the hospitable festivities of the genuine and unmixed descendants of Milesius.

The science of cookery is the science of civilization; and considering the effect which the material, raw or cooked, has upon the digestion, and the digestion on the brain, it is a science of quite as much importance, as any other in the great scale of utility and consideration. When Lord Byron took to vegetable diet, he used to say to one, from whom I had the anecdote, “When you eat beef-steaks, a’n’t you afraid of committing murder?”