It is alleged that as good results in the way of roasting can be got from an oven as from the spit. But that oven must be ventilated--with both an inlet and an outlet ventilator, for one will not act without the other. It is also advisable that said oven should be cleaned out occasionally; for a hot oven with no joint therein will emit odours anything but agreeable, if not attended to; and it is not too sweeping a statement to say that the majority of ovens in busy kitchens are foul. The system of steaming food (the alleged "roasts" being subsequently browned in an oven) is of comparatively recent date; but the oven as a roaster was the invention of one Count Rumford, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In one of his lectures on oven-roasting, this nobleman remarked that he despaired of getting any Englishman to believe his words; so that he was evidently confronted with plenty of prejudice, which it is devoutly to be prayed still exists in English homes. For I do vow and protest that the oven odours which pervade the neighbourhood of the Strand, London, at midday, are by no means calculated to whet the appetite of the would-be luncher or diner. This is what such an authority as Mr. Buckmaster wrote on the subject of the spit _versus_ the oven: "I believe I am regarded as a sort of heretic on the question of roasting meat. My opinion is that the essential condition of good roasting is constant basting, and this the meat is not likely to have when shut up in an iron box; and what is not easily done is easily neglected." In this connection there are more heretics than Mr. Buckmaster. But if during my lifetime the days of burning heretics should be revived, I shall certainly move the Court of Criminal Appeal in favour of being roasted or grilled before, or over, the fire, instead of being deprived of my natural juices in an iron box. Some few "roast" houses are still in existence in London, but they be few and far between; and since Mr. Cooper gave up the "Albion," nearly opposite the stage-door of Drury Lane Theatre, the lover of good, wholesome, English food has lost one old-fashioned tavern in the which he was certain of enjoying such food.