What a kindly spirit of good-fellowship we discern in the frank epicureanism of Sydney Smith! what generous sympathy for a _bon vivant_ whose lines have led him into desert places! “Luttrell came over for a day,” he writes, “from whence I know not, but I thought not from good quarters; at least he had not his usual soup and patti look. There was a forced smile upon his countenance which seemed to indicate plain roast and boiled, a sort of apple-pudding depression, as if he had been staying with a clergyman.” How creditable, too, is his anxiety to please Luttrell, when that amiable sybarite becomes _his_ guest! “Mrs. Sydney,” he declares, “grows pale with alarm as the rich dishes are uncovered;” and yet so admirable a housewife might have shared in the superb confidence of Lord Worcester when cautioned by Sir Henry Halford to leave all such indiscreet messes alone. “Side dishes,” said the great physician, “are poison.” “Yours may be,” retorted Lord Worcester; “and I should never dream of eating them, but mine are a very different story.” So, too, were Sydney Smith’s, and the celebrated salad which gained for him nearly as wide a reputation as his wit was only one of many famous recipes, and probably no greater in its way than the mysterious pudding whose secret he imparted as an especial favor to the importunate Lady Holland. Those who had the happiness of sitting at his table rose from it with tranquil gratitude, “serenely full,” and conscious, let us hope, of his own graceful sentiment, “Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day.” There is one more subject to consider; one more aspect of the case, fraught with tender and melancholy associations. Like the lost joys of our youth; like the taste for apple-dumplings, which Lamb recognized as belonging only to those whose innocence was unimpaired; like the vanishing of gentle thoughts with a growing distaste for asparagus; so is the sorrowful blank left in our lives by the recollection of noble dishes that have been, and that are no longer. What of that lost recipe of Menander’s for fish sauce—an ambrosial sauce whose fame has flitted down to us from dim ages, and the eating of which would have filled to the brim Dr. Johnson’s cup of happiness? And what of its modern counterpart, now also gone forever, the famous green sauce which La Coste offered to Sir Thomas Dundas at the Duke of York’s table, whispering to him with unctuous fervor, “_Avec cette sauce là, on pourrait manger son grand-père_”? What of the bream-pie that disappeared with the good monks, driven from British soil, and the mere recollection of which caused Peacock to bewail in spirit the too rapid dissolution of the monasteries? And what of sack—_Falstaff’s_ sack—that made England the merry England of yore, and that took flight, like some old-fashioned genius, before the sombre days that were to follow? Surely if we knew its secret, we should learn how to laugh once more.