Is it not wonderful thus to behold systems of cookery surviving systems of religion out of which they arose, and to see empires and kingdoms pass away, while the practices of the kitchen hold their ground? Special inclinations to certain kinds of food, may be constantly traced among different nations. Swine’s flesh has been from all times an abomination to the Arabians; and the aversion of the Jew to pork, wisely confirmed by Divine command, is a striking indication of his Arabian origin. The Germanic nations have always held beef in favour, and they alone know how to prepare it so as to make it savoury and nutritive. In Germany as in England, in Sweden as in Norway and Denmark, the German blood announces itself by this unfailing test. The Roman nations, _i. e._ the French, the Spaniards, and the Italians have all something in common in their kitchen as in their language and history. The Tartar princes long domesticated in St. Peterburg, and accustomed to every Western luxury, still have their feasts of horseflesh, which is dressed in twenty different forms, and which they wash down with the choicest vintages of France and Germany. Stow makes no mention of horse-baiting as among the pastimes of the Londoners in former days, and for the honour of our ancestors we could hope that so brutal a sport was seldom witnessed; but that it was occasionally practised is certain. Ass-baiting, although more common, does not appear to have become very popular; not probably from any lack of inclination to torment, but because the poor ass resisted feebly, and made but little sport. In Malcolm’s “Anecdotes of London” we are told, that so late as 1682, horse-baiting was witnessed, and under circumstances of singular barbarity. Notice was given in the public papers that on the 12th of April, a horse of uncommon strength, and between eighteen and nineteen hands high, would be baited to death at his Majesty’s bear-garden, at the Hope, on the Bank-side, for the amusement of the Morocco ambassador, and any nobility who knew the horse, or would pay the price of admission. It seems that this animal originally belonged to the Earl of Rochester, and being of a ferocious disposition, had killed several other horses, for which misdeeds he was sold to the Earl of Dorchester, and in his service he committed several similar offences; he was then transferred to the worse than savages, who kept the bear-garden. On the day appointed, several dogs were set on the ferocious steed, but he destroyed, or drove them from the area. At length his owners determined to reserve him for a future day’s sport, and directed a person to lead him away; but before the horse had reached London bridge, the spectators demanded the fulfilment of the promise of baiting him to death, and began to destroy the building. At last the poor beast was brought back, and other dogs set upon him without effect, when he was stabbed to death with a sword.