The English eat, or at least a portion of them do, and they cook, but who ever heard of an English eating-house, or of an English cook? We have heard of DOLLY'S chop-house, but its reputation was gained by the quality of its guests rather than the merit of its cooks. For aught the world knows to the contrary, there is not an eating-house in any of the European capitals beside Paris. But every body knows the names, the situation, and even the _carte du jour_ of at least a dozen restaurants in the French capital without ever having been there. The 'Rocher' is as well known as the Rock of Gibraltar, and Very and Chatelain have reputations as extended as those of Guizot and Theirs. Vatel is more famous than Vattel, and the cook will doubtless be remembered when the philosopher is forgotten: he will never die, at least, while the memory of Sevigne lives. Not long since we saw on a sign-board, stuck up at the entrance of a cellar on the corner of Reade-street and Broadway, '_Au Rocher de Cancale_,' painted in very soup-maigreish looking letters, with an attempt at the representation of an oyster-shell. Now look at the impudence of the thing; at the Frenchiness of it! Here we are with our Prince's Bays, our York-rivers, our Mill-ponders, our Shrewsburys, and Blue pointers, a shilling's worth of either worth all the shell-fish that ever grew on the French coast; and this Parisian sets up his sign in the midst of these marine riches, with a 'ROCHER DE CANCALE!' No other nation could have been guilty of such arrogance. No Englishman has ever had the temerity to insult us with an allusion to his dirty 'natives.' What would be thought of an American who should have the presumption to open a House of Refreshment in the Rue St. Jacques or the Palais Royale, and announce to the Parisians that he would serve up for them Prince's Bay oysters, fried, stewed, roasted or in the shell; clam soup, pumpkin-pies, waffles, hoe-cakes and slap-jacks, or mush-and-milk and buck-wheats? Would the most inquisitive or most vulgar man in France venture within the doors of a house where such barbarisms were perpetrated? But why not, Monsieur? Why not, as well as for us to crowd the _salons_ of the Messieurs who tempt us with their equally outlandish _carte a manger_, or who exclaim to us when we enter: 'MON salon est toujours gami, Et mon buffet bien assorti, Ou vante mon chablis, Mes huitres, mes radis, Ainsi que raes salmis De perdrix: Mes godiveaux au ris; Mes tourtes, mes hachis; Fameux palis, gros et petits; Boeuf au naturel, au coulis; Papillotes, Gibelotes, Matelotes, Fines compotes,' etc., etc.