But it is for qualities more sterling than those of a vocal nature that the confrère of the cook deserves recognition. He has his trifling faults, to be sure--who is without them? He is obstinate in being driven to market, perhaps, knowing the fate which awaits him, and possibly his assurance may be somewhat obnoxious at public gatherings. It is admitted also that his _savoir faire_ at table, while distinguished for _aplomb_, is not entirely without alloy. But although the ill-mannered among his tribe occasionally thrust their feet not under but upon the mahogany, and are sometimes guilty of elbowing one another at mealtime, yet it must be conceded that they are never late at their engagements to dine; neither do they ever commit that unpardonable breach of etiquette--eating with a knife. It is a _belle fourchette_ rather than a fine blade they ply. The late Horace Greeley, to repeat a well-known story, tells of a farmer who drove a herd of Yorkshires to market,-- "When meads with slime were sprent, and ways with mire,"-- the march proving so fatiguing to his charges that they shrank in flesh and had to be disposed of at a sacrifice on finally arriving at their destination. When asked on his return how much he had realised from the transaction, he replied he had made nothing out of his charges themselves--"_he had had the pleasure of their company, though_." This point, through a singular oversight,--the idea is the same and equally charming everywhere,--Leigh Hunt has not touched upon in his essay "On the Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Driving." It may be of interest to those whose manuscripts have been rejected to know that Hunt's exquisite conceit was refused by the magazine to which it was addressed, but fortunately it was not on this account consigned to the waste-basket, but lives and is embalmed with Lamb's dissertation. "I could never understand to this day," writes Hunt in his autobiography, "what it is that made the editor of a magazine reject an article which I wrote, with the mock-heroic title of 'The Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Driving.' I used to think he found something vulgar in the title. He declared it was not he who rejected it, but the proprietor of the magazine. The proprietor, on the other hand, declared that it was not he who rejected it, but the editor. I published it in a magazine of my own, 'The Companion,' and found it hailed as one of my best pieces of writing." This reference of Hunt's recalls a piquant _épigramme_ of lamb that is not down in the cook-books. It was when the writer was taking his departure from an old Paris bookstall, a number of years ago, that, as he turned to leave, the proprietor remarked: "Monsieur perhaps might like to glance at an English work, '_sur l'Agneau_,' which came in with some other volumes recently."