Among old English dishes, "Bubble and Squeak" is the fanciful name applied to fried beef or mutton and cabbage,-- "When 'midst the frying-pan, in accents savage, The beef so surly quarrels with the cabbage,"-- for the preparation of which widely varied recipes are given in the vade-mecums of English cookery. Kitchener even set the lines to music, and furnished a sauce for the dish. Such a dish illustrates the excellent digestion of the English. To the French it would be impossible, and a German would think twice before attempting it. But this were harmless compared with an English green sauce for green geese or ducklings, the prescription for which reads: "Mix a quarter of a pint of sorrel-juice, a glass of white wine, and some scalded gooseberries. Add sugar and a bit of butter, and boil them up." To cavil is easy, however, and in matters relating to cookery it were well to bear in mind the philosophic lines of King, a contemporary of the late lamented Mrs. Glasse: "Good nature will some failings overlook, Forgive mischance, not errors of the Cook; As, if no salt is thrown about the dish, Or nice crisp'd parsley scatter'd on the fish; Shall we in passion from our dinner fly, And hopes of pardon to the Cook deny, For things which Mrs. Glasse herself might oversee, And all mankind commit as well as she?" And if English cookery and English restaurants leave much to be desired, one should not forget that the art is still far from having attained perfection in the United States, where the stranger in like manner might find ample cause for complaint, particularly in the poor and slipshod cookery of the hostelries of its country towns. Certainly all who have visited in England will recall the generous hospitality of its people, the almost homelike comfort and cleanliness of its inns, and a service that may not be equalled by that of any other nation. When to these are added the glories of the English countryside--the idyllic setting amid which many a repast has been savoured--one may well overlook any trifling lapses of the cook, in view of enchantments that must ever be retained in tender recollection. [Illustration] AT TABLE WITH THE CLERGY "Bishop and Abbot and Prior were there; Many a Monk and many a Friar." INGOLDSBY LEGENDS: The Jackdaw of Rheims. Whether cookery is indebted to the Roman Catholic Church to the full extent that is commonly supposed is questionable. It is certain, however, that the olden monks and friars performed considerable service in preserving ancient recipes and inventing new formulas, many of which have been improved upon as the science has advanced.