LETTER XXXV.

Corrected Opinion of the Superiority of English Meat -Veal and Mutton-Soups and Broths-Hypothesis, accounting for the Inferiority of English Animals, and the Superiority of English Vegetables to those of France-Cleanly Habits of the English— Domestic Architecture of London-Leases—Brickmaking, and Building-Insurance against FireNew Quarters of London-Altered Habits of the Nobility.

London.

I SAID, on my arrival at Brighthelmstone, that I had never tasted better meat than was supplied to me at the meal of which I partook. My opinion is somewhat altered since then. Probably it was influenced by the excessive hunger I experienced, after having had my stomach cleared by the mal de mer. I agree with Sir G., that English meat, generally speaking, has neither the consistence, the juice, nor the exquisite flavour of that of

France. The veal has all the imperfection of flesh not completely formed; the mutton has nothing to recommend it but its fat, which is so much the more offensive as the butchers do not take off the tallow. The English seem to verify, in this respect, the prophecy of Ezekiel-" And ye shall eat fat till ye be full."

The English are almost strangers to soups. If they sometimes have broths for the sick, or soup for foreigners, the meat with which they make them is never after to be seen-at least at great tables. As it is totally exhausted, and deprived of its juice, it is no longer fit to be served up or eaten ; it is nothing but a caput mortuum.

The boiled meat, brought to table, passes on the fire only the time requisite for its boiling, and the water is thrown away.

If from vegetation we can draw any just conclusion with regard to animal nutrition, that of England will explain to us why the

flesh of animals, each of which is of a consirable size in its kind, is there less firm, less compact, and less succulent than in France. In a mild climate, subject neither to the violent heats nor excessive colds of France, the English atmosphere, loaded with fogs, and always humid, by hastening vegetation, renders it stronger and more vigorous, on account of the uniform suppleness preserved by the strainers through which the juices circulate. It is easy to perceive this from a view of the trees, whether cut down or growing. They are covered with a sort of moss, or rather down, light, and of a greenish colour, which may be rubbed off with the hand, and is doubtless the effect of an easy transpiration, or of the humidity of the atmosphere. Hence it is that, in England, plane trees, and others of a similar nature, which are cultivated in compliance with fashion, have that prodigious celerity in growing, which the climate of France can never impart.

Extend this analogy to herbs, and to all the smaller vegetables which cattle feed upon; extend it also to animal nutrition, and it will then result, that the flesh of English animals, being of a substance less firm, less compact, and less solid than that of animals in France, is not equally able to bear the operation which prepares the best dish in French cookery. It is perhaps for this reason, that our salt beef is so much inferior to the salt beef of England and Ireland, that those who fit out our shipping give a preference to it. Flesh takes salt, more or less, as well as all the preparations which salting requires, in proportion to the greater or less density of its parts.

The humid and dark air which envelopes London, is a reason why the residents should have acquired habits of cleanliness; and in this respect they vie with the Dutch. The plate, hearth-stones, furniture, apartments doors, stairs, the very street-doors, their locks, and the large brass knockers, are every

day washed, scoured, or rubbed. Even in lodging houses, the middle of the stairs is often covered with carpet to prevent them from being soiled. All the apartments in the house have mats, or carpets; a custom which now begins to prevail in France; but there it is merely a fashion, here a necessity.

The houses in London are all wainscoted

with deal; the stairs and the floors are composed of the same materials, and cannot bear the continual rubbing of feet without being cracked and worn. This renders carpets or coverings necessary.

London would be uninhabitable, if, to supply it with constant fuel, it had not a resource in sea-coal; a resource which immense forests would be insufficient to equal.

All the houses in London, excepting only a few in the very heart of the city, belong to contractors, or speculators, who build upon ground, of which a lease is taken for forty, fifty, or ninety-nine years, upon condition of