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The School of Savarin (Diplomat but whose features)

diplomat, but whose features in any event proclaim the genial companion, the ready raconteur, and one upon whom the pleasures of the senses exercise an important influence. It was this nice adjustment of the mental and physical, this happy balance of mind and being, that combined to produce a work which may justly be classed among the most original of the nineteenth century. "To fulfil the task I propose to myself," observes the author in his preface, "it was necessary to be a physician, a physiologist, and even more or less of a classical scholar." To these qualifications he added those of a thorough man of the world, a natural epicure, a keen observer, a metaphysician, and a writer unusually gifted with style and sententiousness of expression. Impressed by his masterly grasp of his subject, La Reynière, on reading the volume for the first time, immediately proclaimed its supremacy, asserting that it should open the doors of the Academy if they were to be opened by a superior mind. Among the many recognitions of the writer's genius none is more appreciative than that of Balzac, whose "Physiology of Marriage" was inspired by the "Physiology of Taste." Treatises innumerable on gastronomy have since appeared, but few are worthy of serious consideration, the majority being more or less offensive or mere echoes of a familiar strain. With Savarin gastronomy became an all-absorbing enthusiasm a prolific vein that hitherto had been imperfectly explored. It was, above all, an art, a potent factor in the pleasures of life, a valuable auxiliary to health, a means of advancing the amenities of existence-a finesse, in short, of which he was to be the analyst and interpreter, the La Bruyère and the Sainte-Beuve. Like the sprightly Ninon in her letters, who at eighty was still able to captivate and charm, Savarin might have written of the meditations of his advanced age: "We are not indulging in what is termed fine conversation--we are philosophising." The reader who will look to the "Physiology" for practical directions on cookery will be disappointed. In place of a cook-book he will find a reflective dissertation on the æsthetics of the table, replete with wit, humour, and anecdote; a treatise dealing more with physical functions than the fashioning of sauces, and with the fork and wine-glass rather than with the chef and casserole.