THE miller grinds the corn delivered to him, and sorts the flour into three qualities, called firsts, seconds, and thirds. The first is employed for French-bread, and for the finest and whitest sort of wheaten-bread consumed in large towns. Household-bread is made from a mixture of firsts and seconds, with, occasionally, some proportion of thirds. Brown-bread is made from a mixture of the better boulted flour, with the meal as it leaves the mill-stones; the portion of bran contained in this kind of bread gives the colour, and being of a resinous nature, imparts medicinal properties to the bread, which renders it wholesome to some, and the reverse to other, constitutions. SALT is a necessary ingredient in bread, improving its flavour and rendering it lighter. The proportion to be used varies, according to the quality of the flour; about seven pounds to every four hundred weight of flour is the average quantity. Many bakers add potatoes to the flour. The potatoes are steamed till they become mealy, and are then pounded fine; this meal is mixed up with cold water, to the consistence of cream, and being made to ferment by the addition of yeast, (which will be presently described,) it is added to the flour during the process of making the bread. The admixture of potatoes neither injures the quality nor the wholesomeness of the bread; but adulterations, which are not so innocent, are sometimes had recourse to, for the pur pose of concealing the taste of damaged flour, or to make the bread white when formed of second flour, &c. The use of alum is liable to this objection, as being positively injurious to the health; it is employed to lighten the dough. Before bread is made, a certain preparation called ferment, or leaven, must be obtained, for the purpose of making the dough rise, or become light and spongy, in consequence of its undergoing one stage of the chemical action called fermentation. It is found by experience that this action is most readily and perfectly brought about by introducing a portion of dough which has already fermented to a certain degree, and is called leaven, or by adding to the dough some liquid in a fermenting state; this liquid is usually what is called yeast, the froth that rises to the top of malt liquor, while fermenting. If this yeast were taken from strong beer, the quantity of hops employed in the brewing would impart a disagreeably bitter taste to the bread. It must either be yeast from ale, or yeast made on purpose for the baker. In great cities, baker's yeast is usually made by boiling malt and hops as if for brewing; when the wort* is cool, a quantity of flour is mixed up with it, and brewer's yeast is added to excite fermentation; when this begins to decline, the mixture is strained, and is ready for use. In remote districts, where yeast for baking cannot be obtained as often as it is wanted, leaven is employed instead of it. Flour and water are well mixed up into a stiff dough, which is set in a warm place, and undergoes a spontaneous fermentation; bubbles of carbonic acid gas form in the mass, giving it that porous spongy texture which is observable in all bread, and causing the dough to swell up or rise; it also becomes rather sour: in this state it is leaven, and is capable of exciting a similar fermentation in other dough sooner than would be produced spontaneously, for it usually takes a fortnight at ordinary temperatures to bring on this action. Hence a piece of this prepared dough is added to the batch of which the bread is to be made. When bread is made in the usual way and in large quantities, the following is the process. The requisite proportion of yeast is diluted with hot water till the mixture is of the temperature of 100 degrees; some salt is added, and the liquor poured into a wooden kneading-trough. One third of the whole quantity of flour about to be made into bread is first mixed with the liquor, being well worked with the hands, until the combination is thoroughly effected and the mass free from lumps; when this is the case, the trough is covered up closely, and the mixture is left for several hours, during which time a fermentation commences, and the mass swells: when this has arrived at the proper stage, the whole is gradually incorporated with a new quantity of cold, or luke-warm, water, according to the season of the year, with some salt dissolved in it. The remainder of the flour is then added, and the whole again kneaded and worked together to a uniform consistence of a stiff paste-this is dough. The dough is again left for an hour or two, till it begins to work and swell again, when it becomes sufficiently spongy, it is made up into loaves and put into the oven. The oven is a chamber built of fire-bricks, and having an arched roof or dome, with a flat floor of tiles; it is generally underground, or if not, its walls should be sufficiently thick to obviate the loss of heat by radiation. Wood, where sufficiently abundant, constitutes the fuel for heating the oven. A quantity of small brushwood, with larger logs and billets of wood, not yielding turpentine or resin in burning, is piled up on the tile floor and set on fire; when thoroughly lighted the door of the oven is closed, a small aperture only being left to supply air, and as soon as the fuel is burnt out, the ashes are hastily swept out and the bread put in. But in this country, where wood-fuel is every day becoming more expensive, ovens are heated with coal, a separate furnace being constructed adjoining the oven, with a flue which opens into it; another funnel over the mouth allows the escape of the smoke. A fire being made in the furnace, the bread is not put into the oven till all smoke has ceased, or till the fire burns quite clear; the strong draught up the funnel prevents any soot lodging in the oven by carrying the smoke up before it. The loaves of bread are placed regularly on the tile floor, touching each other, the largest size being put in first, to give them more time to bake. When the oven is filled, the door is shut, and the heat kept up for two hours, which time is sufficient for the ordinary sized loaves. * These terms will be explained in a subsequent paper. The loaves, touching each other, are not browned, or made crusty, on their sides which are in contact, and the bottom, which rests on the tiles, though more heated than the sides, is less crusted than the top, which alone is exposed to the full heat; these are the causes of the difference in texture and colour of the under and upper crusts. Bread loses about one-tenth of its weight by the evaporation of some of its moisture in the oven, and a small portion more in cooling when withdrawn. The temperature of the oven should be about 480° to 500°. French-bread, as it is called, owes its superior lightness to the flour being mixed with warm milk instead of water; and when made in private families, a portion of butter and some eggs are added, but in this case it ceases to be bread, and becomes rather a kind of cake. Biscuits differ from bread in being made without yeast or leaven, and the dough is prepared so stiff, that it requires to be kneaded either by being trampled on, or by being worked with a wooden bar, fixed at one end, while the other being held in the hand, enables the operator to chop the dough, as it were, on a flat table with great force. VERMICELLI AND MACCARONI ARE made from the finest wheaten flour, worked up into a thick paste with pure water, and some salt and saffron added. To incorporate these thoroughly, instead of being worked with the hands, as in preparing common dough, the wooden lever, described as employed in making biscuits, is made use of. Men or boys sit astride this bar, and by springing up with their feet, they give the beam an up and down motion, which causes an intimate union of the flour and water exposed to the action. The thick paste is then forcibly pressed through the holes in the bottom of a cylinder, or chest, and according to the size of the holes, or of the paste when forced through them, the preparation derives its name, maccaroni being given to the largest size, vermicelli to the smaller: and the paste when formed into thin broad ribbons from the holes being of that shape, is called sassagna. Maccaroni is made into hollow cylinders by means of a piece of wire being supported in the centre of each hole, from a small bridge raised over and across it. The object of giving this forin, is to cause it to cook more readily in hot water. Maccaroni, Vermicelli, &c., in this country, are employed in soups, and also in a dish of the same name, prepared with grated cheese. In Italy they constitute a large proportion of the food of all ranks, especially at Naples, where the best is manufactured. STARCH. Ir a quantity of good flour, or meal,. be worked with the hands under a stream of pure water, till the water ceases to flow off white, what is left will be found to be a tough, elastic mass, which, when dried, becomes brown, hard, and semi-transparent, brittle enough to break, and giving out, when burnt, an animal smell like horn; this is gluten. If the water which has washed the flour be evaporated, a white powder is left, which is Starch, or farina. Starch may, therefore, be procured from all farinaceous vegetable substances, abundantly from all the cerealia, from potatoes, chestnuts, &c. Starch for use is obtained by grating potatoes, horsechestnuts, or other analogous substances; the pulp is put into hair-sieves, and a current of water being suffered to flow through it, the starch is carried away in the liquid from which it subsides in other vessels. Or flour is mixed up with diluted yeast in water, and is allowed to ferment, when the starch subsides in consequence of the chemical changes thus brought about. The starch prepared by these means, not being, perhaps, quite free from gluten, forms into concrete masses, and does not remain as a powder. Pure starch is opaque, of a fine white colour, without taste or smell; it is insoluble in cold water, but with warm it forms a semi-transparent jelly. The best way of preparing this jelly is by mixing the starch, first pounded quite fine, with some cold water; then, boiling water being poured on this mixture, it being stirred well all the time, the conversion into the jelly is complete, and almost in stantaneous. The uses of starch are, to make hair-powder, to stiffen linen after washing, and for other purposes in the arts. Starch being the most nutritive part of farinaceous vegetable substances, it is a favourite food for invalids, and constitutes the principal part of Arrow-root, Salep, Tapi oca, and Sago, the different flavour of these substances being derived from the admixture of a small portion of foreign matter, peculiar to the plants which yield them. Arrow-root is only the starch obtained from the Maranta arundinacea, an American plant, resembling the common Indian-shot of our gardens. It is often adulterated with potato-starch, and this is even sold instead of it, for they resemble each other so intimately that they can hardly be distinguished even by chemists. Salep is prepared from the tuberous roots of the Orchis mascula, but it is little used now. Tapioca is obtained from the roots of the Jatropha manihot, the same plant which yields the Cassava, of which a species of bread is made in the West Indies and in South America. Sago is obtained from the stem of a species of palm, the Metroxylon sagu, a native of the East Indies. BARLEY RANKS in importance next to Wheat, not as a direct article of food in this country, but as affording an innocent and invigorating fermented liquor, consumed by the middling and lower orders, and constituting the principal drink of agricultural labourers. There is nothing peculiar in the cultivation of this grain that requires notice in this place, we shall, therefore, proceed to describe the process of brewing, or of making Ale or Beer. In order that a liquor may undergo the vinous fermentation, it is necessary that it should contain sugar; now it has been found that the farina of the seeds of plants is partly converted into sugar by germination. Starch and sugar differ in no chemical respects from each other; but while the seed is in the dormant state, or before the vital principle exerts itself to produce a living plant from it, the starch which constitutes the greater part of most seeds, especially those of the Cerealia, has, to our senses, but very slight traces of a saccharine flavour. When, however, the warmth and moisture of the soil in which the seed is sown, causes it to germinate, the starch in it undergoes a considerable change, and is converted into a kind of sugar, distinctly sweet to the taste, and capable of causing water in which it is dissolved to ferment; but if germination proceeds too far, a further change is brought about, and the saccharine principle is destroyed. The object, therefore, is, by artificial means, to induce the seed to germinate, and then to check this growth by destroying the vitality of the seed at that precise point, when the starch is most nearly converted into a sugar, this is done by MALTING. THE first part of the process is to steep the seed in water, in order to soften the integuments, and thus to admit of the radicle, or rootlet, of the future plant forcing its way through them; when the seed grows naturally in the soil, the moisture of the earth effects this. Barley, according to the season, and other circumstances, is steeped for from forty to sixty hours; the steeping must be in pure water, and is ordered by our Excise laws to be done in lead or stone cisterns, of a certain size and form. When the seed is sufficiently saturated, the water is drained off, and the barley is put in shallow chests, called couch-frames, where it remains for four days, during which it begins to sprout, and heat is evolved, or the grain sweats, as it is technically called. While the grain is heaped up, as it is to a depth of thirty inches by law, in the frame, the central part, heating more than the outside layers, would germinate fastest, and the whole mass would be unequal in this respect; it is, therefore, necessary to spread the barley out in thinner layers, and this is called flooring, because it is laid on the boarded floor of large, low, airy, dark chambers, which must be free from all damp, and perfectly clean and sweet in every respect. The grain is spread about three or four inches thick on these floors, every where of an equal depth, and narrow walks are left to admit of persons getting at every part of the layers in order to turn them, so that every grain may be equally heated by the chemical process accompanying germination, and, therefore, every grain have grown equally, and yield an equal proportion of saccharine matter. The time which barley must be on the floors depends on the temperature or season of the year, and varies, therefore, from fifteen to twenty days, or more; every part of the process of malting requires great attention and judgment, but the flooring the most so of any. The object is that the germination of the grain should have proceeded so far that the plumule, or little plant, may be just about to pierce through the coats of the seed, and this does not | happen till the radicle is half an inch in length; if the plumule were suffered to appear externally, the point of greatest sugariness (if we may coin a word for the occasion) will have passed, and this point will not be attained till the future plant is thus much developed. When this precise point is attained, the grain is spread on the floor of a kiln to be dried, and to have its vitality destroyed by heat. A malt-kiln is of the form of an inverted cone; at the widest, or upper part, there is a floor of tiles, or of iron plates, pierced with small holes to allow the heat of a fire, kindled below, to arrive at, and penetrate, the layer of malt, which is spread on this floor to a depth of four or five inches. The heat, which ought to be moderate, must be continued till all the moisture is dried up, and the grain is toasted brown, and all vitality is destroyed. According to the colour acquired in drying, malt is distinguished by the terms pale, brown, high-dried, &c. The colour of the beer is light or dark, according to the variety of malt from which it is brewed. NAMES OF STREETS, &c. I. CRUTCHED FRIARS, MINORIES, AND SAVAGE GARDENS. THE first-mentioned street is so called from the monastery of the Crossed, or Crutched, Friars, an ancient order of monks who, having derived their origin from a religious body in Italy, distinguished by the badge of the cross, settled in London in 1298. Their dress at first was gray, with a cross of scarlet cloth worked on it; but one of the latter popes ordained that they should thenceforth wear a tunic with a scapular, and over all a mantle of blue, and that instead of having a cross embroidered on their clothes, they should always carry a silver cross in their hands. This is said to have been an abuse arising from the vanity of the superior; for they originally bore only a cross of iron, and did not assume the silver one till 1462. Matthew Paris describes the first coming of these Friars, and speaks of their order generally with a degree of contempt. "In the twenty-ninth year of King Henry the Third," says he, "there came to the synod of the Bishop of Rochester, some friars appearing to be of a new order; namely, Cross-bearers, or Crouched; so called, because they carried their crosses on staves. They gained a habitation from the wealthy men, showing an unheard-of privilege granted them by the pope; viz., that no one should be allowed to reprove their order, or reproach or command them : they had also power granted to them to excommunicate such as should do so. All wise and discreet persons were astonished that so many new orders should daily start up without aid, and that so many learned men, despising the rules of the blessed Benedict, and of the most magnificent St. Austin, should suddenly fly to new and unheard-of establishments: notwithstanding it had been enacted in general council, who admitted and authorized preachers and Minors that from that time no new orders should be invented, or if invented, should not be admitted, lest those which were already received, should suffer contempt." Their settlement on this spot, in the street named from them, the only footing they were ever allowed to have in London, was gained for them by two citizens, Ralph Hosier, and William Saberns, who bought a piece of ground of the neighbouring priory of the Holy Trinity, for that purpose, and afterwards themselves became Friars of the Cross. The last prior, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, was Robert Stretham, whose scandalously immoral life, according to Stowe, hastened the dissolution of this monastery. The house itself stood at the corner of *The Minoresses, or Nuns of the Order of St. Clare, having been invited into England by Blanche, Queen of Navarre, were founded by Edmund, brother of King Edward the First, in 1293; they had an abbey on the site of the street thence called the Minories, * Crutched Friars; and the ground extended over a great part of Tower Hill, the site of the old Navy Office, and of the present Trinity Corporation House. The church belonging to the monastery occupied a large portion of what is now called Savage+ Gardens, and was of considerable size, consisting of a middle and side aisles, body and choir, in addition to side chapels, and several altars. On its destruction, the site first became a carpenter's yard, and the Friars' hall a glass-house, which house, says Stowe, burst out into a terrible fire in 1575; and having in it about 40,000 billets of wood, was consumed to the stone walls, which were so thick as to prevent the fire spreading further. The remaining space of the old monastery was built upon by Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and the mansion, afterwards inhabited by Lord Lumley, was called Lumley House. No traces of this or of the convent now exist. There are, however, on a neighbouring spot, and in the same parish of St. Olave's, some very ancient and curious dwellings, well worthy of notice, called Milburn's Alms-houses. This charitable foundation was erected and endowed by Alderman Sir John Milburn, in 1535, in Woodroff lane, (now Cooper's row,) leading to Tower Hill. All the houses have Gothic doors. and windows, and stand partly towards the street, and partly in an adjoining court or yard, which is a portion, probably, of the friary church-yard. The gateway leading to it is also of Gothic construction, and has above it, on a square stone, a low-relief of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, who appears supported by seven angels on a cloud. A Latin inscription records the name and pious design of the founder. There are at present sixteen tenements, the occupants receiving their dwelling rent-free, and 2s. 4d. a week each, the first of every month. The management is vested in the Draper's company, of which Milburn was a member. By his original constitution, the almspeople belonging to this charity, then styled beadsmen, were to come daily into the friars' church, close adjoining, and to seat themselves near their benefactor's tomb, which he had caused to be built during his life. Mass was to begin early in the morning, at the altar called Our lady's altar, in the middle aisle, where the said poor beadsmen, before the beginning of mass, Ione of them standing right over against the other, and encompassing the tomb of Sir John Milburn," were, two and two of them together, to say the Psalm De profundis, (cxxx.) and a Pater-noster, Ave, and Creed, with a collect thereto belonging; and such of them as could not repeat the Psalm were to say the Pater-noster, Ave, and Creed only, for the prosperous state of the said Sir John, his wife, and children, &c., while living, and afterwards for the repose of their souls when dead, under the erroneous idea that the intercession of survivors could prevail for the peace of departed souls! + So called from Viscount Savage, who resided there, and whose relative, Thomas Lord Colchester, of the Savage family, gave the name to Colchester-street, near the same spot. In Savage-gardens also dwelt Viscount Brouncker, the first President of the Royal Society, and Master of St. Katherine's; Sir Denny Ashburnham, and the famous Sir Cloudesley Shovel. THERE is no difference between anger and madness but continuance, for raging anger is a short madness. What redness, or swelling of the face, glaring of the eyes, stamelse argues the shaking of the hands and lips, paleness or mering of the tongue, stamping with the feet, unsteady motions of the whole body, rash actions which we remember not to have done, distracted and wild speeches? And madness, again, is nothing but a continued rage; yea, some madness rageth not: such mild madness is more tolerable than frequent and furious anger.-BISHOP HALL. MIDNIGHT MUSINGS. I AM now alone in my chamber. The family have long since retired. I have heard their steps die away, and the doors clap to after them. The murmur of voices and the peal of remote laughter no longer reach the ear. The clock from the church, in which so many of the former inhabitants of this house lie buried, has chimed the awful hour of midnight. I have sat by the window, and mused upon the dusky landscape, watching the lights disappearing one by one from the distant village; and the moon, rising in her silent majesty, and leading up all the silver pomp of heaven. As I have gazed upon these quiet groves, and shadowy lawns, silvered over and imperfectly lighted by streaks of dewy moonshine, my mind has been crowded by " thick coming fancies" concerning those spiritual beings which Walk the earth Unseen both when we wake and when we sleep. Are there, indeed, such beings? Is this space between us and the Deity filled up by innumerable orders of spiritual beings forming the same gradations between the human soul and divine perfection, that we see prevailing from humanity down to the meanest insect? It is a sublime and beautiful doctrine inculcated by the early fathers, that there are guardian angels appointed to watch over cities and nations, to take care of good men, and to guard and guide the steps of helpless infancy. Even the doctrine of departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings which were dear to them during the bodies' existence, though it has been debased by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is awfully solemn and sublime. However lightly it may be ridiculed, yet, the attention involuntarily yielded to it whenever it is made the subject of serious discussion, and its prevalence in all ages and countries, even among newly-discovered nations that have had no previous interchange of thought with other parts of the world, prove it to be one of those mysterious and instinctive beliefs, to which, if left to ourselves, we should naturally incline. In spite of all the pride of reason and philosophy, a vague doubt will still lurk in the mind, and perhaps will never be eradicated, as it is a matter that does not admit of positive demonstration. Who yet has been able to comprehend and describe the nature of the soul; its mysterious connexion with the body; or in what part of the frame it is situated? We know merely that it does exist: but whence it came, and when it entered into us, and how it is retained, and where it is seated, and how it operates, are all matters of mere speculation, and contradictory theories. If, then, we are ignorant of this spiritual essence, even while it forms a part of ourselves, and is continually present to our consciousness, how can we pretend to ascertain or deny its powers and operations, when released from its fleshy prison-house? Every thing connected with our spiritual nature is full of doubt and difficulty. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made:" we are surrounded by mysteries, and we are mysteries even to ourselves. It is more the manner in which this superstition has been degraded, than its intrinsic absurdity, that has brought it into contempt. Raise it above the frivolous purposes to which it has been applied, strip it of the gloom and horror with which it has been enveloped, and there is none, in the whole circle of visionary creeds, that could more delightfully elevate the imagination, or more tenderly affect the heart. It would become a sovereign comfort at the bed of death, soothing the bitter tear wrung from us by the agony of mortal separation. What could be more consoling than the idea that the souls of those we once loved were permitted to return and watch over our welfare?—that affectionate and guardian spirits sat by our pillows when we slept, keeping a vigil over our most helpless hours?-that beauty and innocence, which had languished into the tomb, yet smiled unseen around us, revealing themselves in those blest dreams wherein we live over again the hours of past endearments? A belief of this kind, would, I should think, be a new incentive to virtue, rendering us circumspect, even in our most secret moments, from the idea that those we once loved and honoured were invisible witnesses of all our actions. It would take away, too, from that loneliness and destitution, which we are apt to feel more and more as we get In in our pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world, and find that those who set forward with us lovingly and cheerily, on the journey, have one by one dropped away from our side. Place the superstition in this light, and ĺ confess I should like to be a believer in it.-I see nothing in it that is incompatible with the tender and merciful nature of our religion, or revolting to the wishes and affections of the heart. There are departed beings that I have loved as I never again shall love in this world; that have loved me as I never again shall be loved. If such beings do ever retain in their blessed spheres the attachments which they felt on earth; if they take an interest in the poor concerns of transient mortality, and are permitted to hold communion with those whom they have loved on earth, I feel as if now, at this deep hour of night, in this silence and solitude, Í could receive their visitation with the most solemn but unalloyed delight. In truth, such visitations would be too happy for this world: they would take away from the bounds and barriers that hem us in, and keep us from each other. Our existence is doomed to be made up of transient embraces, and long separations. The most intimate friendship-of what brief and scattered portions of time does it consist! We take and looks of kindness; and we rejoice together for a few each other by the hand; and we exchange a few words short moments; and then days, months, years intervene, and we have no intercourse with each other. Or if we dwell together for a season, the grave soon closes its gates, and cuts off all further communion; and our spirits must remain in separation and widowhood, until they meet again in that more perfect state of being, where soul shall dwell with soul, and there shall be no such thing as death, or absence, or any other interruption of our union.-WASHINGTON IRVING. SCENE AFTER A SUMMER SHOWER THE rain is o'er.-How dense and bright The general blessing; fresh and fair, Then turn to bathe and revel there. With trembling drops of light is hung. Fresh in her youth from God's own hand. Hear the rich music of that voice, Which sounds from all below, above; She calls her children to rejoice, And round them throws her arms of love. Drink in her influence-low-born care, And all the train of mean desire, Refuse to breathe this holy air, And 'mid this living light expire. GALILEO, the most profound philosopher of his age, when interrogated by the Inquisition as to his belief in a Supreme Being, replied, pointing to a straw on the floor of his dungeon, that from the structure of that object alone he would infer with certainty the existence of an intelligent Creator. LONDON: JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PARTS, PRICE SIXPENCE, AND Sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in the Kingdom. |