WE must now consider those attractive accessories of an artistic dinner, luncheon, or breakfast party, which, under the title of hors d'aeuvres, are gradually becoming popular amongst English people whose minds have expanded under the beneficial influence of travel in foreign countries.

Hors d'aeuvres, as you all doubtless know, are little dainties, or kickshaws, carefully prepared, and tastefully served, which, on the continent, are offered to the diner to whet his appetite prior to the more important discussion of the banquet itself. In Italy the service of these trifles under the title of "antipasto" precedes every meal as a standard custom. We have not yet acquired this agreeable fashion, notwithstanding that the sending around of three or four oysters to each guest, with a slice of brown bread and butter, etc., has for a long time, been no novelty either in England, or in Madras. Our custom, as a general rule, is to reserve the hors d'aeuvres to accompany the cheese, and to advocate a change would, I fear, be lost labour on the part of the author of these jottings. As far as luncheon, and breakfast parties are concerned, however, surely we might adopt the Italian custom as a novelty, and watch its effect upon our friends, before passing an opinion upon the suitability of the introduction?

Unlike the greater part of our culinary labours, this pretty item of our menu need cost us but little trouble. We can obtain many excellent things wherewith to captivate the appetite, and we can make others which in their way are generally successful. Olives farcies, olives plain, anchovies in oil, sardines, sliced Bologna sausage, preserved tunny, lax, lobster, cod's roes, seer-fish roes, reindeer's tongues, ox tongue, devilled ham, potted meats, fancy butters, herrings d la sardine, pilchards in oil, caviare, oysters, pickles, cucumber, radishes, thin bread and butter, wafer biscuits, oaten biscuits, and last but not least "Bombay ducks," provide us with a goodly list from which to choose our tasty morsels.

Hors d'oeuvres should be served in a dish divided into compartments. Tongue, sausages, and ham, should be most delicately sliced. Preserved fish should be very carefully wiped free from all tin-oil, and re-dressed with the finest salad oil: if of a large kind, small portions should be cut to suit the dish. Potted meats should be fresh, home-made, and prettily shaped in a cone. Caviare should be turned out of the tin, and garnished with quarters of lime. Fancy butters must be iced, and served separately.

Sardines can be greatly improved by being treated as "Norwegian Anchovies." Open a tin of the best sardines, take the fish out one by one, and place them on a dish. Wipe them free from oil, carefully pick off their skins and divide each sardine in half lengthwise. Give the fillets thus obtained a dusting of white pepper. Now, take an oval earthenware pot, see that it is dry and clean, slice a Bombay onion up, and put a layer of the rings at the bottom of the pot, with a cinnamon leaf, and a pepper corn or two. Arrange over this a layer of sardine fillets, and continue the process until the pot is filled, or the fillets are exhausted. Pour over the layers a marinade of oil and vinegar (one spoonful of the latter to four of the former) and in a few hours the sardines may be eaten.

Sometimes sardines are too soft to fillet; in that case be contented with skinning them only.

Oysters, of course, are never sent round with the cheese. When they appear before dinner, send them up in their shells, and be quick with their accompaniments. You sometimes sec a hungry man polish off his bivalves before the lime, pepper, and bread and butter, have reached him. You can combat this contingency by breaking up the dishes containing these adjuncts into detachments, and serving them in two or three directions at once. But a far better plan is this. Before dinner is announced, put the plates of oysters with the slices of brown bread and butter upon them in each guest's place, and send your vinegar and pepper round as fast as you can after they are seated.

In selecting your hors d'oeuvres to accompany the cheese try to avoid giving two fishy things on the same dish, thus:- do not give anchovies, and prawn butter together, or olives farcies and caviare; but take, let us say, anchovy butter, devilled ham, and oat biscuit, or cream cheese, olives farcies, and wafer biscuit. Here are a few combinations:-

Anchovy fillets, watercress, butter, dry toast.

Kippered seer fish, sliced tongue, oat biscuit.

Herring a la sardine, potted tongue, dry biscuit.

Cheese fingers, green butter, radishes.

Cucumber, olives farcies, oat biscuit.

Pilchards in oil, maitre d'holel butter, pulled bread.

The best cheese you can get, cut into dice, should accompany the above if served d l'Anglaise at that period of the dinner.

The garnishing of the compartments of the hors d'oeuvres dish should be tastefully done with knots of curled parsley, curled cress, a little bunches of fresh water-cress.

A single cold canape, if very carefully composed, may be placed upon each guest's plate as a prelude to the dinner when oysters are out of season. Cut some thin slices of stale brown or white bread, butter them as for sandwiches, and cut out of them a number of oblong pieces two inches long, and one and a half broad. Make sandwiches as follows :- Upon one of the pieces put a fillet of anchovy cut into strips, with a thin slice of olive here and there to fill interstices; smooth the combination over with some pounded hard-boiled yolk of egg, dust over with yellow pepper, and cover with one of the pieces of bread. Garnish each sandwich thus made with a turned olive, or a sprig of water-cress. Or sprinkle over each a canopy of grated ham, granulated hard-boiled yolk of egg, or cod's roe.

In like manner you can with a little forethought compose divers canapes, using caviare, sardines, fish-roe, green butter, strips of green capsicum, or of cucumber, and garnishing with tongue cut tastefully with a cutter, grated ham, or powdered hard-boiled yolk of egg.