Spirits, either alone or with water, are occasionally taken with similar design; but these are in every form, except occasionally as medicines, injurious. Brandy is chiefly preferred; but it is scarcely less hurtful than either of the others.

Soy is imported from the east. It is the production of the bean, the dolictos sola Linnaei Sp. Pi. 1023, which is chiefly prepared by a spontaneous fermentation, with the addition of salt, and a small proportion of flour. It merely gives a flavour to sauce.

Ketchup is prepared from mushrooms or walnuts, with the addition of salt, and generally some spice. These two fluids are infinitely diversified with the flavour of shalot, the warmth and pungency of Cayenne vinegar, the taste of anchovies, etc.; and sold in many forms, with a great variety of names, according to the fancy of Mr. Burges and others. They are not injurious if they do not tempt the appetite too far, and increase the load beyond the powers of the stomach to digest. Mushrooms we have added to the list, which, though in a slight degree nourishing, arc chiefly taken for their flavour. See Amanita.

Oil must be reckoned among the condiments occasionally used, though void of flavour. Its chief use is as a sauce with vinegar, to pickled fish, or in salads. It is said in the former to correct the alkalescency of the fish, and assist its solubility. But if this advantage be denied, it may be at least pronounced innocent. It is not easy to conjecture the origin of its use in salads. We have suspected that it may have arisen front a suspicion of some poisonous herbs being incautiously mixed with the others. Its more obvious advantage is, that it gives a richness to the salad, and by the assistance of the egg employed to mix it with the vinegar, conveys the poignancy of the latter more uniformly to every part of the vegetable, in consequence of its viscidity. Whatever may have been the cause or effect, it is very generally employed; and if not advantageous, is pleasant and innocent.

Sugar is not commonly used as a condiment except in the form of currant jelly, or occasionally with mint sauce in the early season of lamb. In every instance it is at least innocent.

Various indigenous vegetables furnish also a variety of condiments. We employ the root of the horse radish, the capsules and seeds of the nasturtium, the seeds of the mustard, the cresses, the water cresses, and the youngmustard, in their earliest periods, sometimes when even the seed leaves only are expanded. These plants belong to the order siliquosae;, all of which are in the same groupe, the tetradynamiae of Linnaeus, one of the most natural classes of the sexual system. They are, without any exception, pleasant and salutary. Indeed they have been commended more highly than they merit, from circumstances that may for a moment be allowed to detain us. When stall feeding was not common, families in general preserved their winter's stock of food by means of salt; and symptoms of scurvy and of biliary calculi were often the consequence, after some months confinement to this diet. The early vegetables were then sought with alacrity, and their powers were consequently more conspicuous. These vegetables still retain their character, though the occasion of their use is removed. The flour of the mustard seed seems not to have been employed very early, but it is now a general favourite; and in France it is prepared with peculiar care, and enriched with a variety of additional flavours. Were we to write another culina fa-mulatrix, we might enlarge copiously on this subject, and some similar ones, from a pleasant work published annually in France, of which the third year has just appeared, viz. Almanach des Gourmands, the Almanack of Epicures. In this the variety of mustards and other sauces are described; "which have the inestimable advantages of enabling you to eat much, and for a long time without inconvenience."it is sufficient, however, in our situation to remark, that all these indigenous condiments are wholesome.

Another kind, the last of which we shall speak, is that prepared from fish. Caviare prepared from the roe of the sturgeon is sometimes employed in this way, though more usually eaten alone. Anchovies, which dissolve by heat, are employed as a sauce for fish; but what is styled their "essence,"is little more than the sordes that remain. When the fish itself is employed, and the solution clarified, it is almost equally clear with water; and the flavour of the anchovy is delicate and pure. Crabs, lobsters, oysters, cockles, and prawns, are all in turn employed as sauce for fish, and occasionally the oysters for some kinds of fowl; but when dressed, they are far from being easy of digestion.

It may be supposed that we have been too lenient to these condiments, which have excited the indignation of the moralist, and of the diaetetic physician. Could we return to a state of nature, or indeed were such a return desirable, we might have employed a different language; but while they assail us in numerous shapes, it was of more importance to appreciate with some accuracy their various merits than to reject them with indignation.

The experimental physician, who endeavoured to imitate the process of digestion in his phials, was surprised to find that all the condiments, which he employed, retarded the spontaneous changes; and all were at once condemned. Independent, however, of the common argument, that digestion is a process connected with a being possessed of life, we might ask what reason induced him to confound a rapid with an easy digestion. Various inconveniences we know attend a quick digestion; among which we may reckon flatulence,headach, and a symptom not generally attributed to this cause, a faintness within about an hour or two after eating We recollect that Psalmanazar, who in support of his fiction was obliged to eat his meat raw, found great inconveniences from too quick digestion, which he removed by mixing large quantities of pepper with it. In fact, then, condiments may be serviceable by retarding this process; and we have employed them medicinally for this purpose. Their use has been thought disgraceful, as implying a deficiency of appetite and impaired health, but without reason. The person who employs them may indeed often eat without their assistance, but he can dine more agreeably with it; and while "to enjoy is to obey,"we find little objection to condiments but in their abuse.