There are few national institutions, perhaps, of which Englishmen should be prender than genuine old English cookery, or Londoners than of their genuine old eating-houses. With the vast majority, it must be confessed, fashion has taken " downward course. How else shall we explain the pretentious bat dyspeptic eighteen-peony or half-crown fable-d'héte, when so much better and more nutritious meal is to be hed for the same money in English style? Yet foreigners show greater wisdom when in London, and have long ago learned to know the incomparable merits of plain roast and plain boiled, of beef-ateak, oyster and kidney padding, of the floary potato and the apple tart. And, notwithstanding the depraved taste of the multitude, houses that sup-these things bear names of worldwide renown. Such for instance is Birch's, the quaint little pastrycook's shop at the foot of Cornhill; and when we read that Mr. George Arthar Ring, of Ring and Brymer, City caterers, and proprietors of Birch's, has passed yy at the age of seventy, it is meet y sone tribute to his memory. For Birch's, much as it is to look at to- was in existence before 1666, the year of the Great Fire: and except in the time of that fearful burning its
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.