LOST KNOWLEDGE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2124, 25 October 1875, Page 2

LOST KNOWLEDGE.

What store of learning passes out of tho reach of ordinary men when a great scholar die?, or a skilful doctor, or a subtle, hard-headed lawyer. And it is learning of a kind which they cannot leavo behind them, for the gatherings of a lifetime cannot be passed on in the form in which they exist in the mind s experience. The old labourer who has spent, his-life's strength on one farm cannot transfer his intimate acquaintance with the soil, and with every hedge and ditch and drain which have been his world Every per* son whose business makes him acquainted with the characters of men, through contact with their good and bad qualities^ carries away with him much important knowledge, not transferable. How many rogues must rejoice when the ideal detective quits his lower scene ! But, besides this, there are labours and natural products of which the .knowledge has died out, or is dying out as we write. We all know of lost arts, the secret of which expired, with the possessor, but now long will there exist the man who has inhaled the full and exquisite sweetness of the cabbage rose ? We do not believe that the flavour of the golden pippin, so dear to our forefathers, lasts in living memory : and so of other delights. How few can recall the exhilaration of the oldfashioned country dance; Jiow few remain who saw Mrs. Siddons act, or heard Thomas Moore sing, or Sydney Smith joke, or Coleridge talk. Still, while the few live, we who hear them know something; but the soul of their memories is fast passing out of the world. And to descend to more familiar examples. When a good cook dies—one invested with a genius in intimate correspondence with all the materials of her art who can foresee the influence of a condiment or an essence upon all with which it comes in contact, who understands combinations and prognosticates results hidden from the vulgar—what knowledge dies out with her, knowledge incommunicable! Not that she would wilfully withhold it hke Lady Bustle, commemorated in the Kambler, who had culinary secrets which she resolved should perish with her; whose orange pudding was concocted with such mystery, » while the household wag dispersed in all directions till the oven door was closed upon it, and all'lnquiries were van." The real mysteries of the kitchen need no such reserve; they are knowledge in action not reducible to: words, else would not so many a confection dear to memory be a memory only. Other sauces as of subtle a refinement of flavour, other puddings of as ethereal an excellence, may be in being as we write; but the particular combinations that enriched and poetised our youth, and swell the heart in recalling them, are a lost knowledge, things irrecoverable, alms for oblivion.—-Saturday IlerieTf.