LEFT HIS PLACE – A GOOD ENGLISH COOKE.

The Westminster Road is in tears! Without in any way retiring from the management of the horse, Mr. William Cooke has though fit to retire from the management of Astley’s. Having lived so long by pleasing other people, he of course has fairly earned the right to please himself; but although he can afford, it seems, to part with the public, the public can’t so easily afford to part with him. London without “Hashley’s” would be, in holiday time especially, a place not worth the staying in; and its late manager has shown himself so capital a Cooke, that in his manège-ment of “Hashley’s” he has never made a hash of it. Whatever has been promised there has always been performed; and excuses, elsewhere stereotyped, never have been printed there. The horses never have had colds, nor been “indisposed” (to act); nor have the human actors ever been too hoarse to show themselves. Mr. Cooke, like a good cook, has always had some “stock” (piece) by him, ready for emergencies, and in all his years of Cooke-ry has never dished the public. The pieces he has served have been always nice and delicate, and however hotly they may have been spiced with gunpowder, there has never been a soupçon of the flavour of gros set in them. A hippodrama certainly is somewhat a coarse diet: seeing that its principal performer is a courser: but Mr. Cooke is a top-Soyer in serving up his horseflesh, and has caused it to be relished by the most refined of palates.

Mr. Cooke, it is well known, is blest with many children; but however they may spoil the look of his potage, we think there cannot well be “too many” of them like him. A thoroughly good cook is a rarity in England, and we cannot wish too strongly for the breed to be perpetuated. We therefore trust that Mr. Cooke in his period of management has managed to lay up something handsome for his larder, and that he and his may keep their pots a-boiling, without coming to the need of cooking their account-books.

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