1 The cars, on the return, are dragged up slowly by a chain. 2 Mr. Bob need not be ashamed of his cookery jokes, when he is kept in countenance by such men as Cicero, St. Augustine, and that jovial bishop, Venantius Fortunatus. The pun of the great orator upon the "jus Verrinum," which he calls bad hog-broth, from a play upon both the words, is well known; and the Saint's puns upon the conversion of Lot's wife into salt are equally ingenious: In salem conversa hominibus fidelibus quoddam præstitit condimentum, quo sapiant aliquid, unde illud caveatur exemplum.". -"De Civitat. Dei," lib. xvi. cap. 30. The jokes of the pious favorite of Queen Radagunda, the convivial Bishop Venantius, may be found among his poems, in some lines against a cook who had robbed him. The following is similar to Cicero's pun: plus juscella Coci quam mea jura valent. See his poems, "Corpus Poetar. Latin." tom. ii. p. 1732. Of the same kind was Montmaur's Where a thing like a man was — no lover sat there! In vain my fond eyes did I eagerly cast At the whiskers, mustachios and wigs that went past, To obtain if I could but a glance at that curl, A glimpse of those whiskers, as sacred, my girl, As the lock that, Pa says,3 is to Mussul men given, For the angel to hold by that "lugs them to heaven!" Alas, there went by me full many a quiz, And mustachios in plenty, but nothing like his ! Disappointed, I found myself sighing out "well-a-day," Thought of the words of Toм MOORE'S Irish Melody, Something about the “ 'green spot of delight 4 (Which, you know, Captain MACKIN TOSH sung to us one day): eligi cui dicas, tu mihi sola places. The reader may likewise see, among a good deal of kitchen erudition, the learned Lipsius's jokes on cutting up a capon in his Saturnal. Sermon." lib. ii. cap. 2. 3 For this scrap of knowledge "Pa" was, I suspect, indebted to a note upon Volney's "Ruins; a book which usually forms part of a Jacobin's library, and with which Mr. Fudge must have been well acquainted at the time when he wrote his "Down with Kings,” etc. note in Volney is as follows:- It is by this tuft of hair (on the crown of the head), worn by the majority of Mussulmans, that the Angel of the Tomb is to take the elect and carry them to Paradise." The 4 The young lady, whose memory is not very correct, must allude, I think, to the following lines: Oh that fairy form is ne'er forgot, Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot teur's, dear; Where your properest ladies go dine every day, And drink Burgundy out of large tumblers, like beer. Fine BOB (for he 's really grown superfine) Condescended for once to make one of the party; Of course, tho' but three, we had dinner for nine, And in spite of my grief, love, I own I ate hearty. Indeed, DOLL, I know not how 't is, but, in grief, I have always found eating a wondrous relief; And BOB, who 's in love, said he felt the same, quite 66 'My sighs," said he, "ceased with the first glass I drank you; "The lamb made me tranquil, the puffs made me light, "And now that all 's o'er - why, I'm pretty well, thank you! To my great annoyance, we sat rather late; For BOBBY and Pa had a furious debate About singing and cookery - BOBBY, of course, Standing up for the latter Fine Art in full force; 1 And Pa saying, "God only knows which is worst, "The French Singers or Cooks, but I wish us well over it 1 Cookery has been dignified by the researches of a Bacon; (see his " Natural History," Receipts, etc.) and takes its station as one of the Fine Arts in the following passage of Mr. Dugald Stewart: - " Agreeably to this view of the subject sweet may be said to be intrinsically pleasing, and bitter to be relatively pleasing; which both are, in many cases, equally essential to those effects, which, in the art of cookery, correspond to that composite beauty, which it is the object of the painter and of the poet to create. — Philosophical Essays." |