Three Courses and a Dessert / Comprising Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal; and a Melange

CONTENTS

The purveyor of the ensuing apology for a “feast of reason,” takes leave to greet his guests with a hearty, but respectful, welcome. It would be in bad taste for him to dilate at his threshold upon what he has provided for their entertainment: his brief bill of fare will presently be laid before them.
He ventures to indulge a hope, that his repast will prove obnoxious to none, and, in some degree, gratifying to many; that those who may discover nothing to their taste in one course, will meet with something piquant in another; that no one
“Will drag, at each remove, a lengthening chain;”
and, that even if the dishes be disliked, the plates , at least, will please: but he feels bound to state, that whatever faults the decorations may be chargeable with, on the score of invention, he, alone, is to blame, and not Mr. George Cruikshank; to whom he is deeply indebted for having embellished his rude sketches in their transfer to wood, and translated them into a proper pictorial state, to make their appearance in public. They have necessarily acquired a value, which they did not intrinsically possess, in passing through the hands of that distinguished artist; of whom it may truly, and on this occasion especially, be said, Quod tetigit, ornavit .
Having thus, perhaps rashly, presented himself at the bar of public opinion, conscious as he feels of his own demerits, he can only throw himself on the liberality of his judges, and plead for a lenient sentence.



The true old English squire is now nearly extinct: a few admirable specimens of the class flourished a few years ago in the western counties; from the discourse and memoranda of one of the most excellent of these, the substance of the following narratives was gleaned. For my introduction to, and subsequent acquaintance with, the worthy old gentleman. I was indebted to the delinquency of a dog. Carlo was most exemplary in his punctuation; he would quarter and back in the finest style imaginable; no dog could be more staunch, steady, and obedient to hand and voice, while there was no living mutton at hand: but no sooner did he cross a sheep-track, break into view of a fleece, or even hear the tinkling bell (a dinner bell to him) of a distant flock, than he would bolt away, as rectilinearly as the crow flies, towards his favourite prey, in spite of the most peremptory commands, or the smack of a whip, with the flavour of which his back was intimately acquainted. I had been allowed a very fair trial of the dog; but, unfortunately, no opportunity occurred, previously to his becoming my property, of shooting over him near a sheep-walk. His behaviour was so excellent in Kent, that I never was more astonished in my life, than when I beheld him severely shaking a sheep by the haunch, the first time we went out together in Somerset. Unable to obtain a substitute, and hoping that his vice would not prove incurable, I was compelled, most indignantly and unwillingly, to put up with his offences for three days. On the morning of the fourth, he suddenly broke forward from heel, and went off at full speed before me: aware, by experience, of what was about to take place, I lifted the piece to my shoulder, and should, most assuredly, have tickled his stern, had he not dashed over the brow of a little hillock, so rapidly, that it was impossible to cover him with my Manton. On reaching the brow of the acclivity, I saw him, in the valley below, with his teeth entangled in the wool of a wether; and a sturdy old person, in the garb of a sportsman, belabouring him over the back with an enormous cudgel. The individual, who inflicted this wholesome castigation on the delinquent, offered to cure him for me of his propensity. I gratefully accepted the offer; and thus became acquainted with that fine specimen of the old-fashioned gentlemen of England, Sir Mathew Ale, of Little Redland Hall, Baronet,-(whose grounds I was crossing, on my way to a manor over which I had the privilege of shooting,)-by means of a rascally dog, that had a fancy for killing his own mutton.