TO MR. BARRON FIELD.
September 22, 1822.
My Dear F.,—I scribble hastily at office. Frank wants my letter presently. I and sister are just returned from Paris! [1] We have eaten frogs. It has been such a treat! You know our monotonous general tenor. Frogs are the nicest little delicate things,—rabbity flavored. Imagine a Lilliputian rabbit! They fricassee them; but in my mind, dressed seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would have been the decision of Apicius…. Paris is a glorious, picturesque old city. London looks mean and new to it, as the town of Washington would, seen after it. But they have no St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey. The Seine, so much despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a magnificent street; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty Edinburgh stone (oh, the glorious antiques!) houses on the other. The Thames disunites London and Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a broker about £40 English for it. It is painted on the one half of a pair of bellows,—a lovely picture, corresponding with the Folio head. The bellows has old carved wings round it and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as I remember, not divided into rhyme,—I found out the rhyme,—
"Whom have we here
Stuck on this bellows,
But the Prince of good fellows,
Willy Shakspere?"
At top,—
"O base and coward lack,
To be here stuck!"
POINS.
At bottom,—
"Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd,
Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind."