Many years ago, when railways were things undreamt of, and when the journeys from Oxford to the metropolis were inevitably performed on that goodly and pleasant high road which is now dreary and forlorn, a gentleman and his son, the latter newly flushed with College fame and University honours, rode forth over Magdalen Bridge and the Cherwell, purposing to reach London in a leisurely ride. A groom, their only attendant, carrying their scanty baggage with him on a good stout cob, had been sent on in advance to order dinner at a well-known road-side hostelry, where Oxford nags baited, and where their more adventurous riders frequently caroused, out of reach of any supervision by Principals or Pro-Proctors.
Pleasant is the spot, well approved by past generations of Freshmen, picturesque and charming to an eye content with rich fields, luxuriant meadows, and pretty streams, tributaries of the now adolescent Thames, whose waters had not at that date been polluted by barge or lighter at that point of its course. The neighbourhood is famous for its plump larks; and whether in a savoury pudding, swimming with beefsteak gravy, or roasted, a round half-dozen together, on an iron skewer or a tiny spit, those little warblers furnished forth a pretty adjunct on a well-spread table, tempting to an appetite somewhat appeased by heavier and more substantial viands. Mine host at our road-side quarters had a cook who dressed them to a nicety; contriving to produce or develope a succulency and flavour which meaner practitioners would scarcely have deemed practicable. Now Martin, pursuant to his master’s instructions for securing a repast of ducks and the dainty lark, finding the landlord brought out from his shady porch by the clatter of the horse’s hoofs on the well-beaten road, announced the approaching arrival, and ordered dinner. “My master wishes to find a couple of larks, and a dozen of ducks, well roasted, on his arrival at four o’clock.” “Did I understand you rightly, young man?” said Boniface. “O!” said the varlet, pettishly, “in Oxford no landlord needs twice telling;”—and betook himself to the stables, looking forward to the enjoyment of a tankard of good house-brewed ale,—no brewer’s iniquitous mixture,—and the opportunity of shining with some lustre in the tap, or the kitchen, before country bumpkins, eager to listen to a man like himself, who had seen racing at Newmarket and Doncaster, and high life at Bath and Cheltenham. Meantime, his masters came leisurely along the road, nor thought of applying a spur, until the craving bowels of the younger horseman, whose digestive organs were unimpaired by College theses and examinations, suggested a lack of provender; and, their watches, when consulted, indicating the near approach of the dinner hour, they broke off their chat, and soon drew rein at their place of temporary sojourn.
Finding the cloth laid, and the busy waiter’s preparations nearly complete, they glanced with satisfaction at a table of somewhat unnecessary dimensions, considering the limited extent of the party, which our young Hellenist would have described as a “duality.” Just as our travellers were growing impatient, the landlord, having previously satisfied himself, by obsequious inquiry, that his guests were quite ready, re-entered, bearing a dish with bright cover, and heading as good a procession of domestics, each similarly laden, as the limited resources of his modest establishment admitted. The large number of dishes rather surprised the elder of the twain, whose mind was less absorbed by the suggestions of appetite; and, having dispatched the sole attendant left for a bottle of the best Madeira the cellar could supply, and a jug of that malt liquor for which the house had obtained some notoriety, he proceeded to look under the formidable range of covers. Seeing under the first a couple of ducks, he said, “Come, this is all right!” but finding the next, and the next, and still the next, but a repetition of the same, either with or without the odour of seasoning, he fairly stood aghast, when six couple of goodly ducks stood revealed before him. The young collegian’s mirth was great, his laugh hearty, at the climax of two pretty little chubby larks which closed the line of dishes. Apple sauce and gravy, broccoli and potatoes, stood sentries, flanking the array. Upon his ringing the bell with no gentle hand, the landlord himself stepped in from the passage, where he appeared to have awaited a summons; and, in answer to a question the reader may easily anticipate, replied that the servant’s order was precise, and that it was impatiently repeated upon his own hesitation in accepting it. The respectability of the landlord, and the evident truthfulness of his manner, stayed all further questions. But the elder gentleman said firmly, that he should not pay for what had been so absurdly provided; alleging, that no two, or even three, persons could be found who would do justice to such provisions. The landlord, like Othello, “upon that hint spake;” for he saw a faint chance of righting a somewhat difficult matter. “O, Sir,” said he, “I think I could find a man hard by, who would not consider the supplies too much for his own appetite.” “Produce him,” said the guest, “and settle the point; for, if you do, I will pay for the whole.” The anxious landlord said no more; but, bowing, left in search of a neighbouring cobbler, whose prowess with the knife and fork was pre-eminent in the vicinity. Meantime, our hungry travellers sat down to dinner with such good will, that each of them disposed of one of the regiment; and, in a joint attack, a third fell mutilated, leaving but fragmentary relics. A lark a-piece was a mere practical joke; and cheese, with celery, left nothing farther wanting to appease those cravings which had prompted them to action. While these little matters were in progress, the landlord had found the shoemaker, and told his story. “Well,” said Lapstone, “this is plaguy unlucky, for I’ve just had a gallon of broth! Such a famous chance, too; for if there is any thing I am particularly fond of, certainly ducks is a weak point, Sir.” Boniface, thinking it his only chance, urged him to try; and the man of bristles, nothing loth, consented. On being duly introduced, orders were given for setting-to on the spot, to insure fair play, and defeat any supplementary aid, or a deposit in any other pocket, save that with which the savage in a nude state finds himself provided,—the stomach. While the travellers sipped their wine, and trifled with their dessert, the voracious cobbler fell heartily to work on the row of eight ducks before him: one having been sent down for the undeserving groom, whose blunder had proved a godsend to the man of leather. Wisely eschewing vegetables, and eating scantily of bread, the disjecta membra of the doomed ducks rapidly yielded up their savoury integuments. But flesh is weak, and cobblers’ appetites are not wholly unappeasable; so that while the fifth victim was under discussion, a stimulant, in the shape of “a little brandy,” was requested; and when the sixth was but slowly and more slowly disappearing, poor Lapstone, who began to think farther progress impossible, was seen whispering to the landlord. The gentleman loudly demanded what the fellow was saying. “Sir,” said the landlord, promptly and cunningly, “he says, he wishes there were half-a-dozen more; for he is just beginning to enjoy them.” “Confound the rascal’s gluttony,” cried the travellers; “not a bit more shall he have. Put the remaining couple by for our supper; for we shall not leave your house till to-morrow:”—an arrangement affording much relief to the shoemaker, and entire satisfaction to the innkeeper.
To return to the lark. It is worthy of notice, that London is annually supplied, from the country about Dunstable alone, with not less than four thousand dozen of these succulent songsters. At Leipsic, the excise on larks, for that single city, amounts to nearly £1,000 sterling yearly. The larks of Dunstable and Leipsic are, I presume, “caught napping.” They are not, then, like the nightingale, who is said to sing all night, to keep herself awake, lest the slow-worm should devour her.
And this reminds me of a remark which I once heard made by one who disputed the fact, that every thing had its use. Mr. Jerdan could not conjecture what use there could be in the cimex, that domestic “B flat,” which may be found in old beds and old parchments. So my friend could not divine the utility of a slow-worm, or of that unclean parasite, the “louse,” which, by the way, infects birds as well as dirty humanity, and even reaches these same aspiring larks. For the use of the slow-worm I referred him to natural history; for that of the pediculus, I could only state that it is swallowed by some country-people as a cure for jaundice! At Hardenberg, in Sweden, it held a position of some importance. When a Burgomaster had to be chosen, the eligible candidates sat with their beards upon the table, in the centre of which was placed a louse; and the one in whose beard he took cover was the Magistrate for the ensuing year. After the ceremony, the company supped upon ducks, and sang like larks.
The household of Job was of a hospitable cast. “His sons went and feasted in their houses, every one on his day;” (which is explained as being the birth-day;) “and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and drink with them.” We know what materials the joyous family had to make a superb feast; and doubtless he who presided thereat was as proud as the Knight who, by virtue of triumphing in the tournament, alone had the right to carve the peacock which was placed before him—plumage, tail, and all—by the fairest “she” to be found in the vicinity. After all, the peacock was inferior to the succulent and sweet-throated thrush. The proper time for eating thrushes, and, indeed, much other of the small game of the bird species, is towards the end of November. The reason assigned by a French epicure is, that, after they have been fattened in the fields and vineyards, they then give a biting, bitter aroma to their flesh by feeding on juniper-berries. The Romans fed them on a paste made up of figs, wheat, and aromatic grains. The Roman epicures were as fond of them as the Marquis de Cussy was of red partridges, one of which he ate on the day of his death, and after a six months’ illness. It was his last act; and, in gastronomic annals, it is recorded, as Nelson’s calling for sealing-wax amid the thunders of Copenhagen, or his writing to Horatia before he went to meet death at Trafalgar, is noticed by the biographers of our naval heroes. Statistics, which are as pleasantly void of truth as poetry, generally speaking, set down the enormous total of nearly fifty-two millions of francs as the sum expended yearly in France for fowls of all species. Taking the amount of population into consideration, this would prove that France is a more fowl-consuming nation than any other on the face of the globe.
In a dietetic point of view, it would be well for weak stomachs to remember, that wild birds are more nutritious than their domesticated cousins, and more digestible. But the white breast or wing of a chicken is less heating than the flesh of winged game. Other game—such as venison, which is dark-coloured, and contains a large proportion of fibrine—produces highly stimulating chyle; and, consequently, the digestion is an easy and rapid affair for the stomach. But, though the whiter meats be detained longer in the stomach, furnish less stimulating chyle, and be suffered to run into acetous fermentation, their lesser stimulating quality may recommend them when the general system is not in want of a spur. Meats are wholesome, or otherwise, less with reference to themselves than to the consumer. “To assert a thing to be wholesome,” says Van Swieten, “without a knowledge of the condition of the person for whom it is intended, is like a sailor pronouncing the wind to be fair, without knowing to what port the vessel is bound.”
Cardinal Fesch would have made an exception in the case of “blackbirds.” His dinners at Lyons were reverenced for the excellence and variety of these dishes. The birds were sent to him weekly from Corsica; and they were said to incense half the archiepiscopal city. They were served with great form; and none who ate thereof ever forgot the flavour which melted along his palate. The Cardinal used to say that it was like swallowing paradise, and that the smell alone of his blackbirds was enough to revivify half the defunct in his diocese.
Quite as rich a dish may be found in the pheasant which has been suspended by the tail, and which detaches himself from his caudine appendage, by way of intimation that he is ready. It is thus, we are told, that a pheasant hung up on Shrove Tuesday is susceptible of being spitted on Easter-day! It is popularly said in France of the pheasant, that it only lacks something to be equal to the turkey! A wise saying, indeed! but, the truth is, the two cannot be compared. Our own popular adage regarding the partridge and woodcock has far better grounds for what they assert:—