Gentle reader! when Queen Mary, whom men call "Bloody Mary," died, and Queen Elizabeth, Protestant Elizabeth, came to the throne, Osorius, the good Bishop of Arcoburge, a staunch bishop of the Church of Rome, sent her a sugared pill, which he hoped would at once convert the queen, and drive out the "obnoxious heresy" from the land. That all might read it, he himself wrote it in Latin: "Epistola ad Clarissimam Principam Elizabetham;" had it translated into French, which honest old Strype says "gave great offence," as "une bien longue et docte Epistre à Madame Elizabeth, Royne d' Angleterre;" and to gild the nasty thing, called it, in English, "A Perle for a Prince;" but all the ingenuity of quackery could not disguise the drastic pill, and neither the queen nor her lieges would swallow it. I have seen all three books in the Grenville Library in the British Museum, and at once pronounce them nothing but "mock" pearls. Now, I have extracted for your delectation a real pearl out of the Oyster, in the shape of this little book. It is Christmas-tide. Cherish it for those best of pearls, kindly thoughts and loving remembrances, which the Oyster calls into being when the Holly and the Mistletoe deck our walls.
LONDON: WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]. The common Colchester and Faversham oysters are brought to market on the 5th of August. They are called Common oysters, and are picked up on the French coast, and then transferred to those beds; the Milton, or, as they are commonly called, the melting Natives, the true Rutupians, do not come in till the beginning of October, continue in season till the 12th of May, and approach the meridian of their perfection about Christmas. The denizens from France are not to be compared to British Native oysters, which are so called because they are born, bred, and fed in this country. These do not come to perfection till they are four years old.
[2]. The exportation has by this time nearly doubled, but these are the latest statistics we can arrive at.
[3]. See page 25.
[4]. The Carlingford oyster is the best in Ireland; a black-bearded fellow, delicate and of fine flavour, to be eaten in Dublin alternately with the Redbank oyster, at a magnificent establishment in Sackville Street, and to be washed down with alternate draughts of brown stout. The Hibernian will tell you that even our Natives are inferior to these. He is right in his patriotism, but wrong in his assertion. How often do our prejudices trip up our judgment!
[5]. The pearl fishery at Ceylon, however, has been very profitable during the present year, the yield being sometimes worth from 10,000 dollars to 30,000 dollars per day. An attempt is being made to re-establish the pearl fishery in the Gulf of California. Some very fine pearls were found there nearly a century ago.