This mine host of the Atlantic promised me, pointing to a little board suspended over the door, on which was written:
“Good Dry Lodging.”
My landlord, however, convinced me his hotel afforded something better than good dry lodging; for entreating me to alight, till a shower passed over which was beginning to fall, I entered the hut, and found his wife, a sturdy lad their eldest son, and two naked little ones, seated at their dinner, and enjoying such a feast, as Apicius, who sailed to Africa from Rome to eat good oysters, would gladly have voyaged from Rome to Ireland to have partaken of; for they were absolutely dining on an immense turbot (whose fellow-sufferers were floundering in a boat that lay anchored near the door.) A most cordial invitation on their part, and a most willing compliance on mine, was the ceremony of a moment; and never did an English alderman on turtle day, or Roman emperor on lampreys and peacocks’ livers, make a more delicious repast, than the chance guest of these good people, on their boiled turbot and roasted potatoes, which was quaffed down by the pure phalernian of a neighbouring spring.
Having learnt that the son was going with the compeers of the demolished turbot to Bally————,
I took out my little escritoire to write you an account of the first adventure of my chivalrous tour; while one of spring’s most grateful sunny show ers, is pattering on the leaves of the only tree that shades this simple dwelling, and my Rosinante is nibbling a scanty dinner from the patches of vegetation that sprinkle the surrounding cliffs. Adieu! the vesper hour arrives. In all “my orisons thy sins shall be remembered.” The spirit of adventure wholly possesses me, and on the dusky horizon of life, some little glimmering of light begins to dawn.
Encore adieu.