[536] Dr. Drake
December 18.
Oxford Term ends.
Old English Living.
The usual fare of country-gentlemen, relates Harrison, was “foure, five, or six dishes, when they have but small resort,” and accordingly, we find that Justice Shallow, when he invites Falstaffe to dinner, issues the following orders: “Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook.” But on feast-days, and particularly on festivals, the profusion and cost of the table were astonishing. Harrison observes, that the country-gentlemen and merchants contemned butcher’s meat on such occasions, and vied with the nobility in the production of rare and delicate viands, of which he gives a long list; and Massinger says,
“Men may talk of country Christmasses,
Their thirty-pound butter’d eggs, their pies of carp’s tongues,
Their pheasants drench’d with ambergris, the carcasses
Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to
Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts
Were fasts, compared with the city’s.”
City Madam, act ii. sc. 1.