You are, doubtless, anxious to come to the “pith and marrow” of this communication, and I will tantalize you no longer. In “these” parts of the country, it is the custom, when a lady shall have been “as well as can be expected,” for thirteen or fourteen days, for the husband to enjoy what is called “the gentleman’s party,” viz: all his friends, bachelor and Benedict, are invited to eat “sugared toast,” which, (as the cookery-books always say,) “is thus prepared”—Rounds of bread are “baked,” (videlicit toasted,) each stratum spread thick with moist sugar, and piled up in a portly punch bowl, ready for action: “strong beer,” (anglice, home-brewed ale,) is in the mean time heated, and poured boiling hot over the mound of bread; which is taken immediately to the expectant guests, who quickly come to the conclusion of the gothic “mess.” How they contrive to emancipate the toast from the scalding liquid, I never could, by any effort of ingenuity and research, decide to my own satisfaction. A goodly slice you know, sir, it would be entirely impracticable to achieve; for in half a minute from the time of the admission of the “hot beer,” the toast must be “all of a swam,” (as we elegantly say here,) and, resembling the contents of the witch’s cauldron, “thick and slab.” Whether a soup ladle and soup plates are in requisition on the occasion, I am equally unable to ascertain; but on the final dismissal of this gentlemanly food, (for I by no means would insinuate that the congregation is limited to one act of devotion,) they magnanimously remunerate the “nurse,” by each putting money into the empty bowl, which is then conveyed to the priestess of their ignoble orgies! Of all the “mean and impotent conclusions” of a feast, defend me from that, which pays its “pic nic” pittance to an old crone, who is hired to attend the behests of the “lady,” but who by some strange mutation becomes the directress of the “gentleman’s” revels, and the recipient of the payment from his guests, for “sugar’d toast!”
Should this “custom,” be thought worthy of being admitted into the Every-Day Book, you will “tell” of something more than Herrick “dreamt of in his philosophy;” and the following couplet might “blush to find its fame” among his descriptive lines that adorn your title-page; after
“Bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes,”
might come—
“I tell of times when husbands rule the roast,
And riot in the joys of ‘sugar’d toast;’
I tell of groves, &c.”
I am, Sir,
Yours very respectfully,
I. J. T.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 50·60.