QUATRE MENDIANTS—(THE FOUR BEGGARS).

Once on a time, in the brave Henry's age,
    Four beggars, dining underneath a tree,
Combined their stores. Each from his wallet drew
    Handfuls of stolen fruit, and sang for glee.

So runs the story. "Garcon, bring the carte—
    Soup, cutlets——Stay, and, mind, a matelotte.
And, Charles—a pint of Burgundy's best Beaune;
    In our deep glasses every joy shall float.

"And, garcon, bring me, from the woven frail
    That turbaned merchants from fair Smyrna sent,
The figs with golden seeds—the honied fruit
    That feast the stranger in the Syrian tent.

"Go fetch us grapes from off the vintage rows,
    Where the brown Spaniards gaily quaff the wine
What time the azure ripple of the waves,
    Laughs bright between the green leaves of the
        vine.

"Nor yet, unmindful of the fabled scrip,
    Forget the nuts from Barcelona's shore,
Soaked in Iberian oil from olives pressed,
    To the crisp kernels adding one charm more.

"The almonds last, plucked from a sunny tree
    Half way up Libanus, blanched as snowy white
As Leila's teeth; and they will fitly crown
    The beggars' fourfold dish for us to-night.

"Beggars were happy, then let us be so;
    We've buried Care in wine's red glowing sea;—
There let him soaking lie—he was our foe—
    Joy laughs above his grave, and so will we."

The History of Cooking, from the Deluge to
the Passing of the Reform Bill, would be one
of the most stupendous works that ever ruined a
publisher. It would run to, say about three
hundred and thirty-two volumes folio, without the
index, and would secure the author a limited
income, but an enormous fame. Perhaps the
world is hardly ripe for it yet. Let the globe
go on turning its round sides like an enormous
apple to the sun's fire for a century longer, and
perhaps then it will be ready for the book. One
volume would be dedicated to the gay and
smiling subject of "Desserts," and a pleasant
anecdotic little pamphlet of four thousand and
odd pages it would make.

The dessert of the middle ages had no special
character. There would be a good deal of
Cellini cup, and Limoges plate, and Palissy
dish, and gold chased goblet, about it, and
perfumes and spices enough no doubt. We
picture the cakes like wedding cakes, heavy, full
of citron, rather indigestible; and we imagine
certain errors of taste marring the whole affair:
as in Ben Jonson's time, when at a lord mayor's
feast a beribboned dwarf jester at a given signal
took a flying header into a huge bowl of custard,
to the alarm, terror, indignation, and delight
of the aldermen, the court gallants, and
the ladies, whose ruff's, farthingales, and slashed
hose of silk and satin must have been cruelly
splashed and spotted.

In the times of the Medicis and the Bartholomew
massacre, the French and Italian nobles
had a curious custom of always carrying about
with them in the pockets of their silk doublets
costly little boxes full of bon-bons.

Henri Quatre, Mary de Medicis, and all their
friends and foes carried about with them little
gold and Limoges enamelled boxes, still to
be seen at any sale of Messrs. Christie and
Manson's; no doubt there was one full of
red and white sugar plums in the pocket of
Mary Queen of Scots when she fell dead at the
foot of the block in Fotheringay. You may be
sure there was one in the pouch of grisly Duc
de Guise, with the close cropped bullet bead
and the long spidery legs, when he lay dead
and bleeding on the polished floor of the castle
of Blois; no doubt as he fell, with a dull
thump, a stream of red and white "ten
thousands" rolled along the marqueterie. It was
a childish custom, it proves that the age had a
sweet tooth, and a more boyish taste than
ours possesses, but it must have been useful
for diplomatic purposes and highly conducive to
flirting. How the custom must have helped
to develop character and illustrate temper! Sir
Anthony Absolute could snap his box down and
refuse a bon-bon, or Malvolio could smile and
present his with a bow and a conceited
grimace. Jaques would moralise as he gulped a
red almond, and Mercutio, holding one between
his finger and his thumb, would rattle out a
dozen quips before he swallowed the sweetmeat
with a laugh and askance look at scornful
Beatrice.

It is in Robert May's "Accomplished Cook,"
published in 1665, five years after the glorious
and never sufficiently to be remembered
Restoration of that Father of (a good many of) his
subjects, Charles the Second, after, as Marvell
said, he had been, like the son of Kish, in exile,

       Seeking his father's asses all the while.

—It was at old Lady Dormer's, that this zealous
servant in his eager pursuit of fame devised a
central ornament for a dessert. It gives one a
strange notion of the tasteless luxury and coarse
pleasures of the society where Rochester
fluttered and where Buckingham flaunted. Mr.
Robert May expatiates largely on the skill and
art required to build a large gilded ship of
confectionery; its masts, cabins, port-holes, and lofty
poop, all smart and glittering: its rigging all
ataunto; its bunting flying; its figure head
bright as gold leaf could make it. Its guns were
charged with actual powder, its cargo was two
turreted pies, one full (O admirable invention!)
of live birds, the other (0 incomparable
ingenuity of the Apician art!) of frogs. When
borne in by gay pages to the sound of music
the guns were discharged, the ladies screamed,
and fainted, so much so as to require being
held up and consoled with sips of Tokay, the
gallants all the while smiling and applauding.

This done, says the zealous and thoughtful
man, to sweeten the smell of powder; "let the
ladies take the egg-shells full of sweet waters
(also part of the cargo of the vessel), and