these delicacies were sufficiently abundant in
that part of the world may be inferred from
the fact that the ordinary market price for a
good-sized lobster was only a halfpenny
currency. Conceive then the unutterable dismay
of a lobster-lover from Nova Scotia stopping
in the Haymarket, London, and mildly
inquiring the price of his favourite food. "Oh,
sir," replies the shopman cheerfully, "lobsters
is cheap to day; I can let you have that 'ere
splendid feller for three-and-six!" "There
was a time," murmurs the Nova Scotian,
"when I might have had seven dozen for the
money."

Let us suppose our lobster caught, and put
to death. Boiling alive seems to be a very cruel
process — but is far less cruel than it appears to
be. I question indeed, if there be any cruelty
in it. The loss of the precious limbs, so
lugubriously deplored, is, as we have seen,
scarcely felt by a long-tailed shell-fish. To
discover a vital part beneath his horny carapace
is a matter of some difficulty, and a
knife unskilfully wielded might only wound
without killing; whereas suffocation by boiling
water is instantaneous death. Don't
believe a word of the legend about lobsters
screaming in the cauldron: in the first place
they haven't time to scream — in the next, they
have no voices. A lobster's scream, a swan's
dying song, the pelican's substitute for her
offspring's breakfast, the suicide of the
scorpion, and the self-cremation of the phoenix,
all belong to Legendary Natural History.
At all events, if you want to eat a lobster, you
must boil him alive — I use the masculine
gender advisedly; for a hen lobster is not
worth her salt. If you suffer him to die
a natural death before you consign him
to the boiler, what is the consequence?
A pale, attenuated creature, having no
spring in his tail, with a yielding carapace,
and listless claws (those claws once so vigorous),
and wearing a general sickliness and
ghostliness of aspect, presents himself for your
supper. Is it worth while wasting the
contents of your cruets on such an animal?
Common sense at once replies in a brief and
stern negative. But if Nature has endowed
you with harder attributes and keener
perceptions, let your cook (if you are unwilling
to run the risk yourself), boldly seize the
heaviest and most active of the lot
submitted for sacrifice — a fellow with a shell
whose blue-blackness rivals the raven's wing
—unspotted and unbruised, and plunge
him into the bubbling cauldron. The next
time you see him how different from his
congener who died of neglect in the well-boat.
Not a grain of his weight is diminished, the
elasticity of his tail is as strong as ever, the
grasp of his pincers impossible to unlock,
his coat armour like adamant; and for
his colour, compound the hues of a life-
guardsman's uniform, a gleam of Vesuvius
in eruption, a Tom Thumb geranium, one
of Danby's sunsets, a Géant rose in full
bloom, with a spinelle ruby from the cup
of Jemsheed — and you may possibly arrive
at a feeble imitation of the jovial glow in
which, like unto a garment, he is now
enwrapped. Now is the time to read Shakespeare
after our own commentary, and
exclaim, "Fish, fish, how art thou fleshified?"

Like genius, lobsters can never be
thoroughly appreciated until after death. Their
greatest glory is posthumous. Suppose his
claws disjointed and broken — not smashed, as
often happens — his body carefully twisted
from his tail, and both displayed by the sharp
incision of a knife; suppose the disjecta membra
symmetrically grouped; then let him
be brought in to be dressed. After what
fashion shall this be done? Shall we tell the
cook, when we have gazed our fill as he lies
there, like Christabel, in his loveliness, to
take him back to the kitchen, release him
from his armour, chop him fine, his liver
and all that is edible within him, incorporate
him with egg and crumbs, and roll him
up into balls with a seasoning of salt, mace,
and cayenne pepper, which, when fried a
delicate brown, shall qualify him to appear
as a dish of rissoles? Shall we have him
minced and boiled up with Madeira, vinegar,
grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, and
deluged with melted butter cunningly
flavoured with anchovy and yolks of eggs, in
which condition he shall bear the name of a
buttered lobster? Shall we stew him after
the Irish fashion, or curry him in the
Anglo-Indian manner, or scollop him, or
distribute him in patties, or prepare him as
an omelette in the artful manner now
practised in the kitchen of the Trafalgar, at
Greenwich?

We might order any of these things
to be done, and out of every trial the
lobster would emerge triumphant; yet
we should not have eaten our lobster
properly. "I know what you mean," says,
the stand-up supper-eater or scrambling picnic
caterer, "you recommend him in a
salad; a lobster salad, you know, and
champagne and chat — that's the way!" Not in
a salad, I gravely reply. As much salad with
him as you please; but if you want the salad
to be tough, and the lobster tasteless, mix
them together; if not, keep them apart, and
let one serve as a relish to the other. For
my own part I can do without any of the
adjuncts quoted by the stand-up supper-
eater. I admire a salad by itself — champagne
should be drunk in the whirl of gay society—
and chat is for the cosy tête-à-tête anywhere;
but nothing in my opinion ought to interfere
between man and lobster, save and except a few
glasses of East India Madeira. My method
is this: I take the whole of my tail and mince
it finely; and scoop out all my liver — if i am
left to deal with a fine hen, I do not, of
course, neglect the coral — and combine;
gently, not with spoon, but with finger and
thumb, I strew a little salt; two drops