(kickshaws?) charged with trains of
gunpowder. This ship you are to place in a
great charger with salt round about, and
stick therein egg-shells full of sweet water.
Then in another charger you are to have a
stag made in coarse paste, with a broad
arrow in the side of him, and his body filled
up with claret wine. In another charger,
after the stag, you are to have a castle with
battlements, percullices, gates, and
drawbridges of pasteboard, the guns of kickses as
in the former instance. The castle is also
surrounded with salt, stuck with egg-shells
full of rose-water. On each side of the stag
have a pie—one filled with live frogs, the
other with live birds. Ship, stag, castle, and
pies are to be gilded and adorned with gilt
bay leaves. Being all placed in order upon
the table, the ladies are to be persuaded to
pluck the arrow out of the stag; then will
the claret wine follow as blood running out
of a wound. This being done with admiration
of the beholders, after a short pause
fire the train of the castle, answering with
that of the ship, as in a battle. Then the
ladies, "to sweeten the stinck of the powder,"
are to take the egg-shells full of sweet waters
and throw them at each other. All danger
being now over, by this time it is supposed
that you will desire to see what is in the
pies; " when, lifting off the lid of one, out skip
the frogs, which makes the ladies to skip and
shreek; next after the other pie, whence
comes out the birds." The birds by natural
instinct will fly high and put out the
candles; so that what with the flying birds
and skipping frogs, the one above, the other
beneath, and total darkness for the romp, we are
told this trophy and triumph will cause much
delight and pleasure to the whole company.

They ate such queer things in those
days. Most likely they knew how to make
good dishes out of their grotesque
concomitants; but a "jigott" of mutton with
anchove sauce does seem a rather odd
compound; so does a turkey roste and stuck
with cloves, and eight turtle doves and an
olive pie and larded gulls. Snails, too, do
not suit the degenerate palates of the
nineteenth century. But, Robert May gives nine
receipts for the various dressing of snails.
First as boiled, then broiled, then fried, then
hashed, then in a soup, and lastly baked.
We are told how to bake frogs as well. Take
the recipe as it stands:

"Being fleyed, take the hind legs, cut off
the feet and season them with nutmeg,
pepper, and salt; put them in a pie with
some sweet herbs chopped small, large mace,
slic't lemon, gooseberries, grapes, or
barberries, pieces of skirret, artichocks,
potatoes or parsnips, and marrow. Close it up
and bake it; being baked, liquor it with butter
and juyce of orange, or grape of verjuyce."
—Which looks rather as if the frogs were to
be disguised out of all recognition than
appreciated and enjoyed. But what would a
"muskle pie " be like? Would they bake
the beards as well? Has any one eaten a
broiled lobster?—or one hashed, stewed,
baked, or fried ? Would hashed oyster be
good eating? There is an oyster pottage
which reads well, and oysters in stoffado,
whatever that may be; which last receipt
includes wine, vinegar, spices, eggs, cream,
butter and batter, "slic't" oranges,
barberries, and "sarsed manchet"—which we
should call bread crumbs—among its
ingredients. There are minced-herring pies and
all sorts of fish pies generally"—not bad
things, by the way—and there is a stewed
lump, and a baked lump, and chewits,
otherwise minced patties of salmon, and
a lumber pie of salmon, and pike jelly,
and peti pœts (petits patés?) of carp
minced up with eel; and marinated fish of
every kind, which seems to be fish pickled
and salted in a peculiar way. Porpoise and
whale were familiar things to Robert May.
We believe he would not have declined
hippopotamus or alligator, or lions and tigers.
He would have made decent stews and
hashes out of snakes and condors, no doubt,
true omnivorous old cook that he was. We
protest, though, against his taking a handsome
carp—a special one of eighteen inches—
and splitting it down the back alive. Our
crimped cod, and the eels which don't get
used to being skinned, are just as bad, and
perhaps worse; but the originators of these
wicked practices were the Robert Mays of
our ancestors.

We wish we could give the engravings of
this book. There are pictures of fish " splat,"
or in pies—the oddest-looking things
imaginable, with queer, grave countenances, that
seem to express a stolid objection to their
position. They would be better as portraits
if they were not all alike. A salmon, a
sturgeon, and a carp, have some points of
difference, but Robert May's wood-engraver
makes the same block do for them all, which
rather spoils the likeness. The king of
them all is a lobster. What words can
describe that unhappy crustacean? It
looks like a spread eagle; like a goblin born
of dyspepsia and laudanum; like a fanciful
flower-bed; like a mythic tortoise with gout
in his fins, for it is splat in halves, as is
the wont with this accomplished cook's fish;
it is sprawling and floundering across the
page in a wonderful fashion, not at all after
the manner of modern lobsters. The cut
we refer to heads a recipe for "baked
lobsters to be eaten hot." It sounds appetising
enough.

"Being boild and cold, take the meat out
of the shells and season it lightly with
nutmeg, pepper, salt, cinamon, and ginger;
then lay it in a pie made according to this
form" (our spread eagle or goblin), "and
lay on it some dates in halves, large mace,
slic't lemons, barberries, yolks of hard eggs,
and butter. Close it up, and bake it; and