"Spirits of beef, where are ye? are ye all fled?"
_Henry the Eighth_.
No--when beef flies the English shores, then you may, as the immortal bard
exquisitely expresses it, "make a silken purse out of a sow's ear." But
mutton, too, invites my Muse. It is calculated that fifteen hundred
thousand sheep are annually sacrificed in London to the carnivorous taste
of John Bull. "Of roast mutton (as Dr. Johnson says) what remains for me
to say? It will be found sometimes succous, and sometimes defective of
moisture; but what palate has ever failed to be pleased with a haunch
which has been duly suspended? what appetite has not been awakened by the
fermentation that glitters on its surface, when it has been reposing for
the requisite number of hours before a fire equal in its fervency?"
We quite agree with Dr. Johnson; but a boiled leg of mutton, its whiteness
transparent through the verdant capers that decorate its candour, is not
to be despised; nor is a hash, whether celebrated as an Irish stew, or a
_hachis de mouton_, most relishing of _rifacciamenti_! Chops and garlic
_a la Francaise_ are exquisite; and the saddle, cut learnedly, is the
Elysium of a gourmand.
Now also is the time of house-lamb and of doe-venison.
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