_A Scene from "Peregrine Pickle."_
Peregrine, by his insinuating behaviour, acquired the full confidence
of the doctor, who invited him to an entertainment, which he intended
to prepare in the manner of the ancients. Pickle, struck with this idea,
eagerly embraced the proposal, which he honoured with many encomiums,
as a plan in all respects worthy of his genius and apprehension; and the
day was appointed at some distance of time, that the treater might have
leisure to compose certain pickles and confections, which were not to be
found among the culinary preparations of these degenerate days.
With a view of rendering the physician's taste more conspicuous,
and extracting from it more diversion, Peregrine proposed that some
foreigners should partake of the banquet; and the task being left to
his care and discretion, he actually bespoke the company of a French
marquis, an Italian count, and a German baron, whom he knew to be most
egregious coxcombs, and therefore more likely to enhance the joy of the
entertainment.
Accordingly, the hour being arrived, he conducted them to the hotel
where the physician lodged, after having regaled their expectations with
an elegant meal in the genuine old Roman taste; and they were received
by Mr. Pallet, who did the honours of the house, while his friend
superintended the cook below. By this communicative painter, the guests
understood that the doctor had met with numerous difficulties in
the execution of his design; that no fewer than five cooks had been
dismissed, because they could not prevail upon their own consciences to
obey his directions in things that were contrary to the present practice
of their art; and that although he had at last engaged a person, by
an extraordinary premium, to comply with his orders, the fellow was so
astonished, mortified, and incensed, at the commands he had received,
that his hair stood on end, and he begged on his knees to be released
from the agreement he had made; but finding that his employer insisted
upon the performance of his contract, and threatened to introduce him
to the commissaire, if he should flinch from the bargain, he had, in the
discharge of his office, wept, sung, cursed, and capered, for two hours
without intermission.
While the company listened to this odd information, by which they were
prepossessed with strange notions of the dinner, their ears were invaded
by a piteous voice, that exclaimed in French, "For the love of God! dear
sir! for the passion of Jesus Christ! spare me the mortification of
the honey and oil!" Their ears still vibrated with the sound, when the
doctor entering, was by Peregrine made acquainted with the strangers, to
whom he, in the transports of his wrath, could not help complaining of
the want of complaisance he had found in the Parisian vulgar, by which
his plan had been almost entirely ruined and set aside. The French
marquis, who thought the honour of his nation was concerned at this
declaration, professed his sorrow for what had happened, so contrary
to the established character of the people, and undertook to see the
delinquents severely punished, provided he could be informed of their
names or places of abode. The mutual compliments that passed on this
occasion were scarce finished, when a servant coming into the room,
announced dinner; and the entertainer led the way into another
apartment, where they found a long table, or rather two boards joined
together, and furnished with a variety of dishes, the steams of which
had such evident effect upon the nerves of the company, that the marquis
made frightful grimaces, under pretence of taking snuff; the Italian's
eyes watered, the German's visage underwent several distortions of
feature; our hero found means to exclude the odour from his sense of
smelling, by breathing only through his mouth; and the poor painter,
running into another room, plugged his nostrils with, tobacco. The
doctor himself, who was the only person then present whose organs were
not discomposed, pointing to a couple of couches placed on each side of
the table, told his guests that he was sorry he could not procure the
exact triclinia of the ancients, which were somewhat different from
these conveniences, and desired they would have the goodness to repose
themselves without ceremony, each in his respective couchette, while he
and his friend Mr. Pallet would place themselves upright at the ends,
that they might have the pleasure of serving those that lay along. This
disposition, of which the strangers had no previous idea, disconcerted
and perplexed them in a most ridiculous manner; the marquis and baron
stood bowing to each other, on pretence of disputing the lower seat,
but, in reality, with a view of profiting by the example of each other:
for neither of them understood the manner in which they were to loll;
and Peregrine, who enjoyed their confusion, handed the count to the
other side, where, with the most mischievous politeness, he insisted
upon his taking possession of the upper place.
In this disagreeable and ludicrous suspense, they continued acting a
pantomime of gesticulations, until the doctor earnestly entreated them
to wave all compliment and form, lest the dinner should be spoiled
before the ceremonial could be adjusted. Thus conjured, Peregrine took
the lower couch on the left-hand side, laying himself gently down, with
his face towards the table. The marquis, in imitation of this pattern,
(though he would have much rather fasted three days than run the risk of
discomposing his dress by such an attitude,) stretched himself, upon the
opposite place, reclining upon his elbow in a most painful and awkward
situation, with his head raised above the end of the couch, that the
economy of his hair might not suffer by the projection of his body. The
Italian, being a thin limber creature, planted himself next to Pickle,
without sustaining any misfortune, but that of his stocking being tom
by a ragged nail of the seat, as he raised his legs on a level with the
rest of his limbs. But the baron, who was neither so wieldy nor supple
in his joints as his companions, flounced himself down with such
precipitation, that his feet, suddenly tilting up, came in furious
contact with the head of the marquis, and demolished every curl in a
twinkling, while his own skull, at the same instant, descended upon the
side of his couch with such violence, that his periwig was struck off,
and the whole room filled with pulvilio.
The drollery of distress that attended this disaster entirely vanquished
the affected gravity of our young gentleman, who was obliged to suppress
his laughter by cramming his handkerchief into his mouth; for the
bareheaded German asked pardon with such ridiculous confusion, and the
marquis admitted his apology with such rueful complaisance, as were
sufficient to awaken the mirth of a quietist.
This misfortune being repaired, as well as the circumstances of
the occasion would permit, and every one settled according to the
arrangement already described, the doctor graciously undertook to give
some account of the dishes as they occurred, that the company might be
directed in their choice; and, with an air of infinite satisfaction,
thus began:--"This here, gentlemen, is a boiled goose, served up in a
sauce composed of pepper, lovage, coriander, mint, rue, anchovies,
and oil. I wish for your sakes, gentlemen, it was one of the geese of
Ferrara, so much celebrated among the ancients for the magnitude of
their livers, one of which is said to have weighed upwards of two
pounds; with this food, exquisite as it was, did the tyrant Heliogabalus
regale his hounds. But I beg pardon, I had almost forgot the soup, which
I hear is so necessary an article at all tables in France. At each
end there are dishes of the salacacabia of the Romans; one is made of
parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, pine-tops, honey, vinegar, brine, eggs,
cucumbers, onions, and hen livers; the other is much the same as the
soup-maigre of this country. Then there is a loin of boiled veal with
fennel and carraway seed, on a pottage composed of pickle, oil, honey,
and flour, and a curious hashis of the lights, liver, and blood of a
hare, together with a dish of roasted pigeons. Monsieur le Baron, shall
I help you to a plate of this soup?" The German, who did not at all
disapprove of the ingredients, assented to the proposal, and seemed to
relish the composition; while the marquis, being asked by the painter
which of the sillykickabys he chose, was, in consequence of his desire,
accommodated with a portion of the soup-maigre; and the count, in
lieu of spoon meat, of which he said he was no great admirer, supplied
himself with a pigeon, therein conforming to the choice of our young
gentleman, whose example he determined to follow through the whole
course of the entertainment.
The Frenchman, having swallowed the first spoonful, made a full pause,
his throat swelled as if an egg had stuck in his gullet, his eyes
rolled, and his mouth underwent a series of involuntary contractions and
dilations. Pallet, who looked steadfastly at this connoisseur, with a
view of consulting his taste, before he himself would venture upon the
soup, began to be disturbed at these emotions, and observed, with some
concern, that the poor gentleman seemed to be going into a fit; when
Peregrine assured him, that these were symptoms of ecstacy, and, for
further confirmation, asked the marquis how he found the soup. It was
with infinite difficulty that his complaisance could so far master his
disgust, as to enable him to answer, "altogether excellent, upon my
honour!" and the painter, being certified of his approbation, lifted the
spoon to his mouth without scruple; but far from justifying the eulogium
of his taster, when this precious composition diffused itself upon his
palate; he seemed to be deprived of all sense and motion, and sat like
the leaden statue of some river god, with the liquor flowing out at both
sides of his mouth.
The doctor, alarmed at this indecent phenomenon, earnestly inquired into
the cause of it; and when Pallet recovered his recollection, and swore
that he would rather swallow porridge made of burning brimstone than
such an infernal mess as that which he had tasted, the physician, in
his own vindication, assured the company, that, except the usual
ingredients, he had mixed nothing in the soup but some sal ammoniac,
instead of the ancient nitrum, which could not now be procured;
and appealed to the marquis, whether such a succedaneum was not an
improvement on the whole. The unfortunate petit maître, driven to
the extremity of his condescension, acknowledged it to be a masterly
refinement; and deeming himself obliged, in point of honour, to evince
his sentiments by his practice, forced a few more mouthfuls of this
disagreeable potion down his throat, till his stomach was so much
offended, that he was compelled to start up of a sudden; and, in the
hurry of his elevation, overturned his plate into the bosom of the
baron. The emergency of his occasions would not permit him to stay and
make apologies for this abrupt behaviour; so that he flew into another
apartment, where Pickle found him puking, and crossing himself with
great devotion; and a chair, at his desire, being brought to the door,
he slipped into it more dead than alive, conjuring his friend Pickle
to make his peace with the company, and in particular excuse him to the
baron, on account of the violent fit of illness with which he had been
seized. It was not without reason that he employed a mediator; for when
our hero returned to the dining-room, the German had got up, and was
under the hands of his own lacquey, who wiped the grease from a rich
embroidered waistcoat, while he, almost frantic with his misfortune,
stamped upon the ground, and in High Dutch cursed the unlucky banquet,
and the impertinent entertainer, who all this time, with great
deliberation, consoled him for the disaster, by assuring him, that the
damage might be repaired with some oil of turpentine and a hot iron.
Peregrine, who could scarce refrain from laughing in his face, appeased
his indignation, by telling him how much the whole company, and
especially the marquis, was mortified at the accident; and the unhappy
salacacabia being removed, the places were filled with two pyes, one
of dormice, liquored with syrup of white poppies, which the doctor
had substituted in the room of roasted poppy-seed, formerly eaten with
honey, as a dessert; and the other composed of a hock of pork baked in
honey.
Pallet, hearing the first of these dishes described, lifted up his hands
and eyes, and, with signs of loathing and amazement, pronounced, "A
pye made of dormice and syrup of poppies! Lord in heaven! what beastly
fellows those Romans were!" His friend checked him for his irreverent
exclamation with a severe look, and recommended the veal, of which he
himself cheerfully ate, with such encomiums to the company, that the
baron resolved to imitate his example, after having called for abumper
of Burgundy, which the physician, for his sake, wished to have been the
true wine of Falernum. The painter, seeing nothing else upon the table
which he would venture to touch, made a merit of necessity, and had
recourse to the veal also; although he could not help saying, that he
would not give one slice of the roast beef of Old England for all the
dainties of a Roman emperor's table. But all the doctor's invitations
and assurances could not prevail upon his guests to honour the hashis
and the goose; and that course was succeeded by another, in which he
told them there were divers of those dishes, which, among the ancients,
had obtained the appellation of _politeles_, or magnificent. "That
which smokes in the middle," said he, "is a sow's stomach, filled with a
composition of minced pork, hog's brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlic,
aniseed, rue, ginger, oil, wine, and pickle. On the right-hand side are
the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with sweet wine, oil,
flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed, or
rather purged, with milk. At that end next Mr. Pallet, are fritters of
pompions, lovage, origanum, and oil; and here are a couple of pullets.
roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius."
[Illustration: 050]
The painter, who had by wry faces testified his abhorrence of the
sow's stomach, which he compared to a bagpipe, and the snails which had
undergone purgation, no sooner heard him mention the roasted pullets,
than he eagerly solicited a wing of the fowl; upon which the doctor
desired he would take the trouble of cutting them up, and accordingly
sent them round, while Mr. Pallet tucked the table-cloth under his chin,
and brandished his knife, and, fork with singular address; but scarce
were they set down before him, when the tears ran down his cheeks, and
he called aloud, in manifest disorder,--"Zounds! this is the essence,
of a whole bed of garlic!" That he might not, however, disappoint or
disgrace the entertainer, he applied his instruments to one of the
birds; and, when he opened up the cavity, was assaulted by such an
irruption of intolerable smells, that, without staying to disengage
himself from the cloth, he sprung away, with an exclamation of "Lord
Jesus!" and involved the whole table in havoc, ruin, and confusion.
Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was sauced with a syrup of
the dormice pye, which went to-pieces in the general wreck: and as
for the Italian count, he was overwhelmed by the sow's stomach, which,
bursting in the fall, discharged its contents upon his leg and thigh,
and scalded him so miserably, that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned
with a most ghastly and horrible aspect.
The baron, who sat secure without the vortex of this tumult, was not at
all displeased at seeing his companions involved in such a calamity as
that which he had already shared; but the doctor was confounded with
shame and vexation. After having prescribed an application of oil to
the count's leg, he expressed his sorrow for the misadventure, which he
openly ascribed to want of taste and prudence in the painter, who did
not think proper to return, and make an apology in person; and protested
that there was nothing in the fowls which could give offence to a
sensible nose, the stuffing being a mixture of pepper, loyage, and
assafotida, and the sauce consisting of wine and herring-pickle, which
he had used instead of the celebrated _garum_ of the Romans; that famous
pickle having been prepared sometimes of the _scombri_, which were a
sort of tunny fish, and sometimes of the _silurus_, or shad fish; nay,
he observed, that there was a third kind called _garum homation_, made
of the guts, gills, and blood of the _thynnus_.
The physician, finding it would be impracticable to re-establish the
order of the banquet, by presenting again the dishes which had been
discomposed, ordered every thing to be removed, a clean cloth to be
laid, and the dessert to be brought in.
Meanwhile, he regretted his incapacity to give them a specimen of the
_alieus_, or fish-meals of the ancients, such as the _jus diabaton_,
the conger-eel, which, in Galen's opinion, is hard of digestion; the
_cornuta_, or gurnard, described by Pliny in his Natural History, who
says, the horns of many were a foot and a half in length; the mullet
and lamprey, that were in the highest estimation of old, of which
last Julius Cæsar borrowed six thousand for one triumphal supper. He
observed, that the manner of dressing them was described by Horace, in
the account he gives of the entertainment to which Maecenas was invited
by the epicure Nasiedenus,
Affertur squillas inter muraena natantes, &c.
and told them, that they were commonly eaten with the _thus Syriacum_,
a certain anodyne and astringent seed, which qualified the purgative
nature of the fish. Finally, this learned physician gave them to
understand, that, though this was reckoned a luxurious dish in the
zenith of the Roman taste, it was by no means comparable, in point of
expense, to some preparations in vogue about the time of that absurd
voluptuary Heliogabalus, who ordered the brains of six hundred ostriches
to be compounded in one mess.
By this time the dessert appeared, and the company were not a little
rejoiced to see plain olives in salt and water: but what the master of
the feast valued himself upon was a sort of jelly, which he affirmed
to be preferable to the _hypotrimma_ of Hesychius, being a mixture of
vinegar, pickle, and honey, boiled to a proper consistence, and candied
assafotida, which he asserted, in contradiction to Aumelbergius and
Lister, was no other than the _laser Syriacum_, so precious as to be
sold among the ancients to the weight of a silver penny. The gentlemen
took his word for the excellency of this gum, but contented themselves
with the olives, which gave such an agreeable relish to the wine, that
they seemed very well disposed to console themselves for the disgraces
they had endured; and Pickle, unwilling to lose the least circumstance
of entertainment that could be enjoyed in their company, went in quest
of the painter, who remained in his penitentials in another apartment,
and could not be persuaded to re-enter the banqueting-room, until
Peregrine undertook to procure his pardon from those whom he had
injured. Having assured him of this indulgence, our young gentleman led
him in like a criminal, bowing on all hands with an air of humility and
contrition; and particularly addressing himself to the count, to whom
he swore in English, as God was his Saviour, he had no intent to affront
man, woman, or child; but was fain to make the best of his way, that he
might not give the honourable company cause of offence, by obeying the
dictates of nature in their presence.
When Pickle interpreted this apology to the Italian, Pallet was forgiven
in very polite terms, and even received into favour by his friend the
doctor, in consequence of our hero's intercession; so that all the
guests forgot their chagrin, and paid their respects so piously to
the bottle, that, in a short time, the champaign produced very evident
effects in the behaviour of all present.
[Illustration: 054]