very different size and bearing. Simple as was the usual diet at
Cherbury the cook was permitted on Sunday full play to her art, which,
in the eighteenth century, indulged in the production of dishes more
numerous and substantial than our refined tastes could at present
tolerate. The Doctor appreciated a good dinner, and his countenance
glistened with approbation as he surveyed the ample tureen of potage
royal, with a boned duck swimming in its centre. Before him still
scowled in death the grim countenance of a huge roast pike, flanked
on one side by a leg of mutton _à-la-daube_, and on the other by
the tempting delicacies of bombarded veal. To these succeeded that
masterpiece of the culinary art, a grand battalia pie, in which the
bodies of chickens, pigeons, and rabbits were embalmed in spices,
cocks' combs, and savoury balls, and well bedewed with one of those
rich sauces of claret, anchovy, and sweet herbs, in which our
great-grandfathers delighted, and which was technically termed a Lear.
But the grand essay of skill was the cover of this pasty, whereon the
curious cook had contrived to represent all the once-living forms that
were now entombed in that gorgeous sepulchre. A Florentine tourte, or
tansy, an old English custard, a more refined blamango, and a riband
jelly of many colours, offered a pleasant relief after these vaster
inventions, and the repast closed with a dish of oyster loaves and a
pompetone of larks.

Notwithstanding the abstemiousness of his hostess, the Doctor was
never deterred from doing justice to her hospitality. Few were the
dishes that ever escaped him. The demon dyspepsia had not waved its
fell wings over the eighteenth century, and wonderful were the feats
then achieved by a country gentleman with the united aid of a good
digestion and a good conscience.