I was more capable of appreciating at its due value the extent and
accuracy of his knowledge upon another subject--a leg of mutton! It
_may_ be a mere coincidence, but certainly the most learned Hebraist
it was ever my lot to know was also the best and most satisfactory
carver of a leg of mutton.

Nobody knows anything about mutton in these days, for the very
sufficient reason that there is no mutton worth knowing anything about.
Scientific breeding has improved it off the face of the earth. The
immature meat is killed at two years old, and only we few survivors of a
former generation know how little like it is to the mutton of former
days. The Monmouthshire farmers told me the other day that they could
not keep Welsh sheep of pure breed, because nothing under an eight-foot
park paling would confine them. Just as if they did not jump in the days
when I jumped too! Believe me, my young friends, that George the Third
knew what he was talking about (as upon certain other occasions) when he
said that very little venison was equal to a haunch of four-year-old
mutton. And the gravy!--chocolate-coloured, not pink, my innocent young
friends. Ichabod! Ichabod!

My uncle, too, Mr. Partington--who married my father's sister, and
lived many years chairman of quarter sessions at Offham, among the
South Downs, near Lewes--there was a man who understood mutton! A
little silver saucepan was placed by his side when the leg of mutton,
or sometimes two, about as big as fine fowls, were placed in one
dish before him. Then, after the mutton had been cut, the abundantly
flowing gravy was transferred to the saucepan, a couple of glasses of
tawny old port, and a _quantum suff._ of currant jelly and cayenne
were added, the whole was warmed in the dining-room, and then--we ate