1831.] Crotchet Castle. 403 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. Here is a very fine salmon before me : and May is the 

 very point nommt to have salmon in perfection. There is a fine turbot close by, 

 and there is much to be said in his behalf; but salmon in May is the king 

 of fish. 



Mr. Crotchet. That salmon before you, Doctor, was caught in the Thames 

 this morning 1 . 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. na7i7rt ! Rarity of rarities ! A Thames salmon caught 

 this morning! Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, even in fish your modern Athens must 

 yield. Cedite Graii. 



Mr. Mac Quedy. Eh ! Sir, on its own ground, your Thames salmon has two 

 virtues over all others; first, that it is fresh; and, second, that it is rare; for 

 1 understand you do not take half a dozen in a year. 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. In some years, Sir, not one. Mud, filth, gas-dregs, 

 lock-wiers, and the march of mind, developed in the form of poaching, have 

 ruined the fishery. But, when we do catch a salmon, happy the man to whom 

 he falls. 



Mr. Mac Quedy. I confess, Sir, this is excellent : but I cannot see why it 

 should be better than a Tweed salmon at Kelso. 



Mr. Crotchet, Jun. Champagne, Doctor ! 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. Most willingly. But you will permit my drinking it 

 while it sparkles." I hold it a heresy to let it deaden in my hand, while the 

 glass of my compotator is being filled on the opposite side of the table. By the 

 by, Captain, you remember a passage in Athenseus, where he cites Menander 

 on the subject of fish-sauce : o4p i0 y fal l-^uo;. (The Captain was aghast for an 

 answer that would satisfy both his neighbours, when he was relieved by the divine 

 continuing.} The science of fish-sauce, Mr. Mac Quedy, is by no means 

 brought to perfection ; a fine field of discovery still lies open in that line. 



Mr. Mac Quedy. Nay, Sir, beyond lobster-sauce, I take it, ye cannot go. 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. In their line, I grant you, oyster and lobster sauce are 

 the pillars of Hercules. But I speak of the cruet sauces, where the quint- 

 essence of the sapid is condensed in a phial. I can taste in my mind's palate 

 a combination, which, if I could give it reality, I would christen with the 

 name of my college, and hand it down to posterity as a seat of learning 

 indeed. 



The only fault but that, as Dennis Brulgruddery observes of his 

 wife's tippling, cf is a thumper" we find with the above scientific dia- 

 logue is its gastronomic heterodoxy. Mr. Peacock tell it not in Gath, 

 proclaim it not in Ascalon prefers a Thames salmon to all others ! It 

 is really quite distressing to see the infirmity of judgment that some 

 strong minds possess. Still more distressing is it to reflect that such in- 

 firmity is far from uncommon, and that under its malign influence Mil- 

 ton preferred his Paradise Regained to his Paradise Lost ; and Byron 

 his Hints from Horace to his Childe Harold. Thames Salmon supe- 

 rior to all others! Singular infatuation! Did Mr. Peacock, who 

 describes Welch scenery so vividly and so characteristically, never taste a 

 salmon, born, educated, and reared to man's estate in the springs of the 

 Towy, where the cloud-capped Llynn-y-Van, lord of the Black Moun- 

 tains, looks abroad over a dozen counties, and sees no rival? We appre- 

 hend he never did, or the recollection would linger on his mind with all 

 the vividness of " love's young dream." Taking this, therefore, for 

 granted, we hold it to be our sacred duty to set him right on a point in 

 which the honour of South Wales is materially concerned. Thames 

 salmon, though fine, and, like Hunt's blacking, even " matchless" in its 

 way, is so only by comparison. It is luscious, but sophisticated. Welch 

 salmon, on the contrary, is the unadulterated offspring of nature. It 

 has never been drenched with gas-scourings ; is innocent of the flavour 



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