CHERRY. 161 
stole to his cell of mortification, which turned out to be a cavity 
made by his own teeth in the choice substance of an enormous 
Cheshire Cheese.” 
“ The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair, 
(Butter and eggs, and a pound of cheese.) 
And I met with this ballad I can’t say where, 
Which wholly consisted of lines like these : 
(Butter, and eggs, and a pound of cheese.) ”’ 
C. S. Calverley.—Fly Leaves. 
“T be most mortal ’ungry,” says the rustic cottager of Devon 
in his peasant speech; “I can ayte a giide hulch ov burd an’ 
cheese, wan za big’s my tu vistes.” Some famous gourmet has 
remarked that dinner without Cheese is like a woman with only 
one eye. 
A Cheese cake is a pastry cake filled in its middle with a custard 
of soft curds, sugar, egg, butter, and spice. This sort of cake 
is first mentioned in the Latin work De re Rustici, ascribed to 
Cato, the elder, of Utica. He simply terms it “‘ Placenta,” 
which is the Latin word for a cake in general, and not for any 
particular cake. Cheese in connection with such a cake does 
not mean tripe Cheese in the ordinary sense, but freshly-pressed 
curds, or casein. In ancient Rome such cakes were sometimes 
made of large size, as they are in Germany at the present time. 
Cheese cakes have a basis of flake dough, or puff paste, shaped 
like a small, flat saucer, which contains the mixed custard. 
Sydney Smith, when writing to Master Humphrey Mildmay 
(April, 1837), from London, said: “In the Greek war the 
surgeons used Cheese and wine for their ointments; and in 
Henry the Eighth’s time cobbler’s wax, and rust of iron were the 
ingredients ; so, you see, it’s of some advantage to be living in 
Berkeley Square, Anno Domini 1837.” 
A few years back there was current a cockney slang expres- 
sion, ‘‘ Quite the Cheese.” It actually originated in India, 
where the Hindustan word “ chiz” (thing,) ts thus applied : 
“quite the thing” runs as the true phrase there. 
CHERRY. (And see Frutr.) 
Ovr cultivated Cherry (Cerasus) dates from the time of Henry 
the Eighth. A London street cry in the fifteenth century was 
“Cherries on the ryse,”’ (or on twigs), but these were probably 
11 
