646 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
** Sex quater exibant sartores impete magno 
Viribus ut junctis limax spumosa periret. 
Nec fuit e numero qui auderet tangere caudam ! 
Cornua nam extrudens scevissima sicut in agris 
Vacca rubens et nigra, croci continente colore 
Illa suos hostes tremefecit. Abite fugaces 
Sartores! vos dira manent dispendia vite, 
Presentem que viris intentant omnia mortem ! ” 
In France a rustic application to scrofulous swellings is often 
used with success, which consists of garden parsley, and Snails, 
pounded together in a mortar to the consistence of an ointment. 
Some of this is spread on coarse linen, and applied fresh every 
day freely. The curious gourmet may taste a dish of Snails 
any day in London at a Restaurant (Gaudin’s) in Greek Street, 
Soho, where the front window displays a legend “ Escargots 
i la mode de Bourgoyne,” to be eaten on the premises, or a 
emporter, 10d. le douzaine”’: basketfuls thereof are exhibited, 
the open mouths of the shells being stuffed with bread, and 
herbs. Some big, round fellows (selected) are at four shillings 
the dozen; they may be taken home, and cooked according to 
one’s own ideas, perhaps “a la mode de Shepherd’s Bush.” 
Many quarts of cooked Snails are sold every week to the labouring 
classes in Bristol. Defoe, writing in 1722, detcribed a cook’s 
shop “ where you may bespeak a dinner for from four, or five 
shillings to a guinea a head, or what sum you will; the menu 
of one of these guinea dinners containing among other curious 
items a ‘ ragout of fatted Snails,’ also ‘ chicken two hours old. ” 
Erasmus, in his colloquies, refers to the slow pace at which a 
Snail makes progress. “I see what haste you make, you are 
never the forwarder; you go a Snail’s gallop.” The Mock 
Turtle said with a deep sigh to Alice (in Wonderland), “ Once 
I was a real Turtle” ; then he sang very slowly, and sadly :— 
“* Will you walk a little faster ?’ said a Whiting to a Snail, é 
‘ There’s a Porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail : 
See, how eagerly the Lobsters, and the Turtles all advance ! 
They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance ? 
Will you ? won’t you? will you ? won’t you ? will you join the dance ? 
Will you? won't you? will you? won’t you? won't you join the dance ? 
“** You can really have no notion how delightful it will be c 
When they take us up, and throw us, with the Lobsters, out to sea! 
But the Snail replied, ‘Too far, too far!’ and — a look askance— 
‘Said he thanked the Whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance: 
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance; 
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. 
