SPICES. 653 
has it that ‘“‘ The Spink, and the Sparrow, are the devil’s bow 
and arrow.” In the Naworth Accounts for October, 1621, occurs 
an entry of purchase, “ Sparrows, 2 dozen, uid.” (fourpence.) 
They are supplied in America as “rice birds” for the market 
in large numbers. A well-known game, and poultry dealer in 
Albany “took in one thousand and seven hundred Sparrows 
last week, and sold them all.” From A proper new Book of 
Cookery (1594) is copied the following receipt: “To stew 
Sparrows, take ale, and set it on the fire, and when it seeteth 
scum it, and then put in your Sparrows, and small raisins, 
sugar, and sinamon, ginger, and dates, and let them boil 
together; and then take marrow, or butter, and a little 
verjious, and keepe it close. And when it is enough, make sops 
in platters, and serve them forth.” Our ancestors did not 
despise small “‘byrdys’’ at their public feasts. At a banquet 
given to his friends in the sixteenth century by John Stafford, 
when he was Bishop of Bath and Wells, the small byrdys 
were chiefly Sparrows, and they were cooked according to 
the recipe now formulated. It is told respecting the holy and 
humane Saint Francis of Assisi, (who was throughout his life 
on terms of familiar affection with all animated nature about 
him), that “as he breathed out his last sigh,” at nightfall, 
October 2nd, 1226, in the Portiuncula, ‘‘ innumerable larks 
alighted singing on the thatch of his cell, as if to salute the 
fond soul just taking flight.” 
SPICES. 
(See Capsicum, Caraway, Crnnamon, CLoves, GINGER, NuTMEG, 
Pepper and SaFFRON.). 
Spices have been highly esteemed from remote antiquity, and 
were in very early times a principal article of merchandise ; so 
important was this commerce reckoned for our cold climate that 
in primitive English history the Spicery was a special department 
of the Court, and had its proper officers. Spices were necessarily 
rare, and costly, in the fourteenth century, because having to be 
imported from the Levant. Among the recorded ingredients 
of old recipes we find Cinnamon (or Canella), Mace (Macys), 
Cloves (Clowe), Galyngal, Ginger, Cubebs, Grains of Paradise, 
Nutmegs, Caraway, and Spykenard de Spagne. Such Spices were 
in patriarchal days presents acceptable even unto a Monarch ; 
