PAL^EMON SERRATUS. 365 



CHAPTER XL. 



SERRATUS - 



"Did not goodwife Keetch, the butcher's wife, come in then, 

 and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess 

 of vinegar : telling us, she had a good dish of prawns j whereby 

 thou didst desire to eat some ; whereby I told thee, they were 

 ill for a green wound ? "King Henry IV. Part 2. 



WE are free to confess, that although we never had 

 the opportunity of luxuriating upon a dish of prawns 

 in conjunction with " a mess of vinegar," as asso- 

 ciated in the preceding quotation, we are by no means 

 without a proper appreciation of the value of these 

 delicate edibles in an epicurean point of view, and 

 acknowledge at once that, whether employed for the 

 garniture of a turbot or a salmon, or in any other 

 manner made adjuncts to the ornamentation of the 

 dining-table, they always command our respectful 

 attention ; nay, we will even go a step further, and 

 avow, that fresh shrimps are not without their attrac- 

 tions in our eyes, whether as the appropriate accom- 

 paniments of a sea-side breakfast, or in their more 

 doubtful character, as belonging to the tea-parties of 

 Greenwich, or of less classic Gravesend. We are not 



