THE COOKERY OF VENISON 303 



Lavengro praises the hedgehog encased in clay and 

 baked in embers by the gipsies, we readily take his 

 word that the plat was delicious. We can see him 

 now smacking his lips over the salmis of thyme-fed 

 rabbits, over which he gloats with gusto, when a table 

 was spread unexpectedly for him in famine-stricken 

 Portugal. But in the matter of venison his feelings 

 hurry him away, and he soars from his nervous prose 

 into sublime poetry. It is in the interview with the 

 sporting county justice, on the day of the prize-fight, 

 when his respectable Norfolk acquaintance, Thurtell, 

 subsequently hanged for the Elstree murder, is backing 

 the bruiser with the flattened nose. The worthy 

 magistrate is giving the aspirations of his friend, the 

 scholarly Whiter : 



Oh, give me the haunch of a buck to cut, and to drink 



Madeira old 



And a gentle wife to rest with and in my arms to fold. 

 An Arabic book to study ; a Norfolk cob to ride, &c. 



And we ask if there can be a more enchanting 

 picture of the life of a refined and virtuous man who 

 proves his gratitude for heaven's best gifts by enjoying 

 them heartily ? 



Venison was of course the staple dish at the great 

 mediaeval banquets arranged on a scale of lavish 

 profusion. Fortunately no meat keeps so well or so 



