SCOMBEEID^. 231 



pounds weight : we never saw any in an Italian market 

 heavier than two rotoK and a half, or about five pounds, 

 and seldom any so large. There is a huge African fish 

 of the dory kind, which has been known to avoirdupoise 

 one hundred and forty pounds ; but of the culinary merits 

 of this lamprys guttatus (the ophah of Pennant) nothing 

 has transpired ; to judge from its size alone, one would 

 fancy it must be coarse eating. 



The correct way to dress dories is simply to boil them ; 

 unless when small they are seldom fried; a large one 

 may occasionally be stewed, but boiling is decidedly the 

 prevailing method of dealing with them both at home and 

 abroad. In Italy, equal parts of wine and water are used 

 in the cooking ; and ' John' is usually served cold, with 

 a sauce of lemon-juice and oU, and a sprinkling of salt 

 and pepper. Quin, whose passion for this dish amounted 

 to a vesania, or slight delirium, preferred dories dressed 

 in sea- water to any other way, and he once took the then 

 fatiguing journey from Bath to Plymouth, in order to 

 eat them there in perfection, cooked in their own ele- 

 ment on the spot. Colonel Montague, who relates the 

 Drury-lane ' rake's progress,' mentions that Quin stopped 

 on his way down at the Ivy-bridge hotel, on purpose to 

 concert measures with the landlord for prolonging his dory 

 feasts for another day (professional engagements allow- 

 ing only a week's absence), by having some in readiness 

 for him on his return. The appointed time arrived, and 

 Quin made his punctual appearance with a cask of sea- 

 water as his compagnon de voyage ; but the weather, or 

 something else, had been unpropitious ; no dories were 

 in waiting for the actor's dinner ; there might have been 

 other fish in the larder as well as ducks in the pond, but 

 he was not a man to listen to alternatives on so trying 

 an occasion; in vain the host sought to compromise the 

 matter, the landlady to flatter and soothe the stomach of 

 the irritated comedian, who flung the now useless cask 



