t beastly
fellows those Romans were!" His friend checked him for his irreverent
exclamation with a severe look, and recommended the veal, of which he
himself cheerfully ate, with such encomiums to the company, that the
baron resolved to imitate his example, after having called for a bumper
of Burgundy, which the physician, for his sake, wished to have been the
true wine of Falernum. The painter, seeing nothing else upon the table
which he would venture to touch, made a merit of necessity, and had
recourse to the veal also; although he could not help saying that he
would not give one slice of the roast beef of Old England for all the
dainties of a Roman Emperor's table. But all the doctor's invitations
and assurances could not prevail upon his guests to honour the hachis
and the goose; and that course was succeeded by another, in which he
told them were divers of those dishes, which among the ancients had
obtained the appellation of politeles, or magnificent. "That which
smokes in the middle," said he, "is a sow's stomach, filled with a
composition of minced pork, hog's brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlic,
aniseed, rue, ginger, oil, wine, and pickle. On the right-hand side are
the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with sweet wine, oil,
flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed,
or rather purged, with milk. At that end next Mr. Pallet are fritters
of pompions, lovage, origanum, and oil; and here are a couple of pullets
roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius."

The painter, who had by wry faces testified his abhorrence of the
sow's stomach, which he compared to a bagpipe, and the snails which had
undergone purgation, he no sooner heard him mention the roasted pullets,
than he eagerly solicited a wing of the fowl; upon which the doctor
desired he would take the trouble of cutting them up, and accordingly
sent them round, while Pallet tucked the table-cloth under his chin,
and brandished his knife and fork with singular address: but scarce were
they set down before him, when the tears ran down his cheeks; and he
called aloud, in a manifest disorder, "Zounds! this is the essence of a
whole bed of garlic!" That he might not, however, disappoint or disgrace
the entertainer, he applied his instruments to one of the birds; and
when he opened up the cavity, was assaulted by such an irruption of
intolerable smells, that, without staying to disengage himself from the
cloth, he sprang aw