that it "contended in goodness (if kept from two to five years,
according to magnitude) with any cheese in England."

Today it is called "England's second-best cheese," second after
Stilton, of course.

In early days a large cheese sufficed for a year or two of family
feeding, according to this old note: "A big Cheddar can be kept for
two years in excellent condition if kept in a cool room and turned
over every other day."

But in old England some were harder to preserve: "In Bath... I asked
one lady of the larder how she kept Cheddar cheese. Her eyes twinkled:
'We don't keep cheese; we eats it.'"

Cheshire

A Cheshireman sailed into Spain
To trade for merchandise;
When he arrived from the main
A Spaniard him espies.
Who said, "You English rogue, look here!
What fruits and spices fine
Our land produces twice a year.
Thou has not such in thine."

The Cheshireman ran to his hold
And fetched a Cheshire cheese,
And said, "Look here, you dog, behold!
We have such fruits as these.
Your fruits are ripe but twice a year,
As you yourself do say,
But such as I present you here
Our land brings twice a day."

Anonymous

Let us pass on to cheese. We have some glorious cheeses, and far
too few people glorying in them. The Cheddar of the inn, of the
chophouse, of the average English home, is a libel on a thing
which, when authentic, is worthy of great honor. Cheshire,
divinely commanded into existence as to three parts to precede
and as to one part to accompany certain Tawny Ports and some
Late-Bottled Ports, can be a thing for which the British Navy
ought to fire a salute on the principle on which Colonel Brisson
made his regiment salute when passing the great Burgundian
vineyard.

T. Earle Welby,

IN "THE DINNER KNELL"

Cheshire is not only the most literary cheese in England, but the
oldest. It was already manufactured when Caesar conquered Britain, and
tradition is that the Romans built the walled city of Chester to
control the district where the precious cheese was made. Chester on
the River Dee was a stronghold against the Roman invasion.

It came to fame with The Old Cheshire Cheese in Elizabethan times and
waxed great with Samuel Johnson presiding at the Fleet Street Inn
where White Cheshire was served "with radishes or watercress or celery
when in season," and Red Cheshire was served toasted or stewed in a
sort of Welsh Rabbit. (_See_ Chapte