<35.4> Venison pies or pasties were the most favourite dish in
this country in former times; innumerable illustrations might be
furnished of the high esteem in which this description of viand
was held by our ancestors, who regarded it as a thoroughly English
luxury. The anonymous author of HORAE SUBSECIVAE, 1620, p. 38
(this volume is supposed to have been written by Giles Brydges,
Lord Chandos), describes an affected Englishman who has been
travelling on the Continent, as "sweating at the sight of a pasty
of venison," and as "swearing that the only delicacies be
mushrooms, or CAVIARE, or snayles."
"The full-cram'd dishes made the table crack,
Gammons of bacon, brawn, and what was chief,
King in all feasts, a tall Sir Loyne of BEEF,
Fat venison pasties smoaking, 'tis no fable,
Swans in their broath came swimming to the table."--
Poems of Ben Johnson Junior, by W. S. 1672, p. 3.
<35.5> An allusion to the scantiness of forks. "And when your
justice of peace is knuckle-deep in goose, you may without
disparagement to your blood, though you have a lady to your mother,
fall very manfully to your woodcocks."-- Decker's GULS HORN BOOK,
1609, ed. Nott, p. 121.
"Hodge. Forks! what be they?
Mar. The laudable use of forks,
Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy,
To the sparing of napkins--"
Jonson's THE DEVIL IS AN ASS, act.
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