THE POETICAL DECAMERON. THE SEVENTH CONVERSATION. ELLIOT. Having gone through all the English satirists, as far as you thought necessary, what is our bill of fare to-day? BOURNE. If you were that which you are not, an absolute helluo librorum, your phrase from the table d'hôte might be perfectly in character: to follow it up, as I am to be caterer, I have provided a variety of dishes. MORTON. Rare and highly seasoned, I hope. ELLIOT. We need not fear that, they will be savoury enough. The fault of these musty, greasy, wormeaten relics generally is, that they are a little too high. MORTON. Yet you seem to have learnt to relish them much better than when first we began our conversations. BOURNE. To drop the figure, here is a small pile of books of a miscellaneous character that I have looked out for our amusement, which contains no thing but literary curiosities:-I mean that their extreme rarity is even more distinguishing than the positive and intrinsic value of several of them. ELLIOT. Then in what order are we to take them, or are we to proceed for the present without system? BOURNE. I apprehend that you will find in our progress something of the "order in confusion" of the poet, for most of the tracts are connected in one way or another. MORTON. If they were not, it would not much signify; therefore let us enter upon the examination of this small pile of books, as you call it, without loss of time. Who is the first author?" Tho. Churchyard, Gent.” BOURNE. Stay: if I am to be at the head of the table, you must allow me to carve, or, at least, to direct the order of the feast. You must be content to take them as the several dishes are placed before you, and not according to your own fancy. MORTON. I presume that you will be the last to abandon ancient usages in this respect, and that all your operations will be governed by Wynkyn de Worde's "Boke of keruynge." BOURNE. Of course, and I shall follow his sage recommendation under the head "seruice," that before you begin to carve, you should "Take your knyfe in your hāde." ELLIOT. In the very spirit of the celebrated Mrs. Glasse,"Take an old hare that is good for nothing else," or Swift's Gay's & "Take a knuckle of veal, You may buy it or steal.” BOURNE. With Wynkyn de Worde's directions on carving, and the instruction of" Epulario or the Italian Banquet," (1589) as to the preparation and arrangement of my banquet, I shall now order the covers to be removed. MORTON. First letting us a little more into the secret about that book you call Epulario. BOURNE. Here it is, at your service, and you will find it nothing more than an old cookery book, affording a little amusement on account of the strangeness of some of the dishes: for instance the following, "To make Pies so that the Birds may be aliue in them and flie out when it is cut vp." ELLIOT. That is certainly of the utmost value, being, no doubt, the origin of that famous old ballad, the delight alike of babies and bibliographers; Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie; When the pie was open'd the birds began to sing, Was not that a dainty dish to set before the king?" Read it by all means. BOURNE. I will, a part of it; not to gratify your love of ridicule, but because it affords a happy note of illustration to Shakespeare's expression, "a custard coffin," in his "Taming of the Shrew." "Make (says the translator of Epulario, for it is from the Italian), the coffin of a great Pie or pasty, in the bottome whereof make a hole as big as your fist, or bigger if you will; let the sides of the coffin be somewhat higher then ordinary Pies, which done put it full of flower and bake it, and being baked open the hole in the bottome and take out the flower." ་ MORTON. And put the living birds in its place, that, I take it, is the great secret. BOURNE. You have guessed it exactly, and we need read no more of it. MORTON. While on the " antiquities of nursery literature" (a subject rendered important by the Quarterly Reviewers), let me ask, if you know with what veneration you ought to look upon some noted lines in "Mother Goose's Melodies." ELLIOT. What edition? A most interesting inquiry! What lines do you allude to in that splendid and delightful work-splendid from its Dutch-gold binding, and delightful from its classical subjects. What are they? MORTON. Those pathetic elegiac verses, "Three children sliding on the ice It so fell out, they all fell in, The rest they ran away," &c. They are nearly 200 years old, and are to be found, with some variations, at the end of a travestie of the story of Hero and Leander which I met with the other day. It was published between 1640 and 1650, but I forget the precise date. BOURNE. If it be no older than that, it is not of much consequence, though the various readings perhaps might still be worth noting. As I suppose we have now done with these interesting matters, we may proceed to the order of the day. MORTON. Your "order in confusion"-the feast you have provided for us; only I hope it will not be like the "Roman smell-feast," of which we read in Chapman's translation from Juvenal. Do not tantalize us with the mere odour of your cates, without allowing us to taste them. BOURNE. You need be under no apprehensions of that kind. As you took up Thos. Churchyard's tract first, we may begin with him. ELLIOT. And begin with him by telling us who he was. His name is not at all familiar to my ears. BOURNE. Perhaps not, for though he was a very voluminous author, he has been very much neglected until of late, when Mr. G. Chalmers took him under his patronage, and reprinted most of his pieces relating to Scotland. MORTON. And prefixed his life, as far as the particulars could be ascertained, did he not? BOURNE. Yes, collecting them with much industry and accuracy.-Churchyard began writing in the reign of Edward VI., but 1559 is the earliest date of any extant and known performance by him, and he did not cease to publish until after the death of |