No--when beef flies the English shores, then you may, as the immortal bard
exquisitely expresses it, "make a silken purse out of a sow's ear." But
mutton, too, invites my Muse. It is calculated that fifteen hundred
thousand sheep are annually sacrificed in London to the carnivorous taste
of John Bull. "Of roast mutton (as Dr. Johnson says) what remains for me
to say? It will be found sometimes succous, and sometimes defective of
moisture; but what palate has ever failed to be pleased with a haunch
which has been duly suspended? what appetite has not been awakened by the
fermentation that glitters on its surface, when it has been reposing for
the requisite number of hours before a fire equal in its fervency?"

We quite agree with Dr. Johnson; but a boiled leg of mutton, its whiteness
transparent through the verdant capers that decorate its candour, is not
to be despised; nor is a hash, whether celebrated as an Irish stew, or a
_hachis de mouton_, most relishing of _rifacciamenti_! Chops and garlic
_à la Francaise_ are exquisite; and the saddle, cut learnedly, is the
Elysium of a gourmand.

Now also is the time of house-lamb and of doe-venison. Now is the time of
Christmas come, and the voice of the turkey is heard in our land! This is
the period of their annual massacre--a new slaughter of the innocents!
The Norwich coaches are now laden with mortals; that, while alive, shared
with their equally intelligent townsmen, _fruges consumere nati_, the
riches of their agricultural county.

Let others talk as they will about the Greek and the Ottoman!--in cookery,
I abhor Greece, and love Turkey. And yet how inconsistent I am in my
politics! for I sometimes regard the partition of Turkey as a thing well
purchased by the sacrifice of every Ottoman in the world--would they