he quits only for the red ordeal of the pot. Look at whitebait, great
heavens!--look at whitebait, and a thousand frisking, glittering,
silvery things besides, which the nymphs of our native streams bear
kindly to the deities of our kitchens--our kitchens such as they are.

"And though it may be said that other countries produce the
freckle-backed salmon and the dark broad-shouldered turbot; though trout
frequent many a stream besides those of England, and lobsters sprawl
on other sands than ours; yet, let it be remembered, that our native
country possesses these altogether, while other lands only know them
separately; that, above all, whitebait is peculiarly our country's--our
city's own! Blessings and eternal praises be on it, and, of course, on
brown bread and butter! And the Briton should further remember, with
honest pride and thankfulness, the situation of his capital, of London:
the lordly turtle floats from the sea into the stream, and from the
stream to the city; the rapid fleets of all the world se donnent
rendezvous in the docks of our silvery Thames; the produce of our coasts
and provincial cities, east and west, is borne to us on the swift lines
of lightning railroads. In a word--and no man but one who, like The
Agent, has travelled Europe over, can appreciate the gift--there is no
city on earth's surface so well supplied with fish as London!

"With respect to our meats, all praise is supererogatory. Ask the
wretched hunter of chevreuil, the poor devourer of rehbraten, what they
think of the noble English haunch, that, after bounding in the Park of
Knole or Windsor, exposes its magnificent flank upon some broad silver
platter at our tables? It is enough to say of foreign venison, that THEY
ARE OBLIGED TO LARD IT. Away! ours is the palm of roast; whether of the
crisp mutton that crops the thymy herbage of our downs, or the noble ox
who revels on lush Althorpian oil-cakes. What game is like to ours? Mans