Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Reviews.
REVIEWS .
All Books intended for Beview should be addressed to tho Editor of The Freemason ' s Chronicle , Belvidere Works Hermes Hill , Pentonville , London , N . Tht Fisheries of the World . London : Cassell and Co ., La Belle Sauvago Yard , Ludgate Hill , E . O .
Tins new publication , jnsfc issued by tbe well-known pioneers of popular literature , whose business has now been transformed into a limited liability company , bears an ambitions title ; but wa are bound to admit that the promise of its opening page is most thoroughly carried out , and that it is one of the very best serials ever issued from the press of La Belle Sauvage Yard . The author knows his
subject , and writes with a facile pen , while the illustrations are better than in any of Messrs . Cassell ' s book of the same class that we remember . We honestly recommend the work , which is full of practical aud scientific iufovwiatiou , amasiug anecdotes , and pleasantlyconveyed history to all who take an interest in our great fisheries , and believe in fish as food for both body and brain . Taken iu
connection with the grand and honestly won snccess at South Kensing . ton , it has a special valno at tho present time , while it most be remembered that long after the do ¦>¦) of the International Fisheries Exhibition are closed for ever , this publication will still be issuing in regular monthly instalments , and v ll keep tbe subject before the public . Tho opening pages , entitled " A Discursive Chapter , " and
dealing with a thousand and one snbjeots , are particularly good ; whilst those which follow on fish and fisheries in aucient days prove a very intimate knowledge , on the part of the anthor , of classic lore and old-time records . A few brief extracts may be permitted here , although sqoh " extraction " is hardly fair to the work . "We , in England , " says he truly , "looking at tbe matter
impartially , have very little of whioh to complain in regard to the price or quality offish . It is really cheaper in London and other of our cities and towns than it is in almost any capital in Europe , barring only those of the Northern nations . Order a salmon-cutlet or a sole in Paris , and the chaw . es ate very great , in respectable , though not the highest-olass , restaurants that you will pay from three to five or more francs for your audacity . If it is fresh ,
congratulate yourself . Oysters have sold for as much as a paper rouble—as much as a shilling—a-piece in St . Petersburgh . But what are these to the prices obtained in ancient Rome ' . The equivalent of sis pounds sterling was sometimes paid for a single pound of fish j turbots have sold for the astonishing high figures of £ 48 , £ 64 and £ 240 ! Fish was half the time a luxury for millionaires
only—Who'd for some shining scales a sum devote Enough to buy net , fisherman , and boat . But they would have them . Licinius Crassus , a great slave dealer , once gave a little dinner party , whioh is stated to have required
some 10 , 000 tables to accotnmodato the guests , and "stood " unlimited oysters to the whole crowd ! There is a story of one Cassidorus , who . sold his slave in the morning that he might sup on a mnraena , tie purchase of which cost him all he got by the bargain . Martyn says of him : —
No fish , insatiate , fills that maw of thine : 'Tis not on fish , but man ! ou man you dine ! Badhatn , whose classic knowledge is as great as his fish lore , speaks amusingly of the dread experienced by diners out , lest the fish should not go round . Many poets , like Chjeribus , spent all their muse money on fish ; the grave tragedians , like
Nothippnsfol-, lowed the example . Zeno , founder of the Stoics , was once dining at the house of a great fish fancier , and on a noble dish being put before him , immedietely seized it , and observing his entertainer look glum ( well he might , since it was the whole dinner !) " What opinion , " said tbe philosopher , "do you think yonr guests here must conceive of one who cannot indulge his friend for a single day
iu his well-known weakness for fish ? " Tbe ditbyrambic poet , Philoxenus of Syracuse , after eating part of an enormous polypus , arid being seized , -with indigestion , called in a physician , who urged him straightway to arrange his affairs , as he would not hold out till the evening . "My affairs are long since settled , " sighed the bard ; "My dithyrambics , now as perfect as I could make them , I dedicate
to the Muses who inspired them , and leave Venus and Bacchus my executors . But see ! already Charon beckons , and bids me put into his boat whatever I may want in the transit ; qnick , then , as time presses , bring me the remains of my cuttle ! " The Sepia ( cuttle ) from which we derive the pigment of the same name , is said to be very good eating .
Scarce fish then , as now , was considered a very acceptable present , and was not uncommonly , from its great valne , used as a bribe . There is a story of a famous Roman epicure , whose servant learned at a fish market that a fine fish of rare quality had been sent by the dealers there as a piesent to the chief magistrate of the city . To tbe Court he hired on pretended business , but ia reality all the time fishing for an invitation . There he found it had been
forwarded to a great banker , to whose establishment ho followed it with no better success , for it had jnsfc been presented to an eminent cardinal . He toiled painfully in the hot day to the palace of his ¦ eminen ce , where he fonnd it bad again started out on its travels . At length he cornered it in the house of a lady who was too wise to give it away—introduced himself , and made himself sufficiently agreoab ! e to receive an invitation to dinner as a reward for his perseverance .
¦ There seems , however , to have been a considerable difference of opinion at different times in regard to which fish deserved the first rank . Turbon was generally , but by no means always , popular among the epicares ; and sturgeon , which is , after all , not a delicate Ush , held a very high place , which seems incomprehensible . Ifc was otteu paraded through the streets at festivals , and in triumphal processions , v » ith a crown on its head . Some-fish were supposed even
Reviews.
to improve by keeping : any one familiar with Paris might come te the conclusion that a similar idea prevailed there . The Greeks were never so nice in regard to their food as were the Romans , aud seem to have been indiscriminate in their regard for fish . " Go to market , and get a fish for dinner , " said an Athenian to his slave . " What kind , master ? " " Whv , good old fish , of course ; none of your baby
food for me . " Sword-fish was by them considered as equal to veal . Speaking of tho middle ages , the writer continues : —Some of the fish dishes sound like good eating , and a cunningly seasoned lamprey pie or herring pasty on a fast-day might easily make one forget the absence of the game ov pints . By au ancient charter , the Corporation of Yarmouth was bound to send a hundred herrings , baked in
fonr-and-twenty pasties , annually to the King . Gloucester , a learned writer tells us , citing a number of old authorities , was long famous for its lampreys , but the Norman epicures fanoied that those of Nantes had a richer flavour . Tbis fish was scarce in the reign of KiDg John , and the Countess of Blois could not find any in England of a flavour to suit her delicate appetite . The King , to oblige her ,
issued a licence , to one Sampson , to go to Nantes to purchase some for her ladyship's use . Iu 1231 , a ship freighted with lampreys for tbe table of Henry IU ., left Nantes , and was wrecked off the Isle of Wight . The news was conveyed to the King , who dispatohed a notice to the Sheriff to compel all who found any of these coveted lampreys to immediately surrender them to his majesty's use . As
late as the time of Queen Elizabeth , Lord Berkeley used to send lamprey pies as presents to the judges and other distinguished persons . Among tbe Friday dainties may be classed tho luce , a favoarifce fish with Edward I . He kept a store of them in a slew-pond , at Langley , and had them sent np from the country , " in bread , " to keep them fresh—a common way of preserving fish in those
days of tardy communication . Not that fish-eaters were always very delicate about that ; if we are to credit Peter of Blois , who grumbles , in one of his chatty epistles , that the fish served up at the table of Henry Beauclerk was four days old . " Yet , " says he , " its high flavour does not lesson its esteem ; and as for' the cooks , they oare not whether the unlucky guests are sick or not !"
Many a sailor will tell yon that whale-brain fritters are not to be despised , and our Arctic explorers have by no means turned up their noses at walrus . The whale was not merely eaten by the simpler Saxong , but was highly appreciated by the more fastidious Normans . In 1264 we find Henry III . ordering tbe purchase of a hundred pieces of whale for the royal table . Whales found on the coasts were
perquisites of royalty , and those at the mouth or banks of tbe Thameg were claimed by the Lord Mayor . Edward III . rewarded three poor sailors with a present of twenty shillings for the discovery of a whale near London Bridge . The Normans had many ways of serving it . Sometimes it was roasted and brought to table on the spit ; but the favourite way was to serve it with green peas . The tongue and tail
were considered dplicacies . But the sea-swine of the Saxons , porco marino of the middle ages , and porpoise of ours , was of all blabber delicacies the most esteemed . It figured on royal tables , and was looked npon as the most acceptable present . Iu 1491 , the bailiffs of Yarmouth sent a fine porpoise as a present to Lord Oxford , whose favour they desired , accompanying it with the message that if they
had bad any other " deyntes " they would have sent them also . At the marraige of Henry V . the guests were treated with " roatirl perpes , " and it was also among the dishes at the coronation feast of Henry VII . The King was probably fond of this dish , for it was served up at his table on the feast day of St . George , and my Lord Cardinal courted his majesty ' s favour by sending
a fine porpoise to the palace . The cooks nob only roasted and boiled , but made ifc into pies and pasties ; and a learned " maister coke ' gives a receipt for a delicious " puddyiug of purpasse , " whilst another tells us how to serve ifc up ia fermented ; the wheat was to be seethed in milk , in which finely-ohopped almonds had been boiled to thicken ifc ; the porpoise was to be dished up smothered iu
this delicate sauce , which was also coloured with saffron . Mnstard was regarded as an excellent condiment for use with porpoise . This coarse and oily fish was used by the greatest of the land till late ia the sixteenth century , after which it appears to have gradnally fallen into disrepute . Ifc was found on the tables of Henry VIII . and Queen Elizabeth , and there ia a little historical banquet at which Wolsey ,
Somerset , and ofch- > r lords of the Star Chamber assisted in demolish , ing a porpoise which cost eight shillings . Nothing seems te coma amiss ; all was fish that came into their net ; and the stronger aud more highly flavoured , the greater was the relish . Surfeited with delicacies , they craved a novelty , from the same reason that George II ., who at least lived in an age of refinement , is
said to have preferred oysters stale and of strong flavour . These are but a few brief samples of the contents of a work , which when completed will form a valuable addition to our stock of literature on natural history , incident , and adventure . Sueceeding chapters contain descriptions of the great fish markets of the world ; while in Part III . inst issued , we are introduced to the
International Fisheries Exhibition itself , in dealing with whioh there is au evident desire shown by the anthor to do full justice to its many excellent and important exhibits . A perusal of the early numbers of this work will be sufficient to place tbe reader on terms of intimacy with one who is evidently a traveller and a scholar , whose observation and research cover the vast area of tho waters of
the globe , and whose study of the nature and habits of those denizens of the vasty deep bring to light many a feature of interest and pleasure which hitherto had been obscure . We fancy in some of the pages we trace the hnncliwork of some other of the works of Cassell ' a which have made themselves famous , and none more so , perhaps than the volumes on "The Sea , " so beloved by boys , and so admired
by " children of larger growth . " Be that as ifc may , there is already sufficient in the production of the first three monthly parts to whet the appetite for further instalments , and we opine that when the work is finished , an addition of no mean value will have been made to the popular and educational works whioh have emanated from the well-known firm whoso name stands at the head of this notioe .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Reviews.
REVIEWS .
All Books intended for Beview should be addressed to tho Editor of The Freemason ' s Chronicle , Belvidere Works Hermes Hill , Pentonville , London , N . Tht Fisheries of the World . London : Cassell and Co ., La Belle Sauvago Yard , Ludgate Hill , E . O .
Tins new publication , jnsfc issued by tbe well-known pioneers of popular literature , whose business has now been transformed into a limited liability company , bears an ambitions title ; but wa are bound to admit that the promise of its opening page is most thoroughly carried out , and that it is one of the very best serials ever issued from the press of La Belle Sauvage Yard . The author knows his
subject , and writes with a facile pen , while the illustrations are better than in any of Messrs . Cassell ' s book of the same class that we remember . We honestly recommend the work , which is full of practical aud scientific iufovwiatiou , amasiug anecdotes , and pleasantlyconveyed history to all who take an interest in our great fisheries , and believe in fish as food for both body and brain . Taken iu
connection with the grand and honestly won snccess at South Kensing . ton , it has a special valno at tho present time , while it most be remembered that long after the do ¦>¦) of the International Fisheries Exhibition are closed for ever , this publication will still be issuing in regular monthly instalments , and v ll keep tbe subject before the public . Tho opening pages , entitled " A Discursive Chapter , " and
dealing with a thousand and one snbjeots , are particularly good ; whilst those which follow on fish and fisheries in aucient days prove a very intimate knowledge , on the part of the anthor , of classic lore and old-time records . A few brief extracts may be permitted here , although sqoh " extraction " is hardly fair to the work . "We , in England , " says he truly , "looking at tbe matter
impartially , have very little of whioh to complain in regard to the price or quality offish . It is really cheaper in London and other of our cities and towns than it is in almost any capital in Europe , barring only those of the Northern nations . Order a salmon-cutlet or a sole in Paris , and the chaw . es ate very great , in respectable , though not the highest-olass , restaurants that you will pay from three to five or more francs for your audacity . If it is fresh ,
congratulate yourself . Oysters have sold for as much as a paper rouble—as much as a shilling—a-piece in St . Petersburgh . But what are these to the prices obtained in ancient Rome ' . The equivalent of sis pounds sterling was sometimes paid for a single pound of fish j turbots have sold for the astonishing high figures of £ 48 , £ 64 and £ 240 ! Fish was half the time a luxury for millionaires
only—Who'd for some shining scales a sum devote Enough to buy net , fisherman , and boat . But they would have them . Licinius Crassus , a great slave dealer , once gave a little dinner party , whioh is stated to have required
some 10 , 000 tables to accotnmodato the guests , and "stood " unlimited oysters to the whole crowd ! There is a story of one Cassidorus , who . sold his slave in the morning that he might sup on a mnraena , tie purchase of which cost him all he got by the bargain . Martyn says of him : —
No fish , insatiate , fills that maw of thine : 'Tis not on fish , but man ! ou man you dine ! Badhatn , whose classic knowledge is as great as his fish lore , speaks amusingly of the dread experienced by diners out , lest the fish should not go round . Many poets , like Chjeribus , spent all their muse money on fish ; the grave tragedians , like
Nothippnsfol-, lowed the example . Zeno , founder of the Stoics , was once dining at the house of a great fish fancier , and on a noble dish being put before him , immedietely seized it , and observing his entertainer look glum ( well he might , since it was the whole dinner !) " What opinion , " said tbe philosopher , "do you think yonr guests here must conceive of one who cannot indulge his friend for a single day
iu his well-known weakness for fish ? " Tbe ditbyrambic poet , Philoxenus of Syracuse , after eating part of an enormous polypus , arid being seized , -with indigestion , called in a physician , who urged him straightway to arrange his affairs , as he would not hold out till the evening . "My affairs are long since settled , " sighed the bard ; "My dithyrambics , now as perfect as I could make them , I dedicate
to the Muses who inspired them , and leave Venus and Bacchus my executors . But see ! already Charon beckons , and bids me put into his boat whatever I may want in the transit ; qnick , then , as time presses , bring me the remains of my cuttle ! " The Sepia ( cuttle ) from which we derive the pigment of the same name , is said to be very good eating .
Scarce fish then , as now , was considered a very acceptable present , and was not uncommonly , from its great valne , used as a bribe . There is a story of a famous Roman epicure , whose servant learned at a fish market that a fine fish of rare quality had been sent by the dealers there as a piesent to the chief magistrate of the city . To tbe Court he hired on pretended business , but ia reality all the time fishing for an invitation . There he found it had been
forwarded to a great banker , to whose establishment ho followed it with no better success , for it had jnsfc been presented to an eminent cardinal . He toiled painfully in the hot day to the palace of his ¦ eminen ce , where he fonnd it bad again started out on its travels . At length he cornered it in the house of a lady who was too wise to give it away—introduced himself , and made himself sufficiently agreoab ! e to receive an invitation to dinner as a reward for his perseverance .
¦ There seems , however , to have been a considerable difference of opinion at different times in regard to which fish deserved the first rank . Turbon was generally , but by no means always , popular among the epicares ; and sturgeon , which is , after all , not a delicate Ush , held a very high place , which seems incomprehensible . Ifc was otteu paraded through the streets at festivals , and in triumphal processions , v » ith a crown on its head . Some-fish were supposed even
Reviews.
to improve by keeping : any one familiar with Paris might come te the conclusion that a similar idea prevailed there . The Greeks were never so nice in regard to their food as were the Romans , aud seem to have been indiscriminate in their regard for fish . " Go to market , and get a fish for dinner , " said an Athenian to his slave . " What kind , master ? " " Whv , good old fish , of course ; none of your baby
food for me . " Sword-fish was by them considered as equal to veal . Speaking of tho middle ages , the writer continues : —Some of the fish dishes sound like good eating , and a cunningly seasoned lamprey pie or herring pasty on a fast-day might easily make one forget the absence of the game ov pints . By au ancient charter , the Corporation of Yarmouth was bound to send a hundred herrings , baked in
fonr-and-twenty pasties , annually to the King . Gloucester , a learned writer tells us , citing a number of old authorities , was long famous for its lampreys , but the Norman epicures fanoied that those of Nantes had a richer flavour . Tbis fish was scarce in the reign of KiDg John , and the Countess of Blois could not find any in England of a flavour to suit her delicate appetite . The King , to oblige her ,
issued a licence , to one Sampson , to go to Nantes to purchase some for her ladyship's use . Iu 1231 , a ship freighted with lampreys for tbe table of Henry IU ., left Nantes , and was wrecked off the Isle of Wight . The news was conveyed to the King , who dispatohed a notice to the Sheriff to compel all who found any of these coveted lampreys to immediately surrender them to his majesty's use . As
late as the time of Queen Elizabeth , Lord Berkeley used to send lamprey pies as presents to the judges and other distinguished persons . Among tbe Friday dainties may be classed tho luce , a favoarifce fish with Edward I . He kept a store of them in a slew-pond , at Langley , and had them sent np from the country , " in bread , " to keep them fresh—a common way of preserving fish in those
days of tardy communication . Not that fish-eaters were always very delicate about that ; if we are to credit Peter of Blois , who grumbles , in one of his chatty epistles , that the fish served up at the table of Henry Beauclerk was four days old . " Yet , " says he , " its high flavour does not lesson its esteem ; and as for' the cooks , they oare not whether the unlucky guests are sick or not !"
Many a sailor will tell yon that whale-brain fritters are not to be despised , and our Arctic explorers have by no means turned up their noses at walrus . The whale was not merely eaten by the simpler Saxong , but was highly appreciated by the more fastidious Normans . In 1264 we find Henry III . ordering tbe purchase of a hundred pieces of whale for the royal table . Whales found on the coasts were
perquisites of royalty , and those at the mouth or banks of tbe Thameg were claimed by the Lord Mayor . Edward III . rewarded three poor sailors with a present of twenty shillings for the discovery of a whale near London Bridge . The Normans had many ways of serving it . Sometimes it was roasted and brought to table on the spit ; but the favourite way was to serve it with green peas . The tongue and tail
were considered dplicacies . But the sea-swine of the Saxons , porco marino of the middle ages , and porpoise of ours , was of all blabber delicacies the most esteemed . It figured on royal tables , and was looked npon as the most acceptable present . Iu 1491 , the bailiffs of Yarmouth sent a fine porpoise as a present to Lord Oxford , whose favour they desired , accompanying it with the message that if they
had bad any other " deyntes " they would have sent them also . At the marraige of Henry V . the guests were treated with " roatirl perpes , " and it was also among the dishes at the coronation feast of Henry VII . The King was probably fond of this dish , for it was served up at his table on the feast day of St . George , and my Lord Cardinal courted his majesty ' s favour by sending
a fine porpoise to the palace . The cooks nob only roasted and boiled , but made ifc into pies and pasties ; and a learned " maister coke ' gives a receipt for a delicious " puddyiug of purpasse , " whilst another tells us how to serve ifc up ia fermented ; the wheat was to be seethed in milk , in which finely-ohopped almonds had been boiled to thicken ifc ; the porpoise was to be dished up smothered iu
this delicate sauce , which was also coloured with saffron . Mnstard was regarded as an excellent condiment for use with porpoise . This coarse and oily fish was used by the greatest of the land till late ia the sixteenth century , after which it appears to have gradnally fallen into disrepute . Ifc was found on the tables of Henry VIII . and Queen Elizabeth , and there ia a little historical banquet at which Wolsey ,
Somerset , and ofch- > r lords of the Star Chamber assisted in demolish , ing a porpoise which cost eight shillings . Nothing seems te coma amiss ; all was fish that came into their net ; and the stronger aud more highly flavoured , the greater was the relish . Surfeited with delicacies , they craved a novelty , from the same reason that George II ., who at least lived in an age of refinement , is
said to have preferred oysters stale and of strong flavour . These are but a few brief samples of the contents of a work , which when completed will form a valuable addition to our stock of literature on natural history , incident , and adventure . Sueceeding chapters contain descriptions of the great fish markets of the world ; while in Part III . inst issued , we are introduced to the
International Fisheries Exhibition itself , in dealing with whioh there is au evident desire shown by the anthor to do full justice to its many excellent and important exhibits . A perusal of the early numbers of this work will be sufficient to place tbe reader on terms of intimacy with one who is evidently a traveller and a scholar , whose observation and research cover the vast area of tho waters of
the globe , and whose study of the nature and habits of those denizens of the vasty deep bring to light many a feature of interest and pleasure which hitherto had been obscure . We fancy in some of the pages we trace the hnncliwork of some other of the works of Cassell ' a which have made themselves famous , and none more so , perhaps than the volumes on "The Sea , " so beloved by boys , and so admired
by " children of larger growth . " Be that as ifc may , there is already sufficient in the production of the first three monthly parts to whet the appetite for further instalments , and we opine that when the work is finished , an addition of no mean value will have been made to the popular and educational works whioh have emanated from the well-known firm whoso name stands at the head of this notioe .