The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 381, July 18, 1829
TextTHE PENDRILLS
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
I beg to correct the statement of W.W. in vol. xiii. page 419, respecting this family. It is true that the pension did not expire at Richard Pendrill's death—and it is also true that Dr. Pendrill died about the time as therein stated—but his son, John Pendrill, died at his own residence, near the Seahouses, Eastbourne, last year only, (1828,) leaving issue, one son by his first wife, (named John,) and one son and three daughters by his second wife; his first son, John, now enjoys the pension of 100 marks, and is residing at the Gloucester Hotel, Old Steine, Brighton, in sound health. The privilege granted to this family under the title of "Free Warren," is the liberty of shooting, hunting, fishing, &c. upon any of the King's manors, and upon the manor on which the party enjoying this pension might reside; and I am informed that a certain noble lord made some yearly payment or gift to the deceased, John, not to exercise that privilege on his manor in Sussex. The pension is payable out of, or secured upon, lands in four different counties, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Warwickshire, and entitles the party enjoying it to a vote in each of these counties; but whether this has been acted upon, I cannot possibly say. I have seen in the possession of a branch of this loyal family, only a few days ago, a scarce print of the arms, &c. published in 1756, under the regulation of the act of parliament; besides other prints on the subject. This family, being commoners, is I believe, the only one which have supporters.6
C.C
THE FRIENDS OF THE DEAD
(For the Mirror.)
They've seen him laid, all cold and low;
They've flung the flat stone o'er his breast:
And Summer's sun, and Winter's snow
May never mar his dreamless rest!
They've left him to his long decay;
The banner waves above his head:
Funereal is their rich array,
But hark! how speak they of the dead.
In his own hall, they've pledg'd to him
'Mid mirth, and minstrelsy divine;
When, at the crystal goblet's brim
Hath flash'd, the od'rous rosy wine;
When viands from all lands afar
Have grac'd the shining, sumptuous board,
And now, they'd prove their vaunted star,
The Cobbold, of his priceless hoard.7
Hark! how they scandalize the dead!
They spake not thus,—(their patron here)
When they were proud to break his bread,
To watch his faintest smile, and fear
His latent frown; they did not speak
Of vices, follies, meanness: then
A crime in him, had been, "the freak
Of youth," and "worthiest he, of men!"
Off with those garbs of woe, false friends!
Those sadden'd visages, all feign'd!
Or have ye yet, some golden ends
To be, by Death's own liv'ries gain'd?
Ye mourn the dead forsooth! who say
That which should shame the lordly hall
His late ancestral home! Away!
And dream that he hath heard it all!
M.L.B
The Cosmopolite
FOOD OF VARIOUS NATIONS
(Conclusion.)
The diet of the Frenchman, is chiefly vegetable, and his frogs are rarities reserved for the delectation of the opulent, and answering, in some degree, to the brains and tongues of singing-birds amongst ancient epicures; since, after being subjected to a peculiar process of fattening and purifying, only the legs of these animals are eaten. Light wines, beer, sugar and water, strong coffee, and a variety of delicious liqueurs, are drunk by the French, but they have shown themselves capable of conforming to the English taste in a relish for stronger potations. Spaniards of all ranks, use fruit, vegetables, fish, and olives, for their principal diet, and oil and garlic are used plentifully in their culinary operations; chocolate is their chief beverage, but at dinner ladies drink nothing but water, and gentlemen a little wine. The fare of the Portuguese peasantry is meagre in the extreme, although, they are, in fact, surrounded with the abundant luxuries of nature; a piece of black bread and a pickled pilchard, or head of garlic, is their usual subsistence, but a salted cod is a feast. In Italy, ice-water and lemonade are luxuries essential to the existence of all classes, and the inferior ones, who never inebriate themselves with spirituous liquors, can procure them at a cheap rate; macaroni and fruit are chief articles of food, but the Italians are great gourmands, and delight in dishes swimming in oil, which, to an English ear, sounds very disgustingly; however, it must be remembered, that oil in Italy is so pure and fresh, that it answers every purpose of our newest butter. A gentleman who had resided some time in this country, informs us, that by the Italians, puppy-broth was reckoned a sovereign remedy in some slight indispositions, and that he has constantly seen in the markets young dogs skinned for sale. Of the Turks, the ordinary food is rice, sometimes boiled with gravy, and sometimes made into pilan; a kind of curry composed of mutton and fowl stewed to rags, and highly seasoned gravy. This is eaten with their fingers, since they have neither knives nor forks, and the Koran prohibits the use of gold and silver spoons. Coffee and sherbet are their ordinary beverages, and by the higher classes of "the faithful," wine is drunk in private, but an intoxication of a singular and destructive description, is produced by opium, which the Turks chew in immoderate quantities. The food of the Circassians consists of a little meat, millet-paste, and a kind of beer fermented from millet. The Tartars are not fond of beef and veal, but admire horse-flesh; they prefer to drink, before any thing else, mare's milk, and produce from it, by keeping it in sour skins, a strong spirit termed koumiss. The Jakutians (a Tartar tribe) esteem horse-flesh as the greatest possible dainty; they eat raw the fat of horses and oxen, and drink melted butter with avidity; but bread is rare. The favourite food of the Kalmuc Tartars is horse-flesh, eaten raw sometimes, but commonly dried in the sun; dogs, cats, rats, marmots, and other small animals and vermin are also eaten by them; but neither vegetables, bread nor fruits; and they drink koumiss; than which, scarcely any thing can be more disgusting, except, perhaps, that beverage of the South Sea islanders, prepared by means of leaves being masticated by a large company, and spit into a bowl of water. The diet of the Kamtschatdales, is chiefly fish, variously prepared; huigal, which is neither more nor less than fish laid in a pit until putrid, is a luxury with this people! They are fond of caviar, made of roes of fish, and scarcely less disgusting than huigal. A pound of dry caviar will last a Kamtschatdale on a journey for a considerable time, since he finds bread to eat with it in the bark of every birch and elder he meets with. These people boil the fat of the whale and walrus with roots of setage. A principal dish at their feasts, consists of various roots and berries pounded with caviar, and mixed with the melted fat of whale and seal. They are fond of spirits, but commonly drink water. For the Arabs, lizards and locusts, afford food, but with better articles. The Persians live like the Turks, or nearly so, but for the want of spoons, knives, and forks, their feasts, if the provisions are good in themselves, are disgusting; besides which, the sofera, or cloth on which the dinner is spread, is, from a superstitious notion that changing is unlucky, so intolerably dirty and offensive in odour, that the stranger can scarcely endure to sit beside it. With the Chinese, rice is the "staff of life," but all kinds of animal food are eagerly devoured; and pedlars offering for sale rats, cats, and dogs, may be seen in the streets of Chinese towns. It is uncertain whether a depraved taste or lack of superior animal food, induces a really civilized people to devour such flesh. Weak tea, without sugar, or milk, is the common beverage of the Chinese; in the use of ardent spirits they are moderate. The Peguese, worshipping crocodiles, will drink no water but from the ditches wherein those creatures abound, and consequently are frequently devoured by them. The Siamese, besides a variety of superior food, eat rats, lizards, and some kinds of insects. The Battas of Sumatra, prefer human flesh to all other, and speak with rapture of the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. Warm water is the usual beverage of the Manilla islanders. The Japanese, amongst other things, drink a kind of beer distilled from rice, and called sacki; it is kept constantly warm, and drunk after every morsel they eat. Cocoa-nut milk and water, is the common beverage of the natives of the New Hebrides. In New Caledonia so great is the scarcity of food, that the natives make constant war for the sake of eating their prisoners, and sometimes, to assuage the cravings of hunger, they bind ligatures tightly round their bodies and swallow oleaginous earth. The New Zealanders are cannibals sometimes in a dearth, and to gratify a spirit of vengeance against their enemies. The New Hollanders, near the sea, subsist on fish eaten raw, or nearly so; should a whale be cast ashore, it is never abandoned until its bones are picked; their substitute for bread, and that which forms their chief subsistence, is a species of fern roasted, pounded between stones, and mixed with fish. The general beverage of the negro tribes is palm-wine. No disgust is evinced by the Bosjesman Hottentots at the most nauseous food, and having shot an animal with a poisoned arrow, their only precaution, previous to tearing it in pieces and devouring it raw, is to cut out the envenomed part. Half a dozen Bosjesmans, will eat a fat sheep in an hour; they use no salt, and seldom drink anything, probably from the succulent nature of their food. The Caffres live chiefly on milk; they have no poultry, nor do they eat eggs. When flesh is boiled, each member of a family helps himself from the kettle with a pointed stick, and eats it in his hand. Their substitute for bread, which is made of Caffre-corn, a sort of millet, is the pith of a palm, indigenous to the country.
The Lattakoos eat, with equal zest, the flesh of elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, giraffes, quaggas, &c.; and sometimes, under an idea that it confers valour, human flesh, of which they have otherwise great abhorrence. They are very disgusting in their manner of preparing food. The Abyssinians usually eat the flesh of cattle raw, and sometimes, although we believe the fact has been much controverted, immediately as it is cut from the living animals. The Bisharye, a tribe of Bedouin Arabs, eat raw flesh, drink raw sheep's blood, and esteem the raw marrow of camels their greatest dainty.
The Patagonians eat raw flesh with no regard to cleanliness. The Greenlanders subsist on fish, seals, and sea-fowls, prepared and devoured in manners truly disgusting; train-oil is their sauce, and the blood of seals, their favourite beverage! Some of the North American Indians diet on the flesh of the sea-dog, parts of the whale and its fat, and an oil made of the blubber of both of these animals. Whilst, singular is the contrast, some of the South American tribes, are able to digest monkeys, blackened in, and dried by fire, to such a degree of wood-like hardness, as to be rendered capable of keeping, we dare not say how long.
Chacun à son gout, says one proverb, but we trust that the readers of this paper will, whenever they feel themselves inclined to quarrel with English fare, pause, and remember, another, viz.:—"A man may go further and fare worse."