“Ah!” said Dobbs, when, some months afterwards, he was speaking of the sad bereavement, “She was a wife!  I shall never get such another, and, what’s more, I would not if I could.”

STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM.

Among all the extraordinary and fantastic dishes compounded for the palate of Heliogabalus, the Prince of Epicures, that delicious admixture of the animal and the vegetable—­Strawberries and Cream—­is never mentioned in the pages of the veracious chronicler of his gastronomic feats!

Yes! ’tis a lamentable truth, this smooth, oleaginous, and delicately odorous employment for the silver spoon, was unknown.  Should the knowledge of his loss reach him in the fields of Elysium, will not his steps be incontinently turned towards the borders of the Styx—­his plaintive voice hail the grim ferryman, while in his most persuasive tones he cries—­

“Row me back—­row me back,”

that he may enjoy, for a brief space, this untasted pleasure?  Ye gods! in our mind’s eye we behold the heartless and unfeeling Charon refuse his earnest prayer, and see his languid spirit—­diluted by disappointment to insipidity—­wandering over the enamelled meads, as flat and shallow as an overflow in the dank fens of Lincoln.

His imagination gloats upon the fragrant invention, and he gulps at the cheating shadow until Elysium becomes a perfect Hades to his tortured spirit.

Mellow, rich, and toothsome compound!  Toothsome did we say?  Nay, even those who have lost their ‘molares, incisores,’ canine teeth, ’dentes sapientiae,’ and all can masticate and inwardly digest thee!

Racy and recherche relish!

Thou art—­

As delicate as first love—­
As white and red as a maiden’s cheek—­
As palateable as well-timed flattery—­
As light and filling as the gas of a balloon—­
As smooth as a courtier—­
As odorous as the flowers of Jasmin—–­
As soft as flos silk—­
As encouraging, without being so illusory, as Hope—­
As tempting as green herbage to lean kine—­
------------ a Chancery suit to the Bill of a cormorant-lawyer--
------------ a pump to a thirsty paviour--
------------ a sun-flower to a bee--
------------ a ripe melon to a fruit-knife--
------------ a rose to a nightingale--or
------------ a pot of treacle to a blue-bottle--
As beautiful to the eye as a page of virgin-vellum richly illuminated
And
As satisfactory as a fat legacy!

Talk of nectar! if Jupiter should really wish to give a bonne-bouche to Juno, Leda, or Venus, or any one of his thousand and one flames, let him skim the milky-way—­transform the instrumental part of the music of the spheres into ‘hautboys,’ and compound the only dish worth the roseate lips of the gentle dames ‘in nubibus,’ and depend on it, the cups of Ganymede and Hebe will be rejected for a bowl of—­Strawberries and Cream.