of vinegar; a light shower of cayenne,
enough to tinge the general surface; and two
—or three, if you like — large table-spoonsful
of the finest oglio di Nizza, (provided you
can get it: if not, oil from Lucca or Florence)
I now mix for five minutes and do not
follow Guy's recommendation about the
cucumber — at least I hope not — for I sit
down quietly, and, with a silent friend,
eat what I have prepared, moistening
occasionally with Madeira, and reserving the
claws for conversation.

Eating a lobster in this way, I look at his
empty shell, and say with Malcolm, that
"nothing in his life became him like the leaving
it." This may appear ungrateful; but
as I said before, I cannot praise my lobster
morally. "What right had he, merely to
gratify his own pugnacious propensities,
to deprive me of the pleasure of eating
two large claws instead of one?
Compare his conduct with that of the crawfish, a
member of his own family, — during the
process of moult, or, as it is learnedly termed,
ecdysis! The struggles which that animal
makes to render itself fitter for the table are
really sublime: its sole anxiety being to leave
nothing behind; its wretchedness of mind at
casual dismemberment can scarcely be
conceived. "At this period," says a distinguished
naturalist, "the crawfish (Astacus fluviatilis),
becomes very restless, the symptoms of
inquietude increasing in proportion as the
time for emancipation draws nigh. It rubs
one of its legs against the other, and finally
throws itself on its back. In that situation
it begins to shake and swell itself out, till
it tears the membrane which connects the
carapace with the abdomen, and begins to
raise the former: then it rests awhile.
Alternations of agitation and rest succeed each
other at intervals of longer or shorter
duration," &c. What other reason can there be for
all this restlessness, this inquietude, this violent
internal straggle, but the consciousness that,
unless he turns himself out a complete
crawfish, he is of no estimation in the eyes of
cooks? It is this perfection of form, this
heroic struggle to become good, that makes
your Belgian crawfish worth his twenty francs
in the Brussels market. I am not alluding,
of course, to those miserable little creatures
which only serve for garnish, but to animals
some two feet in length (feelers included) that
are to be found in aqueous haunts bordering
the river Mense, in the neighbourhood of
Dinant, Philippeville, and Florence.

These crawfish are worthy specimens of
their race, and how delectable they are to
the palate let those declare, who, like
myself, have fed on them at the restaurant of
Du Bas the younger in the aforenamed city
of Brussels. He advises you, and I think
he is right, to aid their deglutition by a
flask of Rhine wine; but a something called
"Schnapps," which has juniper for its basis,
is no unpleasing succedaneum. It was my
intention when this crustaceous theme invited
me, to have gone into the subject at greater
length, but what remains to be said of those
interesting decapods, the sea and land crabs,
must be reserved for some other occasion.

AN OLD PORTRAIT FROM THE
HAGUE.

HERE is an old portrait of our old friend the
Englishman, painted by an unknown hand at
the Hague, and given to the public in the year
seventeen hundred and forty-seven. Strolling
about the narrow streets, near the great
library of the Géneviève in Paris, noticing the
slovenly students making their way to and from
the Ecole du Droit, and glancing at the books
arranged upon shelves along the dead walls,
a saunterer (himself an Englishman), was
suddenly stopped by two little yellow volumes
in very bad condition, labelled "Lettres sur
les Anglois et François." He invested
seventy-five centimes, and became the happy
possessor of two very curious portraits
painted one hundred years ago. It is most
probable that when these volumes were first
distributed in Paris from the library à la
Plume d'Or of the elder David, they created
some sensation.

It appears from them, that our great
great grandfathers had a reputation abroad
for magnificence among the nobility, and
for the abundant supply of necessaries
enjoyed by the community. They were also
held to be proud to a detestable pitch, to be
insolent to strangers, and to be generally rude
and gross in their manners. They were brave,
yet so disinclined to engage in war that the title
of captain was with them one of reproach,
signifying usually an adventurer — as the title of
abbé was given to any loose hypocrite in
France — yet they had the courage to perform
a good action, and to follow their own good
sense, even when it was at war with conventional
usage. The liberty which they enjoyed
made them independent in all affairs, and
prevented them from exhibiting a slavish
deference towards the nobility. In this way
the broad outlines of our great great
grandfathers' portraits were drawn by the unknown
artist at the Hague. But his details, drawn from
personal observation, form the most curious
part of his picture. It must be remembered
that the portrait-painter's brush is a hundred
years old.

The happy character of an Englishman is a
mixture of common sense and idleness. He
has generally some imagination; but his
imagination is like the hard coal he burns—
it gives out more heat than light. He seldom
goes abroad to seek his fortune; and it may
be said, to the credit of the few who do
venture, that not one of them ever succeeds.
There are, however, excellent scientific men,
and fine writers in England, and the Englishman
pretends that his countrymen are more
advanced in scientific pursuits than any other
nation. In business he has neither the vivacity