n" for August.

Since I saw you I have been in France, and have eaten frogs. The nicest
little rabbity things you ever tasted. Do look about for them. Make Mrs.
Clare pick off the hind-quarters, boil them plain, with parsley and
butter. The fore-quarters are not so good. She may let them hop off by
themselves.

Yours sincerely,

CHAS. LAMB.

[1] The Northamptonshire peasant poet. He had sent Lamb his "The Village
Minstrel, and other Poems."

LXX.

TO MR. BARRON FIELD.

_September_ 22, 1822.

My Dear F.,--I scribble hastily at office. Frank wants my letter
presently. I and sister are just returned from Paris! [1] We have eaten
frogs. It has been such a treat! You know our monotonous general tenor.
Frogs are the nicest little delicate things,--rabbity flavored. Imagine
a Lilliputian rabbit! They fricassee them; but in my mind, dressed
seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would have been the decision of
Apicius.... Paris is a glorious, picturesque old city. London looks mean
and new to it, as the town of Washington would, seen after _it._ But
they have no St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey. The Seine, so much
despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a magnificent
street; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty Edinburgh stone (oh, the
glorious antiques!) houses on the other. The Thames disunites London and
Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I
believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a broker about L40
English for it. It is painted on the one half of a pair of bellows,--a
lovely picture, corresponding with the Folio head. The bellows has old
carved _wings_ round it and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as I
remember, not divided into rhyme,--I found out the rhyme,--

"Whom have we here
Stuck on this bellows,
But the Prince of good fellows,
Willy Shakspere?"

At top,--

"O base and coward lack,
To be here stuck!"

POINS.

At bottom,--

"Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd,
Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind."

PISTOL,

This is all in old, carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling,
sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as he was immeasurable. It
may be a forgery. They laugh at me, and tell me Ireland is in Paris, and
has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood
may be imitated I cannot say, Ireland was not found out by his
parchments, but by his poetry. I am co