A Stray Leaf. AVERY "L'Envoy is an epilogue, or discourse, to make plain Love's Labor Lost. VERY few wills are executed without a codicil, so that it may not be inadmissible to offer a little dish of trifles after our Salad. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true, as Shakspeare has it, that a good play needs no epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays do prove the better by the help of good epilogues. Not unfrequently the after-thought which suggests the postscript contains the most important item of the whole epistle and although this may not be the case in the present instance, yet our pen seems reluctant to resign its office without a few words supplementary-a brief tête-à-tête with our excellent friends who have shared our literary repast. Patroclus is said to have been famous for his "Olla Podrida "-in our emulation of the classic hero, we stake our reputation upon Salad. preference has been confirmed, moreover, by the brilliant success of a more recent artiste in the same department of culinary skill—the chevalier D'Aubigné, the story of whose career is too curious to be passed over. "Latour D'Aubigné contrived to live, as many French gentleman did at the time of the French Revolution, in bitter poverty, without a sacrifice of dignity. He had one day been invited by an English friend to dine with the latter at a tavern. In the course of the repast, Our he took upon himself to mix the salad; and the way in which he did this attracted the notice of all the guests. Previous to this period, lettuces were commonly eaten, by tavern frequenters at least, au naturel, with no more dressing than Nebuchadnezzar had to his grass when he dieted daily among the beasts. Consequently, when D'Aubigné handled the preparation for which he had asked, like a chemist concocting elixir in his laboratory, the guests were lost in admiration, for the refreshing aroma of a Mayonnaise was warrant to their senses that the French knight had discovered for them a new pleasure. One of them approached the foreign magician, and said, 'Sir, it is universally known that your nation excels all others in the making a salad. Would it be too great a liberty to ask you to do us the favor to mix one for the party at my table? The courteous Frenchman smiled, was flattered, performed the office asked, and put four gentlemen in a state of uncontrollable ecstacy. He had talked cheerfully, as he mixed gracefully and scientifically, and, in the few minutes required by him to complete his work of enchantment, he contrived to explain his position as emigrant, and his dependance on the pecuniary aid afforded by the English Government. The guests did not let the poor Chevalier depart without slipping into his hand a golden fee, which he received with as little embarrassment, and as much dignity as though he had been the Physician De Portal, taking an honorarium from the hands of the Cardinal de Rohan. He had communicated his address, and he, perhaps, was not very much surprised when, a few days after, he received a letter in which he was politely requested to repair to a house in Grosvenor square, for the purpose of mixing a salad for a dinner-party there to be given. D'Aubigné obeyed the summons; and, after performing his mission, returned home richer by a five-pound note than when he went out. Henceforth he became the 'fashionable salad-maker;' and ladies 'died' for his salads, as they do now for Constantine's simulative bouquets. He was soon enabled to proceed to his responsible duties in a carriage; and a servant attended him, carrying a mahogany case, containing the necessary ingredients for concocting various salads, according to the respective tastes of his employers. At a later period he sold, by hundreds, similar mahogany cases, which he had caused to be made, and which were furnished with all matters necessary for the making an irreproachable salad, and with directions how to administer them. The Chevalier, too, was, like old Carré--whose will was so cleverly made by the very disinterested friends who had never before spoken to him-a prudent and a saving man; and by the period which re-opened France to the émigrés, he had realized some eighty thousand francs, upon which he enjoyed a dignified retirement in a provincial town.' This little incident seemed so apposite to our closing pages, that we have been tempted to append it: the moral of which, if it have any, shall be to suggest the hope that our Salad may prove as acceptable as that of the French artist. * Dr. Doran's Table Traits. THE END. |