“Yet shall you have to rectify your palate, An olive, capers, or some better salad Ushering the mutton; with a short legg’d hen, If we can get her full of eggs, and then, Limons, and wine for sauce; to these, a coney Is not to be despar’d of for our money; And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, The sky not falling, think we may have larks, I’ll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come: Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some May yet be there; and godwit if we can: Knat, rail, and ruf too, howsoe’er, my man Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, Livy, or of some better book to us, Of which we’ll speak our minds, amidst our meat; And I’ll profess no verses to repeat. To this, if aught appear, which I not know of, That will the pastry, not my paper, show of. Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be; But that which most doth take my muse and me, Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine, Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine: Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, Are all but Luther’s beer to this I sing.” The greatest attention was paid to the service of the table: not only, for instance, must the carving be performed in manner peculiar to each kind of creature, but each creature had its own verb signifying its carving. The terms used for carving are curious and now completely forgotten:— “Breke that deer; lesche that brawn; rere that goose; lyfte that swanne; sauce that capon; spoil that hen; fruche that chekyn; unbrace that mallard; unlace that conye; desmembre that heron; display that crane; dysfygure that pecocke; unjoint that byterrne; untache that curlewe; allay that desande; wynge that patryche; wynge that quail; mynce that plover; thye that pygyon; border that pastie; thye that woodcocke; thye all maner of small birds; tymbre that fyre; tyere that egge; chyne that samon; strynge that lampreye; splatte that pyke; sauce that plaice; sauce that tench; splay that breme; syde that haddock; tuske that berbell; culpon that trout; fyne that cheven; transene that ele; traunche that sturgeon; under-traunch that porpus; tayme that crabbe; barbe that lobster. Here endeth the goodlye termes of kervynge.” The way in which the table was to be served was presented, in general terms, as follows:—