Spring--Hood's Parody of Thomson's Invocation--The excellence of Nettle-Top Soup--Cock-crowing--Birds'-nesting--Professor Geikie--Curious Story of an old Pipe-Tune.
This is the 1st of May [1877], sacred in the ecclesiastical calendar to St. Philip and St. James the Apostles. In ordinary speech we may now call it summer, we suppose, and it is to be hoped that it may prove summer indeed, not in name merely, or astronomically, but veritably, that is, meteorologically as well; such a summer as delighted our boyhood with its bright sun and cloudless skies, or with such clouds only as served to modify and temper a brilliancy and heat that might otherwise have been excessive; the earth verdant and flower-bespangled under foot and around, the very floods and trees of the forest, in the grand hyperbole of Scripture, "clapping their hands for joy:" the singing of birds the while, jubilant and joyous, in copse and wild-wood, its fitting bass, the murmur of innumerable bees; while the fluttering of splendidly coloured butterflies, as they danced along in many a lawless zig-zag and merry-go-round, constantly verified and bore witness to the beauty of the Roman poet's famous line, which may be rendered--
"Lo! fluttering past, flowers swimming in liquid air!"
However the summer may turn out, of the spring at least but little good--speaking of course meteorologically--can be said. It was, quoad hoc, an imposture, and nothing else, and always reminding us of Hood's wicked parody on the opening lines of Thomson's big and bow-wow invocation to the season:--
"'Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come!' O, Thomson, void of sense as well as reason; Why in our ears such arrant nonsense drum? There's no such season!"
To housewives in rural districts we offer a "wrinkle" that may be found of use at the present season, when most vegetable gardens may be ransacked in vain for delicacies that shall be common enough at a later period. While rambling through the district a few days ago, we chanced to drop in upon a widow lady and daughter, who occupy a nice little cottage. They were going to sit down to an early dinner, and although we were not very hungry, and could have fasted till a later hour, not merely without inconvenience, but from choice, yet on their earnest invitation we sat down along with them. The fare consisted of soup and a boiled fowl, the latter fat, tender, and good as a fowl should always be, and the soup was simply delicious. A green vegetable of some kind floating thickly in it, gave it a relish and gout that was very remarkable, and we asked what it was. "Nettle-tops, sir," was the answer, and had we not been told, it is probable that we should have guessed and blundered long ere we could hit upon it. But not only can nettle-tops be thus utilised as an admirable condiment in soup at this season, but they may also be served up asparagus-wise, and, to our taste, are every whit as good. In this latter form we have eaten them often, and, as Johnson said, after swallowing several platefuls of Scotch broth, in reply to Boswell's observation--"You never ate it before?" "No, sir, but I don't care how soon I eat it again." And so say we invariably when we have finished a dish of nettle-top asparagus. After our nettle-top soup it occurred to us that there might be more truth in Goldsmith's remark about the French than he was perhaps aware of, for he meant it as satire, that they can roast a sirloin if they only had beef, and prepare "ten different dishes from nettle-tops."