Note 32 — CHAT THE FIFTH

Henry C. Lunn, in his “Musings of a Musician” (London, 1846), admirably describes the way “to make a Fashionable Ballad” in his “Proposals for a Musical Cookery Book”: “Having procured some words, pick them to pieces and pare them down to your liking. Then spread them out upon a sheet of paper, and take a handful of sweet passages (which all good cooks keep by them in a drawer) and sprinkle them over the paper. Add as much spice as will lie upon two shillings, and garnish with any little embellishments you can think of.”