“It was highly amusing to witness the great variety of trifling presents and frivolous messages which Nollekens received late in life. One person was particularly desirous to be informed where he liked his cheese-cakes purchased; another, who ventured to buy stale tarts from a shop in his neighbourhood, sent his livery servant in the evening to inquire whether his cook had made them to his taste; whilst a third continued constantly to ply him with the very best pigtail tobacco, which he had most carefully cut into very small pieces for him. A fourth truly kind friend, who was not inclined to spend money upon such speculations himself, endeavoured once more to persuade Nollekens to take a cockney ride in a hackney-coach to Kensington, to view the pretty almond-tree in perfect blossom, and to accept of a few gooseberries to carry home with him to make a tartlet for himself. A fifth sent him jellies, or sometimes a chicken with gravy ready made, in a silver butter-boat; and a sixth regularly presented him with a change of large showy plants, to stand on the mahogany table, especially in his latter years, when he was a valetudinarian, that he might see them from his bed; yet the scent mattered not, a carrion flower or a marigold being equally refreshing to him as jessamine or mignonette.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Put four tablespoonsful of fine fruit-jelly into a basin, and stir to it gradually twelve spoonsful of beaten egg; if the preserve be rich and sweet, no sugar will be required. Line some pans with paste rolled very thin, fill them with the custard, and bake them about ten minutes.[131] Footnote 131: Strawberry or raspberry jelly will answer admirably for these.
Sources: The passage is from John Timbs, English Eccentrics and Eccentricities, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Acton, Modern cookery for private families of 1845, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — forest cloth, goose stamp.