48 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



But the oyster had its detractors amongst the ancients, 

 as well as amongst ourselves. Seneca who so admirably 

 praises the charms of poverty, yet left prodigious wealth 

 behind him ; Seneca, the wise and moderate, who ate 

 several hundreds of them every week, thus launches forth 

 against many good things, and the mud-fattened mollusc 

 amongst the number: " Dii boni, quantum hominem 

 unus venter exercet ! Quid ? tu illos boletos, voluptarium 

 venenum, nihil occulti operis judicas facere, etiamsi prae- 

 sentanei non furant ? Quid ? tu illam asstivam nivem non 

 putas callum jecinoribus obducere ? Quid ? ilia ostrea, 

 inertissimam carnem, cceno saginatam, nihil existimas 

 limosae gravitatis inferre ?" (r] 



In another letter he says that, after having listened to 

 Attilus declaiming against vices and follies, he for ever 

 renounced oysters and mushrooms, for such things cannot 

 properly be called food, and are mere provocatives of the 

 appetite, causing those who are already full to eat more, a 

 thing no doubt very pleasant to gluttons, who like to stuff 

 themselves with such food as very readily slips down and 

 very readily returns. 



$ 



Cicero did not hesitate to confess that he had a special 

 predilection for oysters ; but he adds, that he could renounce 

 them without any difficulty ; which, by the way, he might 

 as well have told to the Marines, if they were in existence 

 in his day, for all the credence this remark of his has 

 gained from posterity. 



We prefer Horace, who in every passage honestly 

 makes known his love for oysters, and eats them himself 

 with as much gusto as he extols them to others. Care- 



(/-) Epistle, 95. 



