THE OYSTER IN SEASON. 253 



barrel being paraded on the table with its top knocked 

 out, and with the whitest of napkins round it, as we shall 

 presently have occasion to show. How sweet it is, too, to 

 open some of the dear natives for your pretty cousin, and 

 to see her open her sweet little mouth about as wide as 

 Lesbia's sparrow did for his lump of not sugar, it was not 

 then invented but lump of honey ! How sweet it is, after 

 the young lady has swallowed her half-dozen, to help 

 yourself! The oyster never tastes sweeter than when thus 

 operated on by yourself, so that you do not "job 5 the 

 knife into your hand ! True labour has a dignity about it. 



So important is our illustrious bivalve as an article of 

 trade, that it is protected by law. It is said that the only 

 two things that George the Fourth ever did the great 

 Georgius, whom Mr. Thackeray envies and satirises were 

 to invent a shoe-buckle and an equisite hair-dye. The 

 brains of the black Brunswicker could do no more. But 

 there is one act also an Act of Parliament which was 

 passed in his reign, for which he is to be thanked. The 

 man who was at once the Lucullus and Apicius of his 

 times must have had some hand in the framing of that Act. 



