1827.] The Man with the Appetite. 59 1 



as to be literally ready to eat them, whenever they were brought into his 

 presence.* 



The foregoing reflections have originated, I regret to state, in a retro- 

 spect of my own unhappy case a case so peculiarly lamentable in its 

 nature, that I am compelled, in defiance of the dictates of my pride, to 

 submit it to the Public, and, through the medium of this excellent miscel- 

 lany, solicit aid. Know, then, I am that singularly-unfortunate and cala- 

 mitously-situated individual, whose uncommon appetite of late has so 

 much engrossed the attention of the faculty ; and who is generally supposed 

 to have generated (by some unaccountable phenomenon) an animal of the 

 wolf genus in his stomach or abdomen. Men speak of Louis! What 

 were the gastronomical feats of Louis compared with mine ? What would 

 five meals a day be to me, who have a sixty-alderman power, and could 

 digest an elephant? Talk of Milo, indeed! Pah! what's an ox at a 

 sitting ? I could eat Milo after the ox horns and all ! Wish I'd the 

 opportunity ! 



Excuse me, gentle reader. The cormorant within ; he gnaw 



gnaw gnaws ; and, unless I instantly sacrifice a hecatomb of mutton- 

 chops to his insatiate maw, there is no knowing what may happen ! 



There! and now, while the beast is feeding: 



It will naturally be asked to what I attribute this " devouring rage ;" 

 or, rather, this " rage for devouring?" I beg leave most respectfully to 

 state, that, from strong internal evidence, 1 am induced to believe that the 

 propagator of the monster now within me is neither more nor less than that 

 diabolical, malicious, and appetite-creating imp, yclept HALF- PAY !f Say, 

 thou malignant and unreasonable restorative! thou worse than Tantalian 

 torturer, and accursed cause of the unappeasable pangs which consume and 

 distract me ! Say! ere I knew thee when soup, and fish, and flesh, and 

 fowl the wines of France, the preserves of the West, the fruits of Sicily, 

 and though last, not least, " in our dear love," th* cooling and exquisitely- 

 refreshing ices of her hoary JEtna ! when all these, ye gods ! in the most 

 gratifying abundance, daily wooed my acceptance, and tempted the fasti- 

 dious palate say ! did I not regard them with the most stoical indiffer- 

 ence ? Nay, was I not even constrained O mirabile dictu! to rouse 

 my idle organs into actions, and, by the use of strong stimulants, actually 

 compel them to perform their cus^pmary functions ? Yes, yes, alas ! such 

 was then my enviable my halcyon lot ! But now Centre sans gris! 

 Bear with me, gentle Public ! My heart is in our mess-room at Valetta, 

 and I must pause till it come back to me ! 



In appealing to the well-known generosity of the British Public, and 

 more particularly to the feelings of that service to which for so many years 

 I had the honour to belong, it would be ill-judged to weary them with a 

 circumstantial detail of the gradations by which I have arrived at the 

 alarming and destitute condition in which I now find myself. Suffice it : 

 after exhausting the hospitality of a numerous acquaintance, who soon 

 too soon alas ! discovered, in despite of all my forbearance and discre- 

 tion, that, contrary to the received maxim, one in a family did make a 

 difference, when that one happened to be myself; and were, in conse- 



* It is said that this worthy descendant of the Good Henri used to put a barrel of 

 Colchester oysters daily, hors de combat, merely to give him, an appetite. 



t The physicians, indeed, will not allow this 5 but, in some cases, the patients are 

 the best judges. 



