PROGRESSIVE DEGENERACY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 663 



solid meat, with proportional accompaniments of pudding, bread, and 

 vegetables, to say nothing of porter and gin-and-water ; whilst the 

 strongest headed drinker will begin to stagger at his fifth or sixth 

 bottle. Perhaps the most respectable instance of modern mastication 

 on record, is the late feat of a countryman, who, having devoured as 

 much tripe as would by measurement have made him a coat and 

 waistcoat, bargained, in the pride of his heart, for demolishing a 

 whole suit, but was ingloriously obliged to give in at the calf of the 

 left leg. Let us now turn to the ancients, and we shall find all these 

 apparently powerful exhibitions of prowess puerile and insignificant 

 in the extreme. From the Iliad we derive much valuable informa- 

 tion respecting the appetites of the age ; for though the principal 

 heroes whose table exploits only are commemorated may have had a 

 greater quantum on which to exercise their talents, there is no 

 reasonable ground for maintaining that they excelled more in the 

 exercise than the ignobile vulgus. When the single combat between 

 Hector and Ajax is concluded, Iliad, Book 7> the leaders of the 

 Greeks sit down to dinner : 



" Each takes his seat, and each receives his share ; 

 The king himself, an honorary sign, 

 Before great Ajax placed the mighty chine/' 



Which entire back of beef, destined for the stomach of one hero, 

 was, as we have been previously informed, late the property of a 

 full-grown ox. Again, in Book 9, the same Ajax, Ulysses, and old 

 Phoenix, are deputed to conciliate Achilles. On their arrival at his 

 tent, the first salutations past, before they proceed to the business of 

 the day 



" Patroclus o'er the blazing fire 

 Heaps, in a brazen vase, three chines entire ; 

 The brazen vase Automedon sustains, 

 Which flesh of porket, sheep, and goat contains." 



Which ample provision of pig, mutton, and goat, it must be noted, 

 is to constitute the supplemental repast of five persons who have 

 already dined, and that not half-an-hour before. The frugality of 

 the ancients is well known ; they regulated the quantity of their 

 fare to the experienced or supposed appetites of their guests ; and 

 such was the nicety of their calculation, that remnants were rarely 

 suffered to leave the table. Several centuries after this, Milo of 

 Crotona killed a bullock of four years old with one blow of his fist, 

 and eat the whole animal in a single day. As late as B.C. 235, the 

 Roman Emperor Maximinus dispatched every day for dinner forty 

 pounds of beef, and five gallons of wine. In short, innumerable ex- 

 amples of a similar nature might be cited to prove the absurd 

 degeneracy of the present age, though these, I trust, will suffice to 

 bear out my argument. Even within this last 500 years our 

 ancestors were much larger and stronger than ourselves. What 

 modern grenadier can sustain, for half-an-hour, a complete suit of 

 the armour which our able-bodied forefathers wore in their daily 

 pastime ? 



The only consolation that offers itself on the subject is, that 

 instead of repining at what cannot be remedied, we ought rather to 



