44 A REJOLNDER TO MRS. BUNN. 



lor, were superior to our own, I will admit it. But Mrs. Bunn, if she be 

 an honest woman, and such I believe her to be, (she loaned me five 

 dollars once and never asked it again,) must admit that, in point of eat- 

 ing, we are in advance of them. 



The magnificent parade of nightingales' tongues was after, all, just 

 as stupid as the idea of the man in Lessing, who thought a young lady 

 would make a good wife, because she sung sweetly. The pearls dis- 

 solved in vinegar, the conger-eels fattened on the flesh of men, are as 

 much proof of the sickliness as of the variety of imagination in the old 

 gourmands. In the solid comfort of the matter we are far beyond them. 

 Forks, which they had not, are preferable to fingers. We feel a slight 

 shudder when Pliny speaks of sucking-puppies fricaseed, as a dish for 

 the gods. Wo to our dandies if this taste should ever be revived ! "Wa- 

 ter-rats" closes a list of delicacies. The stomach, after all, was not so 

 unfortunate a location of the soul. 



The turkey was unknown. The enjoyment of roast goose must 

 have always been disturbed by the reflection that perhaps they were de- 

 vouring a descendant of the saviors of the city. O ! that like happy 

 effects attended the cackling of geese at the capitols of all republics. 

 There was such a want of cleanliness, that the most refined were in 

 danger of eating more than that portion of dirt, which the modern prov- 

 erb has fixed with much precision at "a peck before you die." 



Ambrosia, the food of gods, we are told in the Odyssey, was brought 

 to Jupiter by pigeons. From this, the thought may be gathered that it 

 was not unlike what in modem time we call "pigeons' milk." 



But if this conjecture should not meet the approval of the learned, 

 we will hazard another, for New England itself is hardly more the land 

 of guessers than classic antiquity. As Jupiter both eat ambrosia, and 

 applied it to his hair, for this we take to be an obvious explanation of 

 the phrase, "ambrosial curls," we presume that it was not unlike po- 

 matum, which, from its original place in mutton, when with mutton it 

 may be eaten, conies to be used as an unguent for the hair. This shows 

 the low state of domestic economy on Olympus. For from the hint 

 1 have thrown out, the intelligent reader may easily gather the extreme 

 probability that the celestials were obliged to extract materials for their 

 dinner and their toilet from the same pan. Hence, we submit with much 

 humility, they deified that instrument under its own appropriate name. 

 Pan, it is well known, was the god of shepherds, which you will ob- 

 serve, throws light on my suggestion in regard to the mutton. He was 

 also fond of the pastoral pipe, an obscure legend touching which seems 

 to be embodied in a well known line of a popular ballad, 

 "There's music in the hying Pan." 



