4(!4 lewis's AMERICAN S P II T S M A N. 



respects a gourmet, still, we do not think that our love of the 

 good things of this world could ever induce us, like Apicius, to 

 offer our guests a ragout composed exclusively of the tongues of 

 "peacocks and nightingales," or even of "partridges and reed- 

 birds ;" nor would we desire, like Vitellius, to serve up for our 

 brother, no matter how much beloved, a feast composed of two 

 thousand dishes of fish and seven thousand of poultry. Neither 

 is our taste so cultivated or refined as to hanker after the delicate 

 ficsh of young asses or the womb of a pregnant sow,* as served 

 up on the festive boards of the luxurious Romans, or to relish the 

 leg of a young puppy, as greedily devoured by the curious inhabit- 

 ants of the Celestial Empire ; nor is our palate so distorted that 

 we could ever fancy, as some of our friends affect to do, the trail 

 of a roasted woodcock or the contents of a snipe's stomach. 



Nevertheless, if put upon short allowance, we might be glad to 

 partake of any of the above dishes, as well as rattlesnake- 

 soup, whale-blubber, and train-oil, Avithout at the same time merit- 

 ing the ignoble stigma of a glutton, since '"'■ necessitas non hahet 

 legem.'' 



What, my delicate reader, would you think of a man that ate, 



at one meal, 



4 pounds of raw cow's udder, 

 10 " " TOW beef, 

 2 ** " tallow candles. 



Total, 16, 



and washing the whole down with five bottles of porter ? You 

 would naturally, and very justly, remark, "What a hog! what a 

 cormorant!" Strange as it may appear, however, such was the 

 meal of Charles Domery, when a prisoner of war at Liverpool ; 

 and, although allowed the daily rations of ten men, he was not 

 satisfied. 



* " Non Hercule miror, 

 Aiebat, si qui comedunt bona, quura sit obeso 

 Nil melius turdo, vulva nil pulchrius ampltl." 



