1831. J Paragraphi from a Portfolio. 405 



A 6ingle eentence may sketch a national character. What could be 

 more graphic than the Englishman's, who, sitting in a coffee-house, the 

 day after he was in the Gazette, happened to have his opinion appealed 

 to by a couple of his friends. " Sir," said the ruined man, in the bitter- 

 ness of his spleen, "why should any one ask me? What opinion can a 

 man have in this country, without a guinea in the world." 



To take another character from the mingled wit and scorn of a Per- 

 sian. When it was told to Nadir Shah that the Turks intended to in- 

 vade Persia, he threw his cloak into his camp-fire : " I do this," said he, 

 " because it was old, and I shall soon have tailors for nothing; the cross- 

 legs are coming." On hearing that the Turks were actually on his fron- 

 tier, " Never mind," said he, " they would have enough to do, if we were 

 asleep. The Osmanli have but two hands, the one is busy keeping on 

 their turban, and the other pulling up their trowsers. If they had a 

 third, it would be holding up their pipe." 



The discovery of the chief sources of human enjoyment have all been 

 attributed to some fabulous origin in the ancient world. Corn, wine, 

 oil, music, and a multitude of similar things have all been ushered in by 

 some antique tale. But some have had in later times a sort of second 

 birth. The story of that important feature of the Englishman's happiest 

 dinner, the beefsteak, was thus given in the middle ages. 



Lucius Plaucus, a Roman of rank, was ordered by the Emperor 

 Trajan, for some offence, to act as one of the menial sacrificers to Jupiter : 

 he resisted, but was at length dragged to tlie altar. There the frag- 

 ments of the victim were laid upon the fire, and the unfortunate senator 

 was forcibly compelled to turn them. In the process of roasting, one 

 of the slices slipped off the coals, and was caught by Plaucus in its fall. 

 It burned his fingers, and he instinctively thrust thenti into his mouth. 

 In that moment he had made the grand discovery, that the taste of a 

 slice thus carbonadoed was infinitely beyond all the old, soddened 

 cookery of Rome. A new expedient to save his dignity was suggested 

 at the same time ; and he at once evinced his obedience to the emperor 

 by seeming to go through the sacrifices Avith due regularity, and his 

 scorn of the employment, by turning the whole ceremony into a matter 

 of appetite. He swallowed every slice, deluded Trajan, defrauded Ju- 

 piter, and invented the beefsteak. A discovery of this magnitude could 

 not be long concealed : the sacrifices began to disappear with a rapidity 

 and satisfaction to the parties too extraordinary to be unnoticed. The 

 priests of Jupiter adopted the practice with delight, and the King of 

 Olympus must have been soon starved, if he depended on any share of 

 the good things of Rome. The phenomenon at length attracted Trajan 

 himself: he was a man of that indignant virtue, which hangs the crimi- 

 nal for the purpose of reforming him. The chief priest of Jupiter, 

 and all his subordinates, were condemned to the halter. This venerable 

 personage, was a man of ancient years, of imperturbable gravity, and had 

 the most prodigious and saintly length of beard in Rome. Trajan 

 felt some human compunctions at the loss of a high-priest v/ith such 

 a holy prodigy hanging at his chin, but his word was irrevocable, and if 

 he had ten times the length of beard lie nmst be hanged. The emperor. 



