THE BRITISH OYSTER-FISHERY. 33 



brought them from Britain : but those most celebrated for 

 their sweetness and tenderness were from Cyzicus, a town of 

 Mysia, situate in a cognominal island of the Propontis. You 

 will also remember that those which came from the Lucrine 

 Lake and from Brundusium had no vulgar fame, being occa- 

 sionally adverted to by their poets and satirists. It was even 

 a grave matter of dispute to which of these the preference 

 was due ; and to settle the point, or with a view, perhaps, of 

 combining the good qualities of both, oysters were wont to 

 be carried from Brundusium, and fed for a time in the Lu- 

 crine Lake. * Dr. Baster would persuade us that the Roman 

 predilection for oysters was a very sanitary one : — "Living 

 oysters," he says, " are endowed with the proper medicinal 

 virtues ; they nourish wonderfully, and solicit rest, for he 

 who sups on oysters is wont on that night to sleep placidly ; 

 and to the valetudinary afflicted with a weak stomach, op- 

 pressed with phlegm or bile, eight, ten, or twelve raw oysters 

 in the morning, or one hour before dinner, is more healing 

 than any drug or mixture that apothecary can compound !" 



Oysters abound on various parts of the British coast, and 

 have become a valuable article of commerce. The south- 

 eastern and southern shores afford the principal supply, and 

 probably the fisheries of Essex are the most important. -j- 

 The principal station of the dredging-boats is at Mersea in 

 Blackwater, which, with the Crouch and the Coin, are the 

 most extensive breeding-rivers in the county. " The oysters 

 are brought from the coasts of Hampshire, Dorset, and other 



" Are they in truth so delicious ?" asked Lepidus, loosening to a yet more 

 luxurious ease his ungirdled tunic. 



" Why, in truth, I suspect it is the distance that gives the flavour ; they 

 want the richness of the Brundusium oyster. But at Rome no supper is 

 complete without them." 



" The poor Britons ! There is some good in them after all," said Sallust ; 

 " they produce an oyster !" — Last Days of Pompeii, i. 47. 



* " In the new moon all shell-fish fill with juice, 

 But not all seas the richer sort produce ; 

 The largest in the Lucrine Lake we find, 

 But the Circaean are of sweeter kind." — Francis's Horace. 



t "The best in England — fat, salt, green-finned — are bred near Col- 

 chester, where they have an excellent art to feed them in pits made for the 

 purpose. King James was wont to say, ' he was a very valiant man who 

 first adventured on eating of oysters.' Most probably mere hunger put men 

 first on that trial. Thus necessity hath often been the purveyor to provide 

 diet for delicacy itself; famine making men to find out those things which 

 afterwards proved not only wholesome, but delicious. Oysters are the only 

 meat which men eat alive, and yet account it no cruelty." — Fuller s Worth. 

 Eng. i. 493. 



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