OYSTER.] NATURAL HISTORY. 229 



Oyster. 



As You LIKE IT, v. 4, 64. 



FISH conceive of dew only without peasen [i.e., spawn] 

 and without milk [or milt] as Oysters and other shell-fish. 

 When the moon faileth such fishes be void ; and the 

 waxing of the moon increaseth the humour, and the humour 

 vanisheth, when the moon vanisheth. By night shell-fish 

 come to cliffs, and conceive pearls of the dew of heaven. 



Bartholomew (Berthelet], bk. xiii. 29. 



THE ashes of an Oyster-shell calcined and incorporate with 

 honey rid away wrinkles, and make women's skin to lie 



smooth and even. 



Holland's Pliny, bk. xxxii. ch. vi. 



THE gaping Oyster, entertaining stones 

 By th' crab injected, is despoiled at once. 



Heywood, " Anna and Phyllis," embl. 29. 



[Colchester Oysters were renowned in Shakespeare's time 

 (Massinger, " New Way to pay Old Debts," iv. I, and Nash's 

 "Lenten Stuff). So Kentish Oysters (Greene's " Tu quoque"), 

 Wallfleet Oysters (" Vox Graculi," quoted by Brand, vol. i. 

 p. 15). Red wine was drunk with Oysters (" Pennyless Parlia- 

 ment of Threadbare Poets," 3, and Lilly, " Mother Bombie," 

 ii. 5 : "He that had a cup of red wine to his Oysters was 

 hoisted in the Queen's subsidy-book "). They were seasoned 

 with vinegar (Middleton, " Spanish Gipsy," iv. I, 10), or eaten 

 pickled (Greenes " Tu quoque "'), or in pies (" Lingua," v. 8, 

 and Ben Jonson, " Cynthia's Revels," ii. 2), of which the in- 

 gredients, according to an eighteenth-century recipe in Nares' 

 Glossary, were pepper, nutmeg, salt, currants, dates, bar- 

 berries, mace, butter, lemons, anchovies, white wine, sugar, and 

 the juice of an orange. George Peele, who was always dis- 

 tressed for money, was found all alone at a peck of Oysters 

 (Peele s " Merry Conceited Jests "). " You may open an 

 Oyster or two before grace " (Beaumont and Fletcher, " Maid 

 in the Mill," iv. i), and " capons crammed full of itching 

 Oysters" (ibid, "Women Pleased," ii. 4), need no explanation 

 beyond the context.] 



AT Venice the Oysters are very dear, some twenty for a 

 lira [i.e., nine-pence]. 



Fynes Moryson, "Itinerary," part iii. p. 112. 



V. Crab. 



