344 ITALIAN OYSTER-EATERS. [CHAP. vin. 



have all read of the feasts and fish-dinners of the classic 

 Italians. These were on a scale, as has been already indicated, 

 far surpassing our modern banquets at Greenwich and 

 Blackwall, even though the charge for these be, as was re- 

 cently complained in the Times, two and three guineas for 

 each person. Talking of fish-dinners reminds me of a descrip- 

 tion I have read of a dish produced in China containing 

 juvenile crabs. On the cover being removed the crablets 

 jump out on the table and are greedily seized and eaten by 

 the guests who are assembled. The dish is filled with vinegar, 

 which imparts great liveliness to the young creatures. The 

 shell is soft and gelatinous, and the morceau is highly palat- 

 able. Lucullus had sea-water brought to his villa in canals 

 from the coast of Campania, in which he bred fish in such 

 abundance for the use of his guests that not less than 

 35,000 worth was sold at his death. Vitellius ate oysters 

 all day long, and some people insinuate that he could 

 eat as many as a thousand at one sitting a happiness too 

 great for belief! Callisthenes, the philosopher of Olynthus, 

 was also a passionate oyster-eater, and so was Caligula, the 

 Eoman tyrant. The wise Seneca dallied over his few hundreds 

 every week, and the great Cicero nourished his eloquence with 

 the dainty. The Latin poets sang the praises of the oyster, 

 and the fast men of ancient Eome enjoyed the poetry during 

 their carouse, just as modern fellows, not at all classic, enjoy 

 a song over their oysters in the parlour of a London or pro- 

 vincial tavern. 



In all countries there are records of the excessive fondness 

 of great men for oysters. Cervantes was an oyster-lover, and 

 he satirised the oyster-dealers of Spain. Louis XL, careful 

 lest scholarship should become deficient in France, feasted the 

 learned doctors of the Sorbonne, once a year, on oysters ; and 

 another Louis invested his cook with an order of nobility as 

 a reward for his oyster-cookery. Napoleon, also, was an 



