370 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



Another story makes the act of eating the first oyster a punish- 

 ment. The poetaster also had his views on the suhject : 



" The man had sure a palate covered o'er 

 With brass, or steel, that on the rocky shore 

 First broke the oozy oyster's pearly coat, 

 And risked the living morsel down his throat." 



And ever since men have gone on eating oysters. Emperors and 

 poets, princes and priests, pontiffs and statesmen, orators and painters, 

 have feasted on the favoured bivalve. 



Man has made use of the oyster from the most remote antiquity. 

 Among the debris of festivals which precede by ages the epoch of 

 written history, oyster-shells are found. On the " midden heaps " of 

 northern Europe they are often discovered, mingling with other rubbish 

 and with stone implements, evidently the refuse of very ancient 

 feasts. We have all read of the classic feasts of the Eomans, which 

 began with oysters brought from fabulous distances. Yitellius ate 

 oysters all day long, and the idea prevailed that he could eat a 

 thousand. Calisthenes, the philosopher, was a passionate oyster eater ; 

 so was Caligula; Seneca the wise could eat his hundred, and the 

 great Cicero did not despise the savoury bivalve. Lucullus had sea- 

 water brought to his villa from the shores of the Campania, in which he 

 bred them in great abundance for the use of his guests. To another 

 Eoman, Sergius Grata, we owe the original idea of the oyster-park. 

 He invented the oyster-pond, in which he bred oysters, not for his 

 own table, but for profit. 



Among modern celebrities whose love of oysters is recorded, we may 

 mention Louis XI., who feasted the learned doctors of the Sorbonne 

 once a year on oysters. Another Louis invested his cook with an 

 order of nobility, in reward for his skill in cooking them. Cervantes 

 loved oysters, although he satirized oyster dealers. Marshal Turgot 

 used to eat a hundred or two just to whet his appetite. Eousseau, 

 Helvetius, Diderot, the Abbe Kaynal, and Yoltaire, are recorded lovers 

 of oysters. Danton, Eobespierre, and other of the revolutionists, 

 frequented the oyster salons of Paris. Cambaceres was famous for 

 his oyster feasts, and it is recorded of the great Napoleon that he 

 always partook of the bivalve on the eve of his great battles, when 

 they could be procured. 



In short, it has been demonstrated as a gastronomic truth that 



