OYSTEES. 371 



there is no feast worthy of a connoisseur where oysters do not come to 

 the front. It is their office to open the way by that gentle excitement 

 which prepares the stomach for its sublime function, digestion ; in a 

 word, the oyster is the key of that paradise called appetite. " There 

 is no alimentary substance, not even excepting bread, which does not 

 produce indigestion under given circumstances," says Keveille-Parise, 

 "but oysters never." This is an homage which is due to them: "We 

 may eat them to-day, to-morrow, eat them always, and in profusion, 

 without fear of indigestion." Dr. Gastaldi could swallow, we are 

 assured, his forty dozen with impunity quite a bank must he have 

 eaten. He was unfortunately struck with apoplexy at table before 

 & pate defoie gras. 



Montaigne quaintly says, to be subject to colic, or deny oneself 

 oysters, presents two evils to choose from, since one must choose 

 between the two, and hazard something for his pleasure. 



England has always been famous for its oysters, and its pearls are said 

 to have been the chief incentive to Caesar's invasion. It is not, there- 

 fore, to be supposed that British magnates could be indifferent to the 

 " native." But the bivalve has perhaps been more celebrated, in prose 

 and verse, north of the Tweed than south, where silent enjoyment is 

 more relished than noisy demonstration. Dugald Stewart, Hume, 

 Cullen, and other Scotch philosophers of the last centuries, had their 

 " oyster ploys " as an accompaniment to their " high jinks," in the 

 quaint and dingy taverns of the old town of Edinburgh ; and what the 

 bivalve has been to modern celebrities let the Nodes Ambrosiante tell. 



The oyster may thus be said to be the palm and glory of the table. 

 It is considered the very perfection of digestive aliment. From Stock- 

 holm to Naples, from London to St. Petersburg, it is always in re- 

 quest. At St. Petersburg they cost a paper rouble (nearly one 

 shilling), and at Stockholm fivepence each. For the last year or 

 two the English amphitryon must pay from two shillings to half a 

 crown a dozen for choice natives. 



For his daily nourishment a man of middle size requires a quantity 

 of food equal to twelve ounces of dry nitrogenized substance. Accord- 

 ing to this calculation, it would be necessary to swallow sixteen dozen 

 of oysters to make up the necessary quantity. The small proportion 

 of nutritive matter explains the extreme digestibility of the oyster. 

 It also explains the immense consumption of them attributed to the 



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