147 



like me, whose eightieth birth- day is at hand, 

 speedily to put his house in order, before he departs 

 out of life." He then proceeds to descant on a variety 

 of farming matters, and on the advantages to be de- 

 rived from economic fish ponds. 



Among the Romans the love of fish, as an article 

 of food, was likewise quite a passion. Pliny tells us 

 that the great epicures among this people preferred 

 the scare to every other kind of fish. The eel-pout, 

 or lotos- liver, was the next in estimation. The red 

 mullet was in high favour, from the fact, that 

 when the scales are removed from, this fish, it still 

 retains a fine pink colour. "The fops of Home 

 having remarked that, at the death, this colour 

 passed through a succession of the most beautiful 

 shades, the poor mullet was served alive, inclosed in 

 a glass vessel ; and the guests, attentive and greedy 

 of emotions, enjoyed this cruel spectacle, which pre- 

 sented to them a gradation of colours which insensi- 

 bly disappeared."*' It is further stated, in reference 

 to this fish, that " the greatest sensualists killed it 

 in brine, and Apicius was the first who invented 

 this kind of luxury. The brine most in use, in such 

 cases, was made with the blood of mackerel, and 

 that was one of the varieties of that famous garum, 

 so highly praised by the Latin authors, and which 

 was to them, at that period, what the fish sauces of 

 the English are now."f 



* Seneca. Quoet. Nature!, 3, 17, 1&. 

 f Soyer's Pantropheon, p. 213. 



