THE FAMILY OF F.EI.S. 321 



expended the large sum of a hundred shillings in a dish of 

 Eels. Nor was this altogether a solitary instance, and as a 

 further example of the interest felt in these delicacies, it 

 appears by a charter granted by King Ethelred, in the year 

 998, or rather by Bishop Wilson's grant, that the monks of 

 Salisbury were entitled to the tithes of Eels taken from the 

 fishponds, together with the right of taking fish with a net 

 in the vivaria or stews, for one day in the year. Also when 

 Terracina, a sea-port of Italy, was besieged by the Turks, the 

 inhabitants made a vow that they would give twenty thousand 

 Eels to Saint Benedict yearly, if by his intercession they 

 should be delivered from the danger to which they were 

 exposed. A few days afterwards the Turks raised the siege; 

 and in gratitude the Eels were carried every year to the 

 Benedictine Monks until modern times. — (Misson's Travels.) 

 In the poem "Breton's Ourania" we read — 



"The Silver Eel, 

 Which millers taken in their ozier weele, 

 Dwell in the rivers as principall fish, 

 And given to Pan to garnish thy dish." 



At a later date also Tusser recommends, — 



"Put Eels in stew 

 To leave till Lent, 

 And then to be spent." 



But they were not thought altogether favourable to health ; and 

 in an ancient book of repute on the practise of physic, 

 "Regimen Sanitatis Salernise," it is said: — 



"Who knows not physic should be nice and choice 

 In eating Eels, because they hurt the voice: 

 Both Eels and cheese, without good store of wine 

 Well drunk with them, offend at any time." 



It may be supposed that the different kinds of Eels are 

 caught indiscriminately, and we shall by and by take occasion 

 to mention the difference of proportion which thus they may 

 be supposed to bear to each other; but taken together it is 

 estimated that little short of ten millions of these fish are 

 brought yearly to Billingsgate, chiefly from Holland; so that 

 when a tax was paid on the importation of them, it amounted 

 in one year to almost a thousand pounds. 



VOL. IV. 2 T 



