OYSTER. | NATURAL HISTORY. 229 
Oyster. 
As You Like It, v. 4, 64. 
Fiso conceive of dew only without peasen [7.e.,. spawn] 
and without milk [or milt] as Oysters and other shell-fish. 
When the moon faileth such fishes be void; and the 
waxing of the moon increaseth the humour, and the humour 
vanisheth, when the moon vanisheth. By night shell-fish 
come to cliffs, and conceive pearls of the dew of heaven. 
Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xiii. § 29. 
Tue ashes of an Oyster-shell calcined and incorporate with 
honey rid away wrinkles, and make. women’s skin to lie 
smooth and even. 
Holland’s Pliny, bk. xxxii. ch. vi. 
THE gaping Oyster, entertaining stones 
By th’ crab injected, is despoiled at once. 
Heywood, “ Anna and Phyilis,” embl. 29. 
[Colchester Oysters were renowned in Shakespeare’s time 
(Massinger, ‘‘New Way to pay Old Debts,” iv. 1, and Nash's 
“Lenten Stuff). So Kentish Oysters (Greene’s “Tu quoque ”’), 
Wallfleet Oysters (“Vox Graculi,” quoted by Brand, vol. i. 
p- 15). Red wine was drunk with Oysters (“ Pennyless Parlia- 
ment of Threadbare Poets,” § 3, and Zz//y, “‘ Mother Bombie,” 
ii. 5: “He that had a cup of red wine to his Oysters was 
hoisted in the Queen’s subsidy-book”). They were seasoned 
with vinegar ((/zddleton, ‘‘ Spanish Gipsy,” iv. 1, 10), or eaten 
pickled (Greene’s “Tu. quoque”’), or in pies (“ Lingua,” v. 8, 
and Sex Jonson, ‘‘ Cynthia’s Revels,” ii. 2), of which the in- 
gredients, according to an eighteenth-century recipe in Vares’ 
Glossary, were pepper, nutmeg, salt, currants, dates, bar- 
berries, mace, butter, lemons, anchovies, white wine, sugar, and 
the juice of an orange. George Peele, who was always dis- 
tressed for money, was found all alone at a feck of Oysters 
(Peele's “Merry Conceited Jests”). ‘You may open an 
Oyster or two before grace” (Beaumont and Fletcher, ‘‘ Maid 
in the Mill,” iv. 1), and ‘‘capons crammed full of itching 
Oysters ”’ (ibid, ““Women Pleased,” ii. 4), need no explanation 
beyond the context.] 
Ar Venice the Oysters are very dear, some twenty for a 
lira [7.¢., nine-pence ]. 
Fynes Moryson, “Itinerary,” part iii, p. 112 
V. Crab. 
