380 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
down, no newly-cut, well-buttered brown bread, did that solitary 
anonymous man inaugurate the first oyster banquet.” 
Another story makes the act of eating the first oyster a punish- 
ment. The poetaster also had his views on the subject :— 
‘«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 aébris 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 Romans, 
which began with oysters brought from fabulous distances. Vitellius 
ate oysters all day pene 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 déSpise the § savoury bivalve. Lucullus 
had sea-water brought to his villa from the shores of Campania, in 
which he bred them in great abundance for the use of his guests. 
To another Roman, Sergius Orata, we owe the original idea of the 
oyster-park. He invented the oyster-pond,, im 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 satirised oyster-dealers, Marshal 
Turgot used to eat a hundred or two just_to- whet his appetite. 
Rousseau, Helvetius, Diderot, the Abb aynal, and. Voltaire, are 
’ recorded lovers. of oysters. Danton, Robespierre, and other of the 
revolutionists, frequented the oyster savons 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 
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 excite- 
