134 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



but that, happily for Rome, this fish was costly, aud 

 that 



Non mangia la triglia 



Colui ohe la piglia, 

 so that 



Men their throats of mullet must amerce,* 

 Who'd scarce a gudgeon lingering in their purse, 



the whole population might have been prescribed helle- 

 bore, and shipped off to Anticyra with advantage.f 



To buy and rear mullet was, with many, the ' fixed 

 idea' — ^the settled business and ruling passion of life: 

 those whose purses were long enough, drained them to 

 maintain vivariums; and not oidy cash, but time too, was 

 profusely lavished upon this one object: quite betimes, 

 and long before ofiice or •'change hours (no luckless 

 lover or expectant heir more eager for the peep of day 

 than he) the muUet-miUiouaire was at the pond ere the 

 stars were extinguished, feeding or caressing his fish. It 

 took time, skill, and patience to teach creatures so ob- 

 tuse to heed the voice that called or the hand that 

 fondled and fed them; but to warm such cold-blooded 

 animals as these into a reciprocity of regard, was a work 

 of yet greater difficulty, and the prime ' labour of love;' 

 and that it might not be ' lost,' this 



Man of pleasure was a man of pains, J 



who would toil, sweat, and hang aU day over his stews; 

 manipulate in turn every member of the mute com- 

 munity, and seek, with the assiduity and zeal of an in- 

 ceptor JM.P., to ingratiate himself with his scaly con- 

 stituents. Educational responsibilities (of which some 



* Juvenal. 



t Hellebore was the Eoman remedy for madness, and as the 

 best grew at Anticyra, patients were sent there that they might 

 eat it fresh. 



J Young. 



