MULLID^ OR MULLETS. 141 



tised against their neighbour, whether to delude a mis- 

 tress, to bribe justice, to pervert a conscience, to flatter 

 pride, to secure a legacy, or to supplant an heir, mullet 

 was the medium by which these several infractions of 

 the Decalogue were effected, and the whole social duties 

 of man upset. Sometimes, with no further motive than 

 that of mere gluttony, enormous sums were, as we read, 

 squandered on this fish : 



Not long ago, it seems, as tatlers tell. 



Who ever love the marvellous to swell, 



A mullet tempts him, and the glutton pays 



Per every single pound the mullet weighs 



A round sestertium, and those pounds were sis. 



WeU, he design'd, no doubt, some fool to fix. 



Whose palsied hand hia fluctuating will 



Indites and cancels ; I commend his skill. 



Money's weU spent on dolts with cash to leave, 



Not wit to question wherefore they receive. 



He dreamt of no such thing ; without disguise 



Crispinus simply for Crispinus buys. 



Man of the Nile ! What, thou, Crispinus, thou ! 



An act hke this before all Home avow. 



What ! for some shining scales, a sum devote 



More than would buy nets, fishermen, and boat, — 



For which some roods of ground the province sells. 



Or a whole sheep-walk in Apuha's deUsP* 



Though this fish was more often used to point a moral, 

 it might however occasionally also help to ' adorn a tale.' 

 As the poet Philoxenus* was dining with king Diony- 

 sius of Syracuse, two mullets were placed, by order of 

 the royal entertainer, before him and his guest; and it 

 so chanced (?) that the larger did not find its way to 

 Philoxenus; whereupon the poet, taking the fish de- 

 murely off his plate, leant over it with an air of serious 

 attention. Dionysius, whose eye seems to have been 

 as sharp as his weU-known ear, immediately fixing the 



* Badham's Juvenal. t Plutarch. 



