CLUPID^. 327 



shad ; and no one has yet been found to advocate the 

 smaller or finta shad. Both species occur in the Severn, 

 where a corresponding diflference of price marks the dif- 

 ferent estimation in which they are there held. Many 

 rivers on the continent are said to fatten remarkably 

 fine alose ; amongst them are the Garonne, Rhine, Elbe, 

 and Volga ; to these we would add the Loire and the 

 Tiber j particularly the first, whence about Tours, Am- 

 boise, and Blois, we have eaten as plump, palatable spe- 

 cimens, as any elsewhere met with, and scarcely inferior 

 in flavour to salmon. The alose, or thrissa (for we know 

 not by which name it was designated at the time), forms 

 one of an elaborately finished group of mosaic fish, in a 

 house at Pompeii : it was therefore known to the Balbi 

 and their contemporaries ; but whether they appreciated 

 it as much as the bons-vivans of ancient Greece, or dis- 

 paraged it like Ausonius, as a mere 'solatium pauperis ' — 

 ' the pauper's alose from the sputtering stall,' — is more 

 than we can undertake to settle ; but as it occupied the 

 skilful fingers of ancient mosaicisti, and is still considered 

 a fine fish at Naples,* we are incUned to think it was 

 held in like estimation by the connoisseurs of the same 

 regno under the ancient regime. 



A love for music and dancing have been imputed to 

 this ' fresh-water herring' from the times of the Profes- 

 sor of Philosophy at Stagyra, to those of the Professor of 

 of Medicine at Montpeher : Aristotle affirms that he no 

 sooner catches the sound of music or sees dancing, than, 

 like Crabbe's Sailor, ' who hears a fiddle and who sees a 

 lass,' he is irresistibly led to join the sport, and to cut 

 capers and throw summersets out of the water, dvawrj- 



* The Neapolitan markets are supplied principally from tte 

 river at Capua, when the fish, after leaving the bay, gives itself 

 up to luxurious living, and soon becomes fat and heavy, and in 

 good condition for the table. 



