366 PROSE HAIilEIJTICS. 



they were the best of the best. Soles were served then, 

 as now, fried, al^ovre';, when their size admitted it : — 



The cook produced on ample dish 

 Hot frizzled soles, those best of fish, 

 Embrown'd, and wafting through the room, 

 All sputtering yet their rich perfume.* 



They were also served under the name Citharus, in a sa- 

 voury sauce. Epicharmus cites them among the side-dishes 

 served at Hebe's nuptials ; an amateur, ' cithari sciens,-" 

 sings their praises cooked in a compost of cheese and oil, 

 when they are exquisite, elcrlv atSXaaroi ; and Archestra- 

 tus, in Ms poem on ' Good cheer' (Hedypathy), says, to 

 the same purpose, they can hardly be served too elabo- 

 rately : yet with all this, we may yet doubt whether any 

 of these authorities ever hit upon that most dainty and 

 complex of recipes, the French sole ' en matelotte nor- 

 raande,' the bare recollection of which yet lingers, after 

 years' desuetude, agreeably on our palate. That the 

 larger specimens were sometimes served plain boiled, in 

 preference to any more elaborate mode of cooking, is 

 highly probable, since a doughty Greek authority pro- 

 nounces that, for easy digestion, there is no way of serv- 

 ing fish so good as ' au naturel.' While soles were 

 generally in high repute, their reputation depended 

 somewhat upon species, and not a little upon locality ; 

 even in our own island, how different in respect to 

 quality are the same species, fetched from different dis- 

 tricts ! When Galen, Xenocrates, and Diphilus speak dis- 

 paragingly of soles, we must suppose them either to have 

 been sadly warped by the caprice of fashion, or else very 

 unfortunate in their supplies; and it was no doubt a 

 feeling of the injustice of such a censure passed on his 



Si'foi^as irapiBrjKe cf>epav Kvi(T(Taa-( Sc 8S>fj.a. 



