GADEANS AND PLBTJEONECTS. 367 



favourite food, which extorted the complaiat from a great 

 Greek connoisseur, ' Everything is censured in turn, and 

 now they tell me (but I will never believe it) that there 

 is imperfection even in a sole ! ' 



It cannot be doubted that ^ovyXa)t7ao<; and solea se- 

 verally represent the sole : Archestratus speaks of the 

 roughness of the ^ovyXcocra-o';, calling it vTroTprixv; /3ov- 

 jXcoa-a^oi ; while Ovid illustrates a striking trait of these 

 fish — viz. their mode of suddenly flashing past when 

 disturbed, with the white under surface uppermost, be- 

 coming momentarily what he calls them, "^fuigentes 

 solese candore/ Indeed, the trivial Greek name, the ' ox- 

 tongue,'* or simply ' tongue-fish,' names by which the 

 sole is still recognized in Spain and Italy, would, in the 

 absence of all other evidence, have left little doubt as to 

 the identity of the two. 



* Different species of sole liad different names assigned to them, 

 as ' dog-tongue,' ' sheep-tongue,' ' horse-tongue,' etc. There is a 

 poor punning joke recorded in a fragment of a Latin comedy, 

 turning upon the equivoque of the same word meaning both 

 tongue and sole, which may perhaps be rendered. 



Fresh tongues for sale, who'll buy, who'll buy P 

 Come, sir, will you P No, friend, not I ; 

 Of tongue enow at home I've got 

 In my old wife, Dame Polyglott. 



Apropos of whose garrulity, we venture to quote an equivoque 

 of our own, perpetrated on a lady of our acquaintance, very 

 blue as to her stockings, but a kestrel in voice : 



So great a linguist is Corinna grown. 



She's mistress of all tongues except her own. 



