383 PEOSE HAIIEUTICS. 



afErmSj that a man who could tear himself away from 

 the spot where eels were being cooked, must either have 

 brazen nostrils, or no nose at all ; and to be rich, and 

 yet not to have tasted eel, Philiteus thought should be 

 numbered among the serious misfortunes of life. 



The luxurious Sybarites, who would faint to see a man 

 dig, banished smiths from their towns, and would not 

 suifer a cock in the country, lest he should mar their 

 slumbers by his clarion, had such a sympathy for, and 

 were so addicted to eels, that they conferred valuable 

 privileges upon aU persons engaged in the fishery, ex- 

 empting them from the visits of the tax-gatherer, and 

 remitting the naany other governmental and municipal 

 liabiUties.* The Romans were as ravenous of eels as the 

 Greeks; and not content with dressing them for the 

 table, they bedizened their favourites (Hke the 'boeuf- 

 gras' in France) with jewels and gauds for public exhi- 

 bition. 



In ancient days, everything good was confined to the 

 few : philosophy was monopolized by small coteries, whUe 

 protectionist Epicures and their purveyors laid hands upon 

 the best fish. Eels were not then the ' solatium pau- 

 peris,^ unless the pauper were also rogue, and even then 

 he was not secure from detection in the fish-market. 

 ' Should you chance to meet a man forlorn in his ap- 

 pearance, shabbily drest, and vrithout any ostensible 

 means of support, a great opsophagist, and a buyer of 

 eels, beware of him : he is a fellow to play footpad, 

 or do worse, to procure his favourite food. Whoever 

 then has been robbed in the city over-night, let him re- 

 pair early to the forum, and there, should he encoun- 

 ter some dirty, ill-attired customer, cheapening eels at 



* Sometbing similar to this has happened in our own country. 

 In Edward III.'s ' Statutum de AUeoe' (1362) the herring fisheries 

 of Cromer and Clay were exempted from impressment, a privilege 

 they still enjoy. 



