MtJE^NID^. 389 



a spitj roast him leisurely, and baste him with water and 

 salt till his skin cracks, and then with butter. Having 

 roasted him enough, let what was put into his belly be 

 mixed with beaten butter for the sauce/ 



The tenacity of life in an eel is remarkable. Gesner 

 quotes an Englishman who told him he had seen one 

 come nine times alive out of the trail of a raven, abso- 

 lutely refusing to be digested ; thus proving his claim to 

 just as many lives as a cat, for a tenth trial terminated fa- 

 tally. 'Postico falUt clientem,' when pouched by a stur- 

 geon, he has been seen to retreat backwards in the same 

 way ; and a German tailor, who swallowed one accident- 

 ally, was glad enough to get rid of it on the same terms ; 

 he does not appear to have cared to repeat the experi- 

 ment, though Gesner suggests that small eels might pos- 

 sibly be turned to account by doctors in this way, and 

 save their patients many a nauseous draught.* We are 

 not aware that this extraordinary hint has ever been 

 acted upon. 



Every one knows, who may have tried the experiment, 

 that to hold an eel with the naked hand is as abortive 

 an attempt as detaining a pig by the tail, after it has 

 been well soaped ; or, in morals, to hold a knave to his 

 Word ; hence the apophthegm, ' anguDla est, elabitur,' — 

 ' he's an eel, and is off:' but both rogue and eel may be 

 held tight if we set about it the right way ; hence the 

 elliptic proverbial expression, rm Opla rrjv e'^^eXw, — to 

 ' hold an eel with a fig-leaf;' which is alluded to in Al- 

 ciatus's emblem, ' indeprehensum,' where a policeman 

 thus addresses his captive : — 



* Aldrovandi states that horse-doctors gave small eels to their 

 patients, in asthma; and as a purge, sometimes with advantage, — 

 a hint not thrown away, it seems, upon certaia horse-jockeys, 

 who, to improve the metal of the steeds they had to dispose of, 

 adopted the same expedient with variation. 



