4S4 



PROSE HALIEUTICS. 



a delicate thermometric touch j a tongue both dean and 

 sensitive : an ear prompt, like that of Dionysius, to catch 

 the faiatest of whispers whether at home or abroad ; 

 nor need I add, that his must needs be a hawk's eye for 

 game, and a Cretan nostril* for fish.' ' I do not dis- 

 pute it j prithee what further?' ' Further, he must be a 

 man of nous, and our excellent poet accordingly makes 

 no mistake where he says in his praise of cooks : 



Ovokv 6 fidyeipos tov TrotrjTov 5ta<^epet, 

 6 NoCr yap ecrnv cKarepa Toirtov Texvrj.' 



'As you and he are agreed on the point, I will not dispute 

 it ; what next ?' ' Why, in the next place, that he apply 

 his nous aright in studying the palate ; a due knowledge 

 of which, however simple it may seem to the thoughtless 

 and ignorant, is in fact beset with almost as many diflS- 

 culties as yvwdi aeavrov, know thyself.' ' Indeed ! how 

 does that appear ?' ' Nothing is more easy to state or 

 apprehend. Take the case of an oculist unfamiliar with 

 that delicate organ the eye ; of an aurist who has never 

 penetrated into the labyrinth of the ear; or of a dentist 

 knowing nothing of the teeth he is called upon to mani- 

 pulate, and you have just so many apt illustrations of the 

 case of a cook unacquainted with the palate ; for that is 

 his especial organ, and everybody looks, and has a right 

 to look, to him to understand it. Now, this knowledge, 

 from the greater complexity of the organ which is the 

 seat of it, is of more difficult acquisition than that of 

 any one or indeed of all the other senses put together. 

 Men's fingers judge pretty much alike of hard and soft, 

 of rough and smooth, of wet and dry, of hot and cold ; 

 ears, too, make the same diagnosis of harsh and musical, 

 low and loud sounds ; eyes, again, as seldom substitute 



* The Cretans were famous for the fineness of their scent, so 

 that the ph Kprjnufi was as well known ia Greece as the odora 

 canum vis everywhere. 



