512 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



WMch Ehetor Stratocles at Athens gave. 

 To doughty polemaroha and axchons grave, 

 On which ourself, with many a hvingry guest. 

 Laid instant hands, and bravely did our best. 



It is not easy to convey to others a precise idea of 

 either a battle, ball, or supper, in which they were not 

 personally engaged: thoroughly to apprehend such things, 

 we must ourselves have stood up to the fight or dance, 

 and sat down to the feast ; or, if we have taken no active 

 part, have been bodily present at least during the pro- 

 ceedings. In spite therefore of the very elaborate ac- 

 counts which ofttimes find their way iato the papers, of 

 great private entertainments and civic dinners, the ' con- 

 stant reader' wiQ often find himself wholly unable to 

 wind his way through the Dsedalean mazes of a modem 

 bill of fare, and be forced to confess, as he puts do-vm the 

 savoury and lengthy announcement with a sigh, that he 

 is not much wiser for the perusal. 



But if the most elaborate description of a modem din- 

 ner, embracing the city Mseson's last triumphs, with the 

 service and pomp, the toasts and table-talk of the assem- 

 bled guests, seldom, if ever, satisfies public curiosity en- 

 tirely, (though fed on this careful rechauffe the very day 

 after the feast,) how much less likely is it to be appeased 

 in an inquiry touching entertainments given nearly two 

 thousand years ago — not in our own Guildhall, but in 

 the far-distant saloons of Roman or Athenian citizens, 

 long before the invention of printing, and when news- 

 papers and reporters were luxuries as yet vmdreamt of! 

 Had any ancient frescoes, indeed, (similar in design to 

 the gorgeous and dazzling suppers, the pride of the Vene- 

 tian school,) been spared to our day; as such pageants 

 are certainly amongst those which ' require the pencil, but 

 defy the pen,' we should probably, in spite of the lapse 

 of so many ages, have learned more from one such pic- 

 ture than from any verbal descriptions ; but as this un- 



