on some Egyptian Mummies. lg5 
seum. Lucian also relates, as an eye witness, that in his time 
the dead bodies themselves were introduced at table. It is 
easy to conceive how, during the long interval of near 700 
years, before the transition took place from the first simplg 
idea to this disgusting practice, such little mummies may at 
some period or other have formed the intermediate step. 
The author of the Recherches sur les Egyptiens seems un- 
willing to admit that real mummies had ever been introduced 
at table : but his scepticism appears to me to be no better 
founded than the contrary assertion of one of the most eminent 
physicians of the last century, Casp. Hoffmann, who in his 
once classical work de Medicamentis Officinalibus, in the section 
of the Egyptian mummies, gravely relates, that in Lower 
Saxony no feast was ever given without the introduction of a 
mummy* And strange as this quipro quo between an Egyp- 
tian corpse and a particular kind of Brunswick strong beer 
must appear, it is however a fact, that several more modern 
writers upon mummies have actually copied it out into their 
works with implicit confidence. 
* P. 642. « A Saxonibus audivi, nullum apud ipsos convivium transigi posse, sine 
" mummei, uti appellant. Ita olim sine lasere, et hodie Indi sine asa fcetida nihil co- 
«/ medunt. Hinc, qui in ^Egyptum eunt afferre secum solent talia cadavera 
C c 2 
