Aim. A fportfman, I fuppofe? Bon. Yes, he's a man of pleafure: he plays at whift, and finokes his pipe eight-and-forty hours together fometimes.

Aim. A fine fportfman, truly !--and married you fay?

the knowledge of which has been loft in these latter degenerate days' the fat paps of a fow, the livers of fcari, the brains of phenicopters, and the tripotanum, which confifts of three forts of fish for which you have no names, the lupus marinus, the myxo, and the murænus.

Darteneuf. I thought the muræna had been our lamprey. We have excellent ones in the Severn.

town?

Bon. A power of fine ladies; and then we have the French officers.

Aim. O, that's right, you have a good many of thofe gentlemen: pray how do you like their company?

Bon. So well, as the faying is, that I could with we had as many more of 'em. They're Full of money, and pay double for every thing they have. They know, Sir, that we pay good round taxes for the taking of 'em; and o they are willing to reimburfe us a little: one of 'em lodges in my houfe. [Bell rings.] I beg your worthip's pardon--I'll wait on you in half a minute.

§ 17. A Dialogue between M. APICIUS

and DARTENEUF.

Darteneuf Alas! poor Apicius.---I pity thee much, for not having lived in my age and ny country. How many good dishes have I eat in England, that were unknown at Rome in thy days!

Apicius. Keep your pity for yourfelf.--How many good dithes have I cat in Rome,

Apicius. No ---the muræna was a faltwater fish, and kept in ponds into which the

Darteneuf. Why then I dare fay our lamprey's are better. Did you ever eat any of them potted or stewed.

Apicius. I was never in Britain. Your country then was too barbarous for me to go thither. I fhould have been afraid that the Britains would have cat me.

Dartenerf. I am forry for you, very forry: for if you never were in Britain, you never eat the best oyfters in the whole world.

Apicius, Pardon me, Sir, your Sandwich oyfters were brought to Rome in my time.

Darteneuf. They could not be fresh: they were good for nothing there :--- You should have come to Sandwich to cat them: it is a fhame for you that you did not.---An epicure talk of danger when he is in fearch of a dainty! did not Leander fwim over the Hellefpont to get to his miftrefs? and what is a wench to a barrel of excellent oyfters?

Apicius. Nay---I am fure you cannot blame me for any want of alertnefs in seeking fine fithes. I failed to the coaft of Afric, from Minturnæ in Campania, only to tafte of one fpecies, which I heard was larger there than it was on our coaft, and finding that I had received a falfe information, I returned again without deigning to land.

Darteneuf. There was fome fenfe in that:,

but why did you not alfo make a voyage to Sandwich Had you tafted thofe oysters in their perfection, you would never have come back: you would have cat till you burft. Apicius. I wish I had :---It would have been better than poisoning myself, as I did, becaufe, when I came to make up my accounts, I found I had not much above the poor fum of fourfcore thousand pounds lef, which would not afford me a table to keep me from ftarving.

Darteneuf. A fum of fourfcore thousand pounds not keep you from starving! would I had had it! I thould not have spent it in twenty years, though I had kept the beft table in London, fuppofing I had made no other

expence.

Apicius. Alas, poor man! this fhews that you English have no idea of the luxury that reigned in our tables. Before I died, I had fpent in my kitchen 807,291/. 135. 4d. Darteneuf. I do not believe a word of it: there is an error in the account.

Apicius. Why, the establishment of Lucullus for his fuppers in the Apollo, I mean for every fupper he eat in the room which he called by that name, was 5000 drachms, which is in your money 1614. 115. 8d.

had known this when I was alive, I should have hang'd myfelf for vexation that I did not live in thofe days.

Apicius. Well you might, well you might. ---You do not know what eating is. You never could know it. Nothing less than the wealth of the Roman empire is fufficient to enable a man to keep a good table. Our players were richer by far than your princes.

Darteneuf. Oh that I had but lived in the bleffed reign of Caligula, or Vitellius, cr of Heliogabalus, and had been admitted to the honour of dining with their slaves!

Apicius. Aye, there you touch me.---I am miferable that I died before their good times. They carried the glories of their table much further than the beft eaters of the age that I lived in. Vitellius fpent in eating and drinking,within one year, what would amount in your money to above feven millions two hundred thousand pounds. He told me fo himself in a converfation I had with him not long ago. And the other you mentioned did not fall fhort of his royal magnificence.

Apicius. Afk your learned men that.---I count as they tell me.---But perhaps you may think that these feafts were only made by great men, like Lucullus, who had plundered all Afia, to help him in his houfe-keeping. What will you fay, when I tell you that the player Afopus had one dish that coft him 6000 feltertia, that is, 4843. 10s. English.

Darteneuf. What will I fay! why that I pity poor Cibber and Booth, and that, if I

confift?

rafte than a fat lark or a thrush; it was not fo good as a wheatear or becafigue; and therefore I fufpect that all the luxury you have bragged of was nothing but vanity and foolish expence. It was like that of the fon of fopus, who defolved pearls in vinegar, and drunk them at fupper. I will be d----d, if a haunch of veniton, and my favourite ham-pye, were not much better difhes than any at the table of Vitellius himself. I do not find that you had ever any good foups; without which no man of tafte can poffibly dine. The rabbits in Italy are not fit to eat, and what is better than the wing of one of our English wild rabbits? I have been told that you had no turkies. The mutton in Italy is very ill-flavoured; and as for your boars roafted whole, I defpifed them; they were only fit to be served up to the mob at a corporation feaft, or election dinner. A small barbecued hog is worth a hundred of them; and a good collar of Shrewsbury brawn is a much better dish,

Apicius. If you had fome kinds of meat that we wanted, yet our cookery muft have been greatly fuperior to yours. Our cooks were to excellent, that they could give to hog's flesh the taste of all other meats.

Darteneuf. I fhould not have liked their dd imitations. You might as cafily have impofed on a good connoiffeur the copy of a fine picture for the original. Our cooks on the contrary, give to all other meats a rich flavour of bacon, without deftroying that which makes the diftinction of one from another. I have not the least doubt that our efence of hams is a much better fauce than any that ever was ufed by the ancients. We have a hundred ragouts, the compofition of which exceeds all defcription. Had yours been as good, you could not have lolled, as

you did, upon couches, while you were eating; they would have made you fit up and attend to your bufinefs. Then you had a cuftem of hearing things read to you while your were at fupper. This thews you were not fo well entertained as we are with our meat. For my own part, when I was at table, I could mind nothing elfe: I neither heard, faw, nor spoke: I only melt and tafted. But the worst of all is that you had no wine fit to be named with good claret, or Burgundy, or Champagne, or old hock, or Tokay. You boafted much of your Falernum; but I have tafted the Lachrymæ Chrifti, and other wines that grow upon the fame coaft, not one of which would I drink above a glafs or two of if you would give me the kingdom of Naples. You boiled your wines, and mixed water with them, which thews that in themselves they were not fit to drink.

Apicius. I am afraid you beat us in wines, not to mention your cyder, perry, and beer, of all which I have heard great fame from fome English with whom I have talked; and their report has been confirmed by the teftimony of their neighbours who have travelled into England. Wonderful things have been also faid to me of liquor called punch.

Darteneuf. Aye---to have died without tafting that is unhappy indeed! There is rum-punch and arrack-punch; it his hard to fay which is beft: but Jupiter would have given his nectar for either of them, upon my word and honour.

Apicius. The thoughts of it puts me into a fever with thirst. From whence do you get your arrack and your rum?

Darteneuf. Why, from the Eaft and Weft Indies, which you knew nothing of. That is enough to decide the difpute. Your trade to the eaft Indies was very far thort of what

こ

we carry on, and the Weft-Indies were not difcovered. What a new world of good things for eating and drinking has Columbus opened to us? Think of that, and despair. Apicius. I cannot indeed but lament my ill fate, that America was not found before I was born. It tortures me when I hear of chocolate, pine-apples, and twenty other fine meats or fine fruits produced there, which I have never tafted. What an advantage is it to you, that all your fweet meats, tarts, cakes, and other delicacies of that nature, are fweetened with fugar instead of honey, which we were obliged to make ufe of for want of that plant! but what grieves moft is, that I never eat a turtle; they tell me it is abfolutely the best of all foods.

Dartenenf. Yes, I have heard the Americans fay fo: but I never eat any; for, in my time, they were not brought over to England.

Apicius. Never eat any turtle! how didft thou dare to accufe me of not going to Sandwich to cat oysters, and didft not thyself take a trip to America to riot on turtles? but know, wretched man, that I was informed they are now as plentiful in England as fturgeon. There are turtle-boats that go regularly to London and Bristol from the Weft-Indies. I have just seen a fat Alderman, who died in London laft week of a furfeit he got at a turtle feaft in that city.

Darteneuf. What does he say? Does he tell you that turtle is better than veni

fon!

Apicius. He fays there was a haunch of venifon untouched, while every mouth was employed on the turtle; that he ate till he fell asleep in his chair and, that the food was fo wholefome he should not have died, if he had not unluckily caught cold in his

fleep, which stopped his perfpiration, and hurt his digeftion.

Darteneuf. Alas! how imperfect is human felicity! I lived in an age when the pleafure of cating was thought to be carried to its highest perfection in England and France; and yet a turtle feaft is a novelty to me! Would it be impoffible, do you think, to obtain leave from Pluto of going back for one day, juft to tafte of that food? I would promife to kill myfelf by the quantity I would eat before the next morning.

Apicius. You have forgot, Sir, that you have no body: that which you had has been rotten a great while ago; and you can never return to the earth with another, unlefs Pythagoras carries you thither to animate that of a hog. But comfort yourself, that, as you have ate dainties which I never tafted, fo the next generation will cat fome unknown to the prefent. New difcoveries will be made, and new delicacies brought from other parts of the world. We muft both be philofophers. We must be thankful for the good things we have had, and not grudge others better, if they fall to their fhare. Confider that, after all, we could but have eat as much as our ftomachs would hold, and that we did every day of our lives. But fee, who comes hither? I think it is Mercury.

Mercury. Gentlemen, Í muft tell you that I have ftood near you invifible, and heard your difcourfe; a privilege which we deities ufe when we pleafe. Attend therefore to a difcovery which I fhall make to you, relating to the fubject upon which you were talking. I know two men, one of whom lived in ancient, and the other in modern times, that had more pleasure in eating than either of you ever had in your lives. Apicius. One of thefe, I prefume, was a

Sybarite

Sybarite, and the other a French gentleman fettled in the Weft-Indies.

Mercury. No; one was a Spartan foldier, and the other an English farmer. I see you both look aftonifhed; but what I tell you is truth. The foldier never ate his black broth till the exercifes, to which by their difcipline the Spartan troops were obliged, had got him fuch an appetite, that he could have gnawed a bone, like a dog. The farmer was out at the tail of his plough, or fome other wholefome labour, from morning till night; and when he came home his wife dreffed him a piece of good beef, or a fine barn-door fowl and a pudding, for his dinner; which he ate much more ravenously, and confequently with a great deal more relish and pleasure, than you did your tripotanum or your ham-pyc. Your ftomachs were always to overcharged, that I question if ever you felt real hunger, or eat one meal in twenty years without forcing your appetites, which makes all things pid. I tell you therefore again, that the foldier and the farmer had much more of the joy of eating than you.

Darteneuf. This is more mortifying than not to have shared a turtle feaft. I fear indeed we have been in quite a wrong fyftem, and never had any true notions of pleasure.

Caf. Paft all furgery.
Iago. Marry, Heav'n forbid !

Caf. Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have loft my reputation! I have loft the immortal part of myself, and what remains is beftial. My reputation, Iago! my reputation

Iago. As I am an honeft man, I thought you had received fome bodily wound: there is more fenfe in that, than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and loft without deferving. What, man! there are ways to recover the general again. Sue to him, and he's your's.

Caf. I will rather fue to be defpis'd. Drunk and fquabble fwagger! fwear! and difcourfe fuftian with one's own thadow! O thou invincible spirit of wine! if thou haft no name to be known by, let us call thee Devil.

Iago. What was he that you followed with your fword? what had he done to you?

Caf. I know not.

Lago. Is't poffible?

Apicius. It is a fad thing not to know what good living is before one is dead. I with, Mercury, you had taught me your art of cookery in my life-time, or held congue about it here.

18.

Dialogues of the Dead.

Scene between IAGO and CASSIO, in cubich CASSIO regrets bis Folly in getting

drunk.

Ingo. ant?

What! are you hurt, Lieute

Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: how came you recovered?

Caf. It has pleafed the devil Drunkenness to give place to the devil Wrath; one imperfectnefs fhews me another, to make ine frankly defpife myself.

Iago. Come, you are too fevere a moraler. As the time, the place, and the condition of