became a common dish at great entertainments. Petronius delivers us an odd receipt for dreffing them, and ferving them up with poppies and honey, which must be a very soporiferous dainty, and as good as owl-pie to fuch as want a nap after dinner. The fondness of the Romans came to be fo exceffive towards them that, as Pliny fays, "the Cenforian laws "and Marcus Scaurus in his confulfhip got them pro"hibited from publick entertainments." But Nero, Commodus, and Heliogabalus, would not deny the liberty, and indeed property, of their fubjects in fo reasonable an enjoyment; and therefore we find them long after brought to table in the times of Ammianus Marcellinus, who tells us likewife that "fcales were brought to table in thofe ages to weigh "curious fifhes, birds, and dormice," to see whether they were at the ftandard of excellence and perfection, and fometimes I fuppofe to vie with other pretenders to magnificence. The annotator takes hold of this occafion to fhew "of how great use scales would be at the tables of our nobility," especially upon the bringing up of a difh of wildfowl; "for if twelve "larks (fays he) fhould weigh below twelve ounces, ་ 66 they would be very lean, and fcarce tolerable; if "twelve and down-weight they would be very well; "but if thirteen they would be fat to perfection." We fɛe upon how nice and exact a balance the happinefs of eating depends! I could scarce forbear fmiling, not to fay worse, at fuch exactness and such dainties, and told my friend that those scales would be of extraordinary use at Dunstable; and that if the annotator had not pro». fcribed his dormouse I should upon the first occafion be glad to visit it, if I knew its visiting days and hours, fo as not to disturb it. My friend faid there remained but two books more, one of Sea and the other of River Fish, in the account of which he would not be long, feeing his memory began to fail him almost as much as my pa tience : "Tis true in a long work foft flumbers creep, especially when treating of dormice. The ninth book is concerning Seafifh, where amongst other learned annotations is recorded that famous voyage of Apicius, who having spent many millions, and being retired into Campania, heard that there were lobsters of a vast and unusual bignefs in Africa, and thereupon impatiently got on fhipboard the fame day, and having suffered much at sea came at last to the coaft. But the fame of fo great a man's coming had landed before him, and all the fishermen failed out to meet him, and presented him with their fairest * Art of Cookery, ver. 449. lobsters. He asked if they had no larger? they anfwered, "Their fea produced nothing more excellent "than what they had brought." This honeft freedom of theirs, with his difappointment, fo difgufted him that he took pet, and bad the master return home again immediately; and fo it seems Africa loft the breed of one monfter more than it had before *, There are many receipts in the book to dress cranipfish, that numb the hands of those that touch them; the cuttle-fish, whose blood is like ink; the pourcountrel, or many feet; the fea-urchin, or hedge-hog; with feveral others, whofe fauces are agreeable to their natures. But to the comfort of us Moderns the Ancients often ate their oyfters alive, and spread hard eggs minced over their sprats, as we do now over our falt fish. There is one thing very curious concerning herrings; it feems the Ancients were very fantastical in making one thing pafs for another; fo at Petronius's fupper the Cook fent up a fat goose, fish, and wildfowl of all forts to appearance, but still all were made out of the feveral parts of one fingle porker The great Nicomedes King of Bithynia had a very delightful deception of this nature put upon him by his Cook: the king was extremely affected with fresh * Lord Lyttelton's nineteenth Dialogue of the Dead (perhaps the moft humorous in that admirable collection) feems to have been entirely founded on the hints suggested by Dr. King, herrings, (as indeed who is not?) but being far up in Afia from the seacost, his whole wealth could not have purchased one; but his Cook contrived fome fort of meat which, put into a frame, so resembled a her ring that it was extremely fatisfactory both to this prince's eyes and gufto. My friend told me that to the honour of the city of London he had seen a thing of this nature there, that is, a herring, or rather a falmagundi, with the head and tail fo neatly laid that it furprised him. He says many of the fpecies may be found at the Sugarloaf in Bell Yard, as giving an excellent relish to Burton ale, and not cofling above fixpence; an inconsiderable price for fo imperial a dainty! The tenth book, as my friend tells me, is concern→ ing Fish Sauces, which confift of variety of ingredients, amongst which is generally a kind of frumenty: but it is not to be forgotten by any person who would boil fish exactly, that they threw them alive into the water, which at present is said to be a Dutch receipt, but was derived from the Romans. It feems Seneca the philofopher, (a man from whose morofe temper little good in The Art of Cookery could be expected) in his third book of Natural Questions, correcting the luxury of the times, fays the Romans were come to that daintiness that they would not eat a fish unless upon the fame day it was taken, that it might taste of the fea, as they expreffed it, and therefore had them brought by perfons who rode post, and made a great outcry, whereupon all other people were obliged to give them the road. It was an usual expreffion for a Roman to fay, "In other matters I may confide in you; but in a thing of this weight it is not confi"stent with my gravity and prudence. I willtrust no, "thing but my own eyes. Bring the fish hither; let me "fee him breathe his laft!". And when the poor fish was brought to table (wimming and gasping, would cry out, "Nothing is more beautiful than a dying "mullet!" My friend fays the annotator looks upon thefe "as jefts made by the Stoicks, and spoken abfurdly "and beyond nature;" though the annotator at the fame time tells us that it was a law at Athens that the fishermen fhould not wash their fish, but bring them as they came out of the fea. Happy were the Athenians in good laws, and the Romans in great examples! but I believe our Britons need with their friends no longer life than till they fee London served with live herring and gasping mackarel. It is true we are not quite fo barbarous but that we throw our crabs alive into fealding water, and tie our lobsters to the spit to hear them squeak when they are roafted : our eels ufe the fame peristaltick motion upon the gridiron, when their skin is off and their guts are out, as they did be fore; and our gudgeons, taking opportunity of jump, |