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and that no idea can be annexed to the word mind, but that of matter in the most subtile and attenuated form which imagination can lend to it. Taking these opinions for his general guides, and for his more particular one the opinion maintained by Condillac, that all the faculties and operations of the mind are only sensations transformed, the Greek cook proceeded, as we learn from the dramatists, who have attended much more to his practical than his theoretical philosophy, to adapt edibles to the passions, the ages and the pursuits of his guests: under him dishes frequently became a masked satire, and the arrangement of the table formed a concealed lecture of pathology. The lover, the tax-gatherer and the common philosopher were easily apprised of their respective defects; but the consummation of his art must have consisted in hitting, through an appropriate dish, the philosopher, who advocated the doctrine of infinitesimal or evanescent entities, in opposition to what is commonly understood by the word matter. When people could thus eat their way to self-knowledge, the modern novel became wholly unnecessary: accordingly nothing of the kind is to be found in the writings of antiquity. We could add much more; but, happy that writer who allows his reader to rise with a satisfied air, and to say to himself— But he has not made the most of his subject.' We suggest then, finally, that the Athenian cook forestalled the Stoics in their notable opinion, that the Cardinal Virtues are animals, and that his Philosophy of Life' far surpassed that of Sir Charles Morgan.

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Knowledge being in all cases the slow accumulation of succeeding ages, the gastronomic science had not sprung into maturity more speedily than others. It became him, therefore, who aspired - approfondir le grand art de la gueule'--to imbue his mind with the volumes containing its mysteries.

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Good, good, Sibynna!

Our's is no art for sluggards to acquire,
Nor should the hour of deepest midnight see
Us and our volumes parted:-still our lamp
Upon its oil is feeding, and the page

Of ancient lore before us :-What, what hath
The Sicyonian deduced ?-What school-points
Have we from him of Chios? sagest Actides
And Zopyrinus, what are their traditions ?-
Thus grapple we with mighty tomes of wisdom,
Sifting and weighing and digesting all.

But while the aspiring cook diligently attended to the practices and records of former ages, dry study was not allowed to cramp his genius and powers of invention. Nullius in verba jurare' was a maxim as predominant in the culinary art as in philosophy. The

ipse dixit of Archestratus himself did not pass unquestioned-for cookery had no bounds, and thus far' was scouted as language utterly unsuited to the infinity of the art.

The cook has been considered hitherto in his secular capacity; but in fact, his profession was twofold; and the parish-clerk of facetious memory had not more right to mix himself up with the religion of his country, than the person, of whom we are now treating, to take his place among the priesthood of Athens. All the mechanical parts of the sacrificial rites were entrusted to him; and that this was no unimportant function may be evinced from the earnest language in which Olympias writes to her son, Alexander, then engaged in his grand Asiatic enterprize, upon the subject of a person of this description whom she had sent to him at his own request. As the epistle possesses a right royal brevity, we insert a version of it, without troubling ourselves much about the difficulties of the commentators. You will please to accept at my hands of a cook; his name Pelignas. He is well versed in all the modes of sacrifice usual in your own country; he is also acquainted with those practised in the Mysteries, and the festivals of Bacchus, and with such as take place before the commencement of the Olympic games. You will, therefore, pay him every attention, and be cautious of any neglect. Let me hear from you at your earliest leisure.'

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That fit and able persons might never be wanting in this branch of the profession, there appears to have been a particular tribe at Athens, enrolled into a sort of collegiate body, for the sake of preserving the knowledge of these important functions. And here indeed lay the strong hold of the cook, when he wished to ward off the blows of the comic writer. Not content to remind the scoffer that not merely the sacred heralds, but even the princes and kings of Homer had formerly assisted in this pious office, he proceeded to explain to him, that cannibalism was put an end to by the profession which he presumed to jeer; and that it was a heaven-born cook, who by the lucky suggestion that an animal roasted with fire might be as palatable as the flesh of a fellow-creature, first led to a change in the prime article of human food. The common rites of his country were referred to for a proof of this; it being clear to the cook, that the use of salt in ordinary life and the abstinence from it in the entrails offered to the gods, were traditional practices, referable to this important revolution in human tastes. The of the art was then graprogress dually traced to the scoffer from the primeval dish of tripe to the introduction of those masked* dainties, in which the Greeks

* The nicer taste of modern time has very justly exploded the Entrées Masquées.'

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Greeks so much excelled; and he was made finally to acquiesce, that from these inventions proceeded the assembling of men into collective bodies, the erection of towns and the whole progress of civilized life.

We scarcely know how to excuse ourselves for entering into these ridiculous details; but they describe national manners, and if the polished Athenians could be amused by the hour with listening to such language, we may, perhaps, be excused in claiming for it a momentary smile. Having once got a dramatis persona of this cast into his hand, the comic poet served him up far more continually to his audience than any dish presented by the cook himself to his guests; and from the Athenian love of feasting, a poetical Lubberland gradually erected itself, of the delights of which the common Athenians appear to have become insatiable hearers. In this ideal kingdom, nature was literally one great feast, and the very elements acted but as humble appendices to the kitchen. Rain fell in potherbs, snow descended in the form of cheese-cakes, and the ground, in place of dew, covered itself with a sort of petit pain. In that blessed age, the characteristic of men was, that they were all fat, and that in stature they were giants.

Having discussed more largely than we intended the merits of the Greek cook, we feel little disposition to enter into a minute investigation of his sauces (novoμаτα).* One, however, must not be left unmentioned. The hypotrimma was a favourite Athenian sauce. What its exact ingredients were the commentators dispute, as they do about most other articles of antiquity; but that some of a very sharp and pungent quality, such as cummin, mustard, horse-radish, &c. entered into it, there can be no doubt. The great comic poet has accordingly made a very happy use of it. When the leader of his Female Radicals has properly tutored† her

trusty

To serve up a fowl in the shape of a cutlet, and to metamorphose rabbits into lobsters, is now properly left to the small cooks, who mistake industry for intellect and patience for genius. Such practices are considered to disgrace a superior artist as much as puns and plays of word derogate from the character of a man of real wit.

*The Parisian sauces, if we remember rightly, exceed four-score: from a passage in Aristotle, (in Ethicis, lib. ix c. 10.) we are led to infer that the number of Athenian sauces fell far short of this; or, at all events, that the Athenians were more sparing in the consumption of them. The great comic poet, who has noticed more important changes in Athenian society, has also condescended to record a revolution which took place in its sauces.--Arist. in Avibus, 532.

+ Not to betray their sex by their language or gestures is of course among the most prominent of her instructions. Hence the leader of the female chorus, in the following extract, addresses part of her troop by masculine names, as Draces, &c.

Leader of the 1st Semi-Chorus.

'Tis the time for debate and high councils of state, | honour'd gentlemen hasten along, (Ladies fair, I should say, but that term for a day | must wholly be banish'd the tongue.)

For

trusty band, who, in the habits of their husbands, are to take early possession of the Parliament-House, and vote themselves into the administration, a chorus of these patriots agree among themselves, as they march at break of day to their place of destination, that it was highly necessary to cast their faces into that verjuiced visage which the eating of the hypotrimma produced, and upon which the countenances of a General Assembly at Athens, it seems, were not unfrequently modelled.

The Athenian fishmonger brings us upon a ground less trodden by translators, and it is sweet, as the poet says, to gather flowers, where no hand has forestalled us. In a modern establish

ment, the cook frequently divides the palm with the maîtred'hôtel; in Athens, his formidable rival was the fishmonger. He too, like the cook, had his ideal age; but we cannot retrace our steps to tell of trees on mountain-tops, whose leaves were delicate sleeve-fish; of the river Sybaris, whose waves ran roasted skate; nor of little tributary streams which brought in detached colonies of phagri, cockle-fish and lobsters.-The taste for fish of every kind, salt, fresh, shell'd or otherwise, was, among the Athenians, universal, vehement, it might almost be said, exclusive. It was a passion and not an appetite. When the poet of the sock concentrated the whole energies of his malevolence against a brother of the buskin, it evaporated in-what?-a wish that there might be Copaic eels in the market, and that the obnoxious bard's arrival might be retarded, till previous purchases excluded him from be

For danger not small might ensue to us all, with shame and derision to boot, Should this deed of high mark, which we've plann'd in the dark | furnish matter for whisper or bruit.

Leader of the 2d Semi-Chorus.

I open my throat, sirs, to second this vote; | time it is that in council we met,
For still I retain close imprest in my brain | the Thesmothets mandate and threat.
Who comes not with feet, which the dust have well beat, ['ere the first rays of morn-
ing 'gin glimm-a,

With a mien shewing mickle contentment with pickle | and face looking sharp hypotrimma,

that he who comes later than this, and his fee of three oboli miss.'

Notice here I proclaim, and admonish the same,
In his stipend and pay shall compound for delay,
Further proof need I shew, worthy Draces & Co. | (to your wisdoms 'twere insult I
deem,)

How much it betides, that we spur up our sides, if we wish for success in our scheme. Nor, neighbours, forget, that in council we sit | side by side ;-'twill add strength to our party:

Then let every she by her vote let us see, in the cause she is honest and hearty. Out upon it-I've err'd-there has slipp'd me a word with a guilty and dangerous initial;

That s well I know, overheard by a foe, | to our cause would prove most prejudicial.

a Of the nine Archons or rulers in Athens, six were called Thesmothets. Among their other duties, one was to take the suffrages in public assemblies. These assemblies met very early in the morning.

coming

coming a buyer !* The term implying fish (ovov) was in the Greek language a synonym for every species of food, and more particularly for that which gave a relish to bread; and the grammarians hung delighted over a word, which, besides this comprehensiveness of signification, recalled also ideas of the two leading oppositions of the culinary art-roasting and boiling. This knowledge of the gratification to be derived from the finny tribe seems to have grown up with the progress of civilization. Homer, who doubtless speaks the opinions of his own age, allows his heroes in the Iliad, to catch fish; but they never feast upon their capture: and in the Odyssey, (lib. iv.) Menelaus and his companions are evidently hard pressed, before they have recourse to their fishing hooks.

Time, the great teacher of all things, gradually placed a juster estimate on this edible; and the sons of Charephilus, introduced to the privileges of Athenian citizenship and knighthood on account of the excellent salt-fish sold by their father, furnished the comic poets with many a jibe. We should far exceed our limits, if we mentioned one half of the fish, both salted and fresh, in estimation among the Greeks. The former divided themselves into the fat and the lean; the tunny-fish supplying a great part of both. This estimable fish, bearing, in the different stages of its life, more names among the Greeks than the stag among ourselves, had its appropriate honours: Neptune claimed the first caught in the season, and a festival celebrated the felicitous event. The salt-fish, which, under the name of Elephantinum, has so much puzzled the commentators, owed its celebrity to a play, now lost, of Crates. Among other salt-fish, in various degrees of favour among the common Athenians, may be mentioned the Scombri, which the most correct taste decided ought to be eaten just three days after putting into brine;† the Coracini, of which the best came from the Lacus Mæotis, and which then assumed the name of Saperdæ; the mugiles supplied from Abdera and Sinope; the enormous§

* Arist. in Pace, 1010. See also Diog. Laert. lib. ii. § 119. Walpole's Turkey, p. 305. This is Coray and Villebrun's interpretation of the original.

Aristotle, who so often relieves the dryness of natural history by his incidental remarks, has recorded a trait of the mugiles, (xɛgeç,) calculated to give a high idea of the amiability of fish in general. The mugiles, it appears, never made free with other fish, even in their huugriest mood; and the finny tribe, in grateful return, left the young of the mugiles entirely unmolested. We wish his testimony to the fish, called sepiæ, had been equally honourable to both parties. He records, upon hearsay, for Aristotle was not a man to commit himself, that when a female sepia was hooked, the males came to her help and rescued her when the females saw a male in the same difficulty, they made off (jilts as they were!) as fast as possible.

The Antyllus of Philetarus records one so prodigious, that twelve guests could not eat it in three days. But this must have been a mere sprat compared with that which Ephippus, the comic poet, sets Geryon down to. When the great American sea-snake is caught, the apparatus used by Geryon may be very safely recommended for dressing it. Athen. l. viii. p. 346.

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