In number 181 of The Tatler there is a paper by Steele, dwelling on SAD MEMORIES. -Dies, ni fallor, adest, quem semper acerbum, Semper honoratum, sic dii voluistis, habebo, VIRG. En. v. 49. And now the rising day renews the year, From my own Apartment, June 5. There are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish of their being, except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and think everything lost that passes unobserved; but others find a solid delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after such a manner, as is as much above the approbation as the practice of the vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true friendship or good-will, some sages have thought it pious to preserve a certain reverence for the Manes of their deceased friends; and have withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons, to commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have gone before them out of this life. And indeed, when we are advanced in years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment, than to recollect in a gloomy moment the many we have parted with, that have been dear and agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those, with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which occasion I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart swell with the same sorrow which I felt at that time: but I could, without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with some, who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the benefit of nature, that length of time thus blots out the violence of afflictions; yet with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory; and ponder step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of thought which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper and equal motion. When we wind up a clock that is out of order, to make it go well for the future, we do not immediately set the hand to the present instant, but we make it strike the round of all its hours, before it can recover the regularity of its time. Such, thought I, shall be my method this evening; and since it is that day of the year which I dedicate to the memory of such in another life as I much delighted in when living, an hour or two shall be sacred to sorrow and their memory, while I run over all the melancholy circumstances of this kind which have occurred to me in my whole life. The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling papa; for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces; and told me in a flood of tears, "Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he could never come to us again." She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport; which, methought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, that, before I was sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo; and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark, with which a child is born, is to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is, that good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities; from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that, in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the softnesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflictions. We, that are very old, are better able to remember things which befel us in our distant youth, than the passages of later days. For this reason it is, that the companions of my strong and vigorous years present themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely and unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament; so little are we able to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different passions, according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant to whose ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men, who are cut off by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity; and we gather relief enough from their own contempt of death, to make that no evil, which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life on such occasions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say, when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider the havock which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once. Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and untimely death, of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin! how ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel? O Death! thou hast right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty; but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to the thoughtless? Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase the dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her dressed for a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of death become the pretty trifler? I still behold the smiling earth-A large train of disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my closet door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine, of the same sort with that which is to be put up to sale, on Thursday next, at Garraway's coffee house. Upon the receipt of it, I sent for three of my friends. We are so intimate, that we can be company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and warming, but with such an heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it until two of the clock this morning; and having to-day met a little before dinner, we found, that though we drank two bottles a man, we had much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the night before. There is a suggestive change-and Steele meant us to feel it, when he made the transition so abrupt -from the sadness within, to the knock at the door that brought a note asking him to taste and recommend some wine that would be advertised for sale in his next number. It is no rare thing for men thus to be called out from within themselves, and then feel in the height of mirth that "Pleasure itself has something that's severe." There is in number 117 a striking narrative-again drawn from experience of the effect produced on the mind by A DREAM. I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows. When I was a youth in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I fell in love with an agreeable young woman, of a good family in those parts, and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received, which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate. We were in a calm evening diverting ourselves upon the top of the cliff with the prospect of the sea, and trifling away the time in such little fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most agreeable to those in love. In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I was following her, when on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge of the precipice, sunk under her, and threw her down from so prodigious an height upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an occasion, than for me to express it. I said to myself, it is not in the power of heaven to relieve me! when I awaked, equally transported and astonished, to see myself drawn out of an affliction which, the very moment before, appeared to me altogether inextricable. The impressions of grief and horror were so lively on this occasion, that while they lasted they made me more miserable than I was at the real death of this beloved person, which happened a few months after, at a time when the match between us was concluded; inasmuch as the imaginary death was untimely, and I myself in a sort an accessary; whereas 1 ADVERTISEMENT.-Notice is hereby given, that 46 hogsheads and one half of extraordinary French claret will be put up to sale, at £20 per hogshead, at Garraway's coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on Thursday the 8th instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in a vault under Messrs. Lane and Harrison's, in Sweething's Lane, Lombard Street, from this day till the time of sale, &c.-Tatler, Original Edition, No. 181. her real disease had at least these alleviations, of being natural and inevitable. The memory of the dream I have related still dwells so strongly upon me, that I can never read the description of Dover-cliff in Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, without a fresh sense of my escape. In both Tatler and Spectator, Steele's sympathetic interest in men and women gave him a power, which Addison had not, of telling pathetic tales. Numbers 82 and 94 of The Tatler contain these STORIES FROM LIFE. Ubi idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, aliquando præstat morte jungi, quam vitá distrahi.-VAL. MAX. Where there is the greatest and most honourable love, it is sometimes better to be joined in death, than separated in life, From my own Apartment, October 17. After the mind has been employed on contemplations suitable to its greatness, it is unnatural to run into sudden mirth or levity; but we must let the soul subside, as it rose, by proper degrees. My late considerations of the ancient heroes impressed a certain gravity upon my mind, which is much above the little gratification received from starts of humour and fancy, and threw me into a pleasing sadness. In this state of thought I have been looking at the fire, and in a pensive manner reflecting upon the great misfortunes and calamities incident to human life; among which there are none that touch so sensibly as those which befal persons who eminently love, and meet with fatal interruptions of their happiness when they least expect it. The piety of children to parents, and the affection of parents to their children, are the effects of instinct; but the affection between lovers and friends is founded on reason and choice, which has always made me think the sorrows of the latter much more to be pitied than those of the former. The contempla tion of distresses of this sort softens the mind of man, and makes the heart better. It extinguishes the seeds of envy and ill-will towards mankind, corrects the pride of prosperity, and beats down all that fierceness and insolence which are apt to get into the minds of the daring and fortunate. For this reason the wise Athenians, in their theatrical performances, laid before the eyes of the people the greatest afflictions which could befal human life, and insensibly polished their tempers by such representations. Among the moderns, indeed, there has arisen a chimerical method of disposing the fortune of the persons represented, according to what they call poetical justice; and letting none be unhappy but those who deserve it. In such cases, an intelligent spectator, if he is concerned, knows he ought not to be so and can learn nothing from such a tenderness, but that he is a weak creature, whose passions cannot follow the dictates of his understanding. It is very natural, when one is got into such a way of thinking, to recollect those examples of sorrow which have made the strongest impression upon our imagina. tions. An instance or two of such you will give me leave to communicate. A young gentleman and lady of ancient and honourable houses in Cornwall had from their childhood entertained for each other a generous and noble passion, which had been long opposed by their friends, by reason of the inequality of that fortunes; but their constancy to each other, and obedienes to those on whom they depended, wrought so much upen their relations, that these celebrated lovers were at length joined in marriage. Soon after their nuptials, the bridegroom was obliged to go into a foreign country, to take care of a considerable fortune, which was left him by a relation, and came very opportunely to improve their moderate circumstances. They received the congratulations of all the country on this occasion; and I remember it was a common sentence in every one's mouth, "You see how faithful love is rewarded." He took this agreeable voyage, and sent home every post fresh accounts of his success in his affairs abroad; but at last, though he designed to return with the next ship, he lamented, in his letters, that business would detain him some time longer from home," because he would give himself the pleasure of an unexpected arrival. The young lady, after the heat of the day, walked every evening on the sea-shore, near which she lived, with a familiar friend, her husband's kinswoman; and diverted herself with what objects they met there, or upon discourses of the future methods of life, in the happy change of their circumstances. They stood one evening on the shore together in a perfect tranquillity, observing the setting of the sun, the calm face of the deep, and the silent heaving of the waves, which gently rolled towards them, and broke at their feet; when at a distance her kinswoman saw something float on the waters, which she fancied was a chest; and with a smile told her, "she saw it first, and if it came ashore full of jewels, she had a right to it." They both fixed their eyes upon it, and entertained themselves with the subject of the wreck, the cousin still asserting her right; but promising, "If it was a prize, to give her a very rich coral for the child of which she was then big, provided she might be godmother." Their mirth soon abated, when they observed, upon the nearer approach, that it was a human body. The young lady, who had a heart naturally filled with pity and compassion, made many melancholy reflections on the occasion. "Who knows," said she, "but this man may be the only hope and heir of a wealthy house; the darling of indulgent parents, who are now in impertinent mirth, and pleasing themselves with the thoughts of offering him a bride they have got ready for him? or, may he not be the master of a family that wholly depended upon his life? There may, for aught we know, be half a dozen fatherless children, and a tender wife, now exposed to poverty by his death. What pleasure might he have promised himself in the different welcome he was to have from her and them! But let us go away; it is a dreadful sight! The best office we can do, is to take care that the poor man, whoever he is, may be decently buried." She turned away, when a wave threw the carcase on the shore. The kinswoman immediately shrieked out, "Oh, my cousin!" and fell upon the ground. The unhappy wife went to help her friend, when she saw her own husband at her feet, and dropped in a swoon upon the body. An old woman, who had been the gentleman's nurse, came out about this time to call the ladies in to supper, and found her child, as she always called him, dead on the shore, her mistress and kinswoman both lying dead by him. Her loud lamentations, and calling her young master to life, soon awaked the friend from her trance; but the wife was gone for ever. When the family and neighbourhood got together round the bodies, no one asked any question, but the objects before them told the story. Incidents of this nature are the more moving when they are drawn by persons concerned in the catastrophe, notwithstanding they are often oppressed beyond the power of giving them in a distinct light, except we gather their sorrow from their inability to speak it. I have two original letters, written both on the same day, which are to me exquisite in their different kinds. The occasion was this. A gentleman who had courted a most agreeable young woman, and won her heart, obtained also the consent of her father, to whom she was an only child. The old man had a fancy that they should be married in the same church where he himself was, in a village in Westmoreland, and made them set out while he was laid up with the gout at London. The bridegroom took only his man, the bride her maid; they had the most agreeable journey imaginable to the place of marriage; from whence the bridegroom writ the following letter to his wife's father. "After a very pleasant journey hither, we are preparing for the happy hour in which I am to be your son. I assure you the bride carries it, in the eye of the vicar who married you, much beyond her mother; though he says, your open sleeves, pantaloons, and shoulder-knot, made a much better show than the finical dress I am in. However, I am contented to be second fine man this village ever saw, and shall make it very merry before night, because I shall write myself from thence, Your most dutiful son, "T. D." “The bride gives her duty, and is as handsome as an angel. -I am the happiest man breathing." The villagers were assembling about the church, and the happy couple took a walk in a private garden. The bridegroom's man knew his master would leave the place on a sudden after the wedding, and, seeing him draw his pistols before, took this opportunity to go into his chamber and charge them. Upon their return from the garden, they went into that room; and, after a little fond raillery on the subject of their courtship, the lover took up a pistol, which he knew he had unloaded the night before, and, presenting it to her, said, with the most graceful air, while she looked pleased at his agreeable flattery: "Now, madam, repent of all those cruelties you have been guilty of to me; consider, before you die, how often you have made a poor wretch freeze under your casement; you shall die, you tyrant, you shall die, with all those instruments of death and destruction about you, with that enchanting smile, those killing ringlets of your hair"-" Give fire!" said she, laughing. He did so: and shot her dead. Who can speak his condition? but he bore it so patiently as to call up his man. The poor wretch entered, and his master locked the door upon him. "Will," said he, "did you charge these pistols?" He answered, Yes." Upon which, he shot him dead with that remaining. After this, amidst a thousand broken sobs, piercing groans, and distracted motions, he writ the following letter to the father of his dead mistress. 64 "Sir, "I, who two hours ago told you truly I was the happiest man alive, am now the most miserable. Your daughter lies dead at my feet, killed by my hand, through a mistake of my man's charging my pistols unknown to me. Him have I murdered for it. Such is my wedding day.--I will immediately follow my wife to her grave: but, before I throw myself upon my sword, I command my distraction so far as to explain my story to you. I fear my heart will not keep together until I have stabbed it. Poor, good old man! -Remember, he that killed your daughter died for it. In the article of death, I give you my thanks, and pray for you, though I dare not for myself. If it be possible, do not curse me." This is the tale in number 94; the names of characters are such as readers of that time expected ; the sense of life is true for all times: Si non eirásset, fecerat ille minus.-MART. Will's Coffee-house, November 14. That which we call gallantry to women seems to be the heroic virtue of private persons; and there never breathed one man, who did not, in that part of his days wherein he was recommending himself to his mistress, do something beyond his ordinary course of life. As this has a very great effect even upon the most slow and common men; so, upon such as it finds qualified with virtue and merit, it shines out in proportionable degrees of excellence. It gives new grace to the most eminent accomplishments; and he, who of himself has either wit, wisdom, or valour, exerts each of these noble endowments, when he becomes a lover, with a certain beauty of action above what was ever observed in him before; and all who are without any one of these qualities are to be looked upon as the rabble of mankind. I was talking after this manner in a corner of this place with an old acquaintance, who, taking me by the hand, said, “Mr. Bickerstaff, your discourse recalls to my mind a story, which I have longed to tell you ever since I read that article wherein you desire your friends to give you accounts of obscure merit." The story I had of him is literally true, and well known to be so in the country wherein the circumstances were transacted. He acquainted me with the names of the persons concerned, which I shall change into feigned ones; there being a respect due to their families that are still in being, as well as that the names themselves would not be so familiar to an English car. The adventure really happened in Denmark; and if I can remember all the passages, I doubt not but it will be as moving to my readers as it was to me. Clarinda and Chloe, two very fine women, were bred up as sisters in the family of Romeo, who was the father of Chloe, and the guardian of Clarinda. Philander, a young gentleman of a good person, and charming conversation, being a friend of old Romeo, frequented his house, and by that means was much in conversation with the young ladies, though still in the presence of the father and the guardian. The ladies both entertained a secret passion for him, and could see well enough, notwithstanding the delight which he really took in Romeo's conversation, that there was something more in his heart, which made him so assiduous a visitant. Each of them thought herself the happy woman; but the person beloved was Chloe. It happened that both of them were at a play in a carnival evening, when it is the fashion there, as well as in most countries of Europe, both for men and women to appear in masks and disguises. It was on that memorable night, in the year 1679, when the playhouse by some unhappy accident was set on fire. Philander, in the first hurry of the disaster, immediately ran where his treasure was; burst open the door of the box, snatched the lady up in his arms; and, with unspeakable resolution and good fortune, carried her off safe. He was no sooner out of the crowd, but he set her down; and, grasping her in his arms, with all the raptures of a deserving lover, "How happy am I," says he, “ in an opportunity to tell you I love you more than all things, and of shewing you the sincerity of my passion at the very first declaration of it!"-"My dear, dear Philander," says the lady, pulling off her mask, "this is not a time for art; you are much dearer to me than the life you have preserved; and the joy of my present deliverance does not transport me so much as the passion which occasioned it." Who can tell the grief, the astonishment, the terror, that appeared in the face of Philander, when he saw the person he spoke to was Clarinda! After a short pause, " Madam," says he, with the looks of a dead man, "we are both mistaken;" and im mediately flew away, without hearing the distressed Clarinda, who had just strength enough to cry out, "Cruel Philander! why did you not leave me in the theatre:" Crowds of people immediately gathered about her, and, after having brought her to herself, conveyed her to the house of the good old unhappy Romeo. Philander was now pressing against a whole tide of people at the doors of the theatre, and striving to enter with more earnestness than any there endeavoured to get out. He did it at last, and with much difficulty forced his way to the box where his beloved Chloe stood, expecting her fate amidst this scene of terror and distraction. She revived at the sight of Philander, who fell about her neck with a tenderness not to be expressed; and, amidst a thousand sobs and sighs, told her his love, and his dreadful mistake. The stage was now in flames, and the whole house full of smoke; the entrance was quite barred up with heaps of people, who had fallen upon one another as they endeavoured to get out. Swords were drawn, shrieks heard on all sides; and, in short, no possibility of an escape for Philander himself, had he been capable of making it without his Chloe. But his mind was above such a thought, and wholly employed in weeping, condoling, and comforting. He catches her in his arms. The fire surrounds them, while --I cannot go on Were I an infidel, misfortunes like this would convince me that there must be an hereafter: for who can believe that so much virtue could meet with so great distress without a following reward? As for my part, I am so old-fashioned as firmly to believe, that all who perish in such generous enterprizes are relieved from the further exercise of life; and Providence, which sees their virtue consummate and manifest, takes them to an immediate reward, in a being more suitable to the grandeur of their spirit. What else can wipe away our tears, when we contemplate such undeserved, such irreparable distresses? It was a sublime thought in some of the heathens of old; -Quæ gratia currúm Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos. That is, in other words, "The same employments and inclinations which were the entertainment of virtuous men upon earth make up their happiness in Elysium." Before we pass from Tatler to Spectator, let us turn aside to make acquaintance with another of the wits who was amusing readers in Queen Anne's time. Dr. William King was born in the year 1663, son of Ezekiel King, a gentleman of London. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He early inherited a fair estate, took his Master of Arts degree in 1688, and began his career as writer with a refutation of attacks upon Wielif in the "History of Heresy," by M. Varillas. He then chose law for a profession, in 1692 graduated as LL.D., and was admitted an Advocate at Doctor's Commons. He kept a light heart and a lighter purse than beseemed one of his fraternity, publishing playful satires, and at times showing an earnest mind under his mirth. In or soon after the year 1 Virgil, Eneid, vi, 653–5. "Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of learning." In 1709 he published the best of his playful poems, "The Art of Cookery, in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry; with some letters to Dr. Lister and others, occasioned principally by the Title of a Book published by the Doctor, being the works of Apicius Caelius, concerning the Soups and Sauces of the Ancients. With an Extract of the greatest Curiosities contained in that Book." Here the "Extract" is a satire on waste erudition, which is only entitled "Letter IX. To Mr. be said to represent in whimsical fashion APICIUS SAUCED. "but may DEAR SIR,-I must communicate my happiness to you, because you are so much my friend as to rejoice at it. I some days ago met with an old acquaintance, a curious person, of whom I inquired if he had seen the book concerning soups and sauces. He told me he had; but that he had but a very slight view of it, the person who was master of it not being willing to part with so valuable a rarity out of his closet. I desired him to give me what account he could of it. He says that it is a very handsome octavo; for ever since the days of Ogilby good paper and good print and fine cuts make a book become ingenious, and brighten up an author strangely; that there is a copious index; and at the end a catalogue of all the Doctor's works concerning cockles, 1 De Opsoniis sive Condimentis, sive Arte Coquinaria, Libri Decem. Amsterdam, 1709. 2 John Ogilby's illustrated translation of Virgil, 1654. English beetles, snails, spiders that get up into the air and throw us down cobwebs, a monster vomited up by a baker, and such like; which, if carefully perused, would wonderfully improve us. There is, it seems, no manuscript of it in England, nor any other country that can be heard of; so that this impression is from one of Humelbergius, who, as my friend says, he does not believe contrived it himself, because the things are so very much out of the way, that it is not probable any learned man would set himself seriously to work to invent them. He tells me of this ingenious remark made by the editor, "That, whatever manuscripts there might have been, they must have been extremely vicious and corrupt, as being written out by the cooks themselves, or some of their friends or servants, who are not always the most accurate." And then, as my friend observed, if the cook had used it much it might be sullied; the cook perhaps not always licking his fingers when he had occasion for it. I should think it no improvident matter for the State to order a select scrivener to transcribe receipts, lest ignorant women and house-keepers should impose upon future ages by illspelt and uncorrect receipts for potting of lobsters, or pickling of turkeys. Coelius Apicius, it seems, passes for the author of this treatise; whose science, learning, and discipline, were extremely contemned, and almost abhorred, by Seneca and the Stoics, as introducing luxury, and infecting the manners of the Romans; and so lay neglected till the inferior ages; but then were introduced, as being a help to physic, to which a learned author, called Donatus, says that "the kitchen is a handmaid." I remember in our days, though we cannot in every respect come up to the ancients, that by a very good author an old gentleman is introduced as making use of three doctors, Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merriman. They are reported to be excellent physicians; and, if kept at a constant pension, their fees will not be very costly. It seems, as my friend has learnt, there were two persons that bore the name of Apicius, one under the Republic, the other in the time of Tiberius, who is recorded by Pliny, "to have had a great deal of wit and judgment in all affairs that related to eating," and consequently has his name affixed to many sorts of omelets and pancakes. Nor were emperors less contributors to so great an undertaking, as Vitellius, Commodus, Didius Julianus, and Varius Heliogabalus, whose imperial names are prefixed to manifold receipts; the last of which emperors had the peculiar glory of first making sausages of shrimps, crabs, oysters, prawns, and lobsters. And these sausages being mentioned by the author which the editor publishes, from that and many other arguments the learned doctor irrefragably maintains, that the Book, as now printed, could not be transcribed till after the time of Heliogabalus, who gloried in the titles of Apicius and Vitellius, more than Antoninus, who had gained his reputation by a temperate, austere, and solid virtue. And, it seems, under his administration, a person that found out a new soup might have as great a reward as Drake or Dampier might expect for finding a new continent. My friend says, the editor tells us of unheard-of dainties; how " Esopus had a supper of the tongues of birds that could speak;" and that "his daughter regaled on pearls," though he does not tell us how she dressed them; how "Hortensius left ten thousand pipes of wine in his cellar, for his heir's drinking;" how "Vedius Pollio fed his fish-ponds with man's flesh;" and how "Cæsar bought six thousand weight of lampreys for his triumphal supper." He says, the editor proves equally to a demonstration, by the proportions and quantities set down, and the nauseousness of the ingredients, that the dinners of the emperors were ordered by their physicians; and that the recipe was taken by the cook as the collegiate doctors would |