imagination and all the splendour of ambition."
Burns did not live long enough to read this
jobation, and it is satisfactory to think that it
may not yet have penetrated the shell of the
Oyster, or who shall declare how it might have
marred the sensitive creature's flavour?

The Oyster can also hate—and show its hatred
too. Man is by no means the only enemy to the
Oyster. Its body serves as food to many marine
animals, which have various methods of getting
access to it, in spite, of its shelly defence; from
some of these it can secure itself by closing its
valves as soon as it is alarmed; and against
others it has a more active means of defence, in
the violent expulsion of the water included
between them, which will frequently drive off its
opponent. Various animals attack it, also, by
perforating its shell; and to these also it can
offer a passive resistance, by depositing new
shelly matter within. So that even this
lowly-organised being, commonly regarded as one of
the most vegetative of animals, adds our
authority for these facts, is provided by its Creator
with such means as are necessary for its preservation,
and doubtless also for its enjoyment.

Leaving, however, the moral feature of the
subject, and bidding adieu to the Oyster's
detractors, let us turn to a pleasanter theme, the
acknowledged merits of the delicious edible,
which is, in fact, the purpose of this disquisition.
An eloquent. Frenchman has observed:
"This much is certain, that the Oyster supplies
an aliment which unites all the properties
that are most precious for food. Its flesh is
sweet, fine, and delicate; it has savour enough
to please the taste, not enough to excite or
cloy it, or reach that frightful limit of the
gastronomer—too much! It lends itself, moreover,
through a quality peculiar to it, to gastric
and intestinal absorption. Mingling easily with
the other aliments, and assimilating itself without
difficulty with the juices of the stomach, it
assists the digestive functions. Excepting
bread, there is no alimentary substance that
does not at one time or another cause indigestion,
but Oysters never!" That is a homage
which is justly their due. You may eat them
to-day, to-morrow, for ever, and as many of
them as you are able. The Oyster's presence
in the stomach is hardly perceptible, and yet it
satifies the taste, appeases the appetite, and
calms that impatience of the nerves which
hunger creates. This is why Oysters are
welcomed everywhere, why they enter into cookery
of all kinds, whether learned or simple, why
they are met with alike on the table of the
wealthy and of the poor. They are the grata
ingluvies of Horace, in all its sublime modesty,
which leaves behind it no regrets, no satiety, no
colic, no remorse. When Malherbe says that
he knows nothing better than women and
melons, it is difficult to understand how the Norman
poet omitted Oysters (living, as he did, so
near the best fisheries). As for women, there
are people with whom they do not always agree
(or, which comes to the same thing, who do not
agree with them), and I have known more than
one malady caused by indigestible melons; but
who ever heard a complaint of thai kind made
against Oysters? To continue the remark of
the writer already cited: " That which
constantly pleases in eating Oysters is the fact that
while gastric ailments are defied, the mind is
neither disquieted nor irritated by fears for the
future. One devours them in the full and
perfect certainty that health will not in the
slightest degree be compromised, were one
even to plunge into that abyss which is called
satiety. To eat Oysters is, therefore, at once
both physically and morally healthful."

What "satiety" is, where Oysters are
concerned, it may be difficult to determine. It
depends altogether on the capacity of the
ostreophagist. Grimod de la Reyniére says: " It
as been proved by experience that after five or
six dozen, oysters cease to be an enjoyment."
Brillat-Savarin (in his Physiologie du Goût)
tells a very diiferent story. In the first place,
he observes:—" It was well known that,
formerly, a feast of any pretensions usually
commenced with oysters, and that there were
epicures who did not leave off until they had
swallowed a gross; in other words, a dozen
dozen. Wishing to know what such a prandial
advanced guard weighed, I verified the fact,
that the weight of a dozen oysters (including
water) was four ounces avoirdupois, and this
gives for the whole gross, three pounds. Now,
I look upon it as certain, that these persons
who did not dine the less heartily after the
oysters, would have been completely satiated if
they had eaten the same quantity of meat, even
had it been chicken." Brillat-Savarin follows
up this remark by the following anecdote:
"In 1798 I was at Versailles, and I had
frequent intercourse with the Sieur Laperte,
Registrar of the Tribunal of the Department. He
was a great lover of oysters, and complained
that he had never eaten enough of them, or, as
he said, 'his fill.' I resolved to procure him
that satisfaction, and invited him to dine with
me next day. He came, and I kept him
company up to the thirteenth dozen, that is during
more than an hour, for the oyster-opener was
not very expert. All the rest of the time I was
kept inactive, and as to sit at table without
eating is extremely painful, I stopped my guest
while in full career. ' My dear sir,' I said to
him, ' your destiny is not to have your fill of
oysters to-day. Let us dine!' We did dine,
and he behaved himself with all the vigour
and perseverance of a man breaking a long
fast." Monsieur Laperte belonged, without
doubt, to the school ot the French poet Lainez
(deceased in Paris in 1710), of whose surprising
powers of deglutition the following story is
told: One day, after he had been cramming for
five or six hours, he rose, and, after a brief
pause, resumed his seat to prepare for a new
conflict. "Have you not dined?" asked a
friend. "Do you think my stomach has any
memory?" was the counter-question, with which
he fell to.

The counterpart of Monsieur Laperte—so