sauce of oysters and fish-livers upon a sow's
breast that floated in the dish below.  There
were also sausages on silver gridirons: the hot
coals beneath, simulated by crimson pomegranate
pips and Syrian plums; and there was lacertus (a
common fish) served up with chopped eggs, mint,
and rue.  Snails and oysters were also handed
round, garnished with asparagus, lettuces, and
radish.  The guests were all this time
constantly supplied with goblets of white wine and
honey (a sort of Athol brose).  In fact, this
opening of the Roman banquet did not differ
very much from the opening of a modern
Russian dinner, which commences with
sardines, anchovies, and a small glass of brandy
or liqueur.

The second course would probably be a
surprise—one of those elaborate practical jokes in
which the Roman epicure delighted—perhaps
a whole pig stuffed with fat thrushes, the
yolks of eggs and mincemeat.  But we will
follow Petronius at his banquet.  A wooden
hen with outspread wings, exquisitely carved,
was there brought in in a basket full of chaff,
brooding on eggs: which the slaves drew out and
handed to the guests.  These eggs were found,
to everybody's delight, to be of baked crust, each
one enclosing a highly-seasoned beccafico.  The
signal to remove this gustatorium (or course)
was given by musicians placed at one end of the
atrium.  An ingenious surprise of this kind was
once tried on Nicomedes, King of Bithynia.
The monarch was passionately fond of fresh
herrings; and, being far from the sea-coast,
in a wild region where a wagonfull of gold
would not have purchased a fresh fish, the king's
ingenious cook contrived to enclose meat in
frames of the shape of the fish, and to season it so
as to exactly resemble herring.  At Petronius's
supper, too, the cook served up geese and wild
fowl, moulded out of pork.  But all these
surprises, so artfully designed to reawaken
the blunted appetite, were poor, compared
with the clever thought of the French cook
who took some live crawfish and painted
their shells with some sharp acid that turned
them a brilliant scarlet.  He then covered these
pressed men under a pile of patient dead
recruits in the same uniform, and, clapping a
tight cover over them all, hurried the dish on
to the royal table, where the astonishment and
horror of the ladies at the coming to life of the
supposed dead creatures caused infinite amusement,
and small talk.

On the removal of the second ingenious
course, we may suppose black slaves wiping the
tables and handing water again to the guests,
whose hands would by this time require ablution.
Boys wearing green garlands would
then enter, carrying between them on sticks
those large oval amphora that could not stand
alone, but were kept embedded in earth or
sand.  On the labels round the gypsumed
necks, were written the names of the consuls in
whose period of office the wine had been bottled.

The Romans had a detestable plan of putting
sea—water into wine, and also of doctoring it
with aloes, myrrh, aromatic bitters, and costly
essential oils. They drank hot spiced wine
in winter, and they had bronze urns (of a
tureen shape with a tap), in which it was
sometimes served.  It was not uncommon to serve
the wine in a sort of huge punch-bowl, out
of which it was ladled into the cups of the
guests, either neat, or mixed with "allaying
Tiber."

The Greek and Roman wine-merchants (as
remarkable for honesty as their English
descendants) had the following traditions about
wine.  There were two kinds of Falernian, the
dry and the sweet; neither of which improved
after twenty years probation in the cask.
The Alban wine was ripe at fifteen years, the
Surrentine at five-and-twenty. The Trifoline
was an early wine; the Tibur, ripe after ten
years imprisonment.  The Gauran was a scarce
and fine wine, strong and oily.  The Cæcuban
was a grand wine, but heady.  The Signine wine
was ripe at six years; the Nomentan at five.
The Erbulian wine, at first dark, afterwards
turned white, and was a light and delicate
wine.  Marseilles wine was fine, but thick and
full bodied.  The Tarentine were light sweet
wines.  Corinthian and Eubæan wines were
harsh and bad.  Snow was in the summer
mixed with the wine to cool it, and to the
consequent dilution the Romans seem to have been
indifferent.

In the next course let us suppose that
strange dish, the very refinement of luxury,
which was served to Ulpian: "The Dish of
Roses," which feasted the eyes, nose, and
stomach, and at the same time appealed strongly
to the imagination. It was thus made, and
we confide it as a secret to the French cooks
of the United Kingdom:

Take a wheel-barrow full of rose leaves, and
pound in a mortar; add to them the brains of
two pigs, and a dozen thrushes, boiled and
mixed with chopped yolk of egg, oil, vinegar,
pepper and wine; mix and pour these
ingredients together, then stew them slowly and
steadily, until the perfect perfume is developed
—we say stew, but it may be boil, for the
obscure Greek writer from whence we quote,
disdained to enter into minute practical details.

In the third course let us suppose another
surprise.  A tray is brought in, covered with
natural turf on which are spread pieces of honey-
comb, and heaps of parched chick peas.  When
the guests have been startled and horrified
enough at this, the slaves lift off a tray and
disclose a rich and lavish dinner in full bloom
beneath.  In the midst of the tray we can place
the stew of roses, or a fat hare fitted with
artificial wings and called a Pegasus, by the
master cook.  We surround this, with dishes
of pigeons, fowls, ducks, mullets, turbots, and
flounders.  The guests applaud the display
as the carver advances trippingly and carves
in strict accordance with time and rhythm.

The next of the twenty courses not unfrequent
at the table of a Roman epicure, would
perhaps be a boar roasted whole (the Umbrian