FISH.
What is thy diet? Canst thou gulf a shoal
Of herrings? Or hast thou gorge and room
To bolt fat porpoises and dolphins whole
By dozens, e'en as oysters we consume?
Punch.
The world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.
Hotspur.
The Egyptians, strange to say, did not deify fish, that important article of their food. We read of the enormous yield of Lake Mœris, which was dammed up by the great Rameses, and whose draught of fishes brought him so enormous a revenue.
One of the most fascinating of all the Egyptian Queens, Sonivaphra, received the revenues of one of these fisheries to keep her in shoe-strings,—probably another name for pin money.