The first man who ate an oyster.—The most widely circulated account of this feat is that which ascribes it to the notorious Roman epicure Publius Esurius Gulo, who was nicknamed Bellipotens from the rotundity of his figure. According to the account given in the Gastronomica of Voracius Bulbo (ii. 18) Gulo was always making daring experiments, and, when bathing at Baiae on a very hot day, and seeing a bivalve which had rashly opened its jaws in the sun, he dexterously inserted a stone and conveyed the contents to his mouth on the point of the pin of his fibula. He was subsequently created a proconsul by Nero. The only drawback connected with this account is the fact that oysters were recognised as delicacies in Rome at least a hundred years before Nero. It is right to add that the genuineness of Bulbo's Gastronomica has been seriously impugned, the best authorities (including Francatelli) being convinced that the treatise was the work of a sixteenth-century farceur who belonged to the royal house of Paphlagonia.
Parlour Pathos, Specimens of.—The best specimens of this interesting emotional product are to be found in the words of Royalty Ballads. A good instance is to be found in the following choice quatrain:—
Nature cares not whence or how,
Nature asks not why;
'Tis enough that thou art thou,
And that I am I.
Comparative Couplets.—The correct form of this literary disease is as follows:—