Sergius Orata, as Pliny the Elder tells us in the eighty-ninth book of his invaluable Natural History, and, as we have already stated, first conceived the idea of planting oysters in beds. This epicure had large reservoirs made at Baia, where he gathered thousands of these mollusks. Not far from these oyster-beds rose a palace in which the wealthy Roman used to assemble his choicest friends and feast with them the whole day and night. Oysters occupied the place of honour on the table of Sergius Orata; at every feast thousands of them were consumed. Satiated, but not yet satisfied, these gourmets were in the habit of adjourning into an adjoining room, where they relieved the stomach of its load by artificial means, and then returned to indulge again their appetite with a fresh supply of oysters.

Strange as it may appear to us in the nineteenth century, this custom was universal amongst the wealthy of Imperial Rome, Cæsar himself often indulging in it, when the repast was to his taste; and ladies, the cream of the cream of that luxurious period, carried about with them peacocks' feathers and other dainty throat ticklers for the purpose, when they anticipated a more luxurious feed than usual.

Who amongst us cares to eat white-bait in the crowded city? When the mood seizes us, do not we take boat and proceed up or down the river, as the whim dictates? The old Roman had no white-bait; and the oyster to him was therefore doubly welcome. To him the journey to his marine villa, by water or land, as with us, added but a zest to the anticipated treat. In the Bay of Naples is a smaller bay close to its most north-western point, bounded on the west by the pretty town of Baia and its hot wells, and on the north-east by the no less charming town of Pozzuoli. These little bays on the Italian coasts are dignified by the name of seas by the writers of classical antiquity, and round the headland of Baia, to the north, in the open Mediterranean—the Tyrrhenian Sea—just such another bay, the present Lago di Fusaro, was called the Lucrine Sea, with its far-famed oyster-beds, easy of access from Baia and Pozzuoli, both situated in a charming country. Here, close to the Lucrine, under a clear sky, surrounded by a delightful atmosphere, were situated the country houses of the more wealthy Romans, where, far away from business and the noise and turmoil of the forum, these accomplished disciples of Epicurus, without fear or care, used to give themselves up to the delights of the table. Here they tasted the little-shelled oysters which Martial liked so much, and which, but a few hours previously to being served up, had been gathered on the sea-shore.

Gastronomic annals mention the names of some of these dainty persons who daily swallowed several hundreds of oysters; but Vitellius in this respect beat them all. That emperor, it is said, ate oysters four times a day, and at each meal swallowed neither more nor less than 1200 of them. Seneca himself, who so admirably praises the charms of poverty, yet left prodigious wealth behind him; Seneca the wise and moderate, ate several hundreds of them every week.

"Oyster, so dear to people of taste!" he exclaims; "thou dost but excite instead of satisfying the appetite, never causing indisposition, not even when eaten to excess; for thou art easy of digestion, and the stomach yields thee back with facility." Cicero did not hesitate to confess that he had a special predilection for oysters; but he adds, that he could renounce them without any difficulty; which, by the way, he might as well have told to the Marines, if they were in existence in his day, for all the credence this remark of his has gained from posterity.

We prefer Horace, who in every passage honestly makes known his love for oysters, and eats them himself with as much gusto as he extols them to others. Carefully, too, does he note down from whom he procured them, and the name of the famous gourmet who at the first bite was able to tell whether an oyster came from Circe or the Lucrine Sea, or from any part of Natolia. The ancients, our teachers in all arts, but especially in æsthetics, did not bolt the oyster, but masticated it. With true Epicurean tact, they always extracted the full enjoyment out of the good things set before them. Not so we; most of us now bolt them; but this is a mistake, for the oyster has a much finer flavour, and is far more nourishing, when well masticated.

"Those who wish to enjoy this delicious restorative in its utmost perfection," says Dr. Kitchener, "must eat it the moment it is opened, with its own gravy in the under shell; if not eaten absolutely alive, its flavour and spirit are lost. The true lover of an oyster will have some regard for the feelings of his little favourite, and contrive to detach the fish from the shell so dexterously that the oyster is hardly conscious he has been ejected from his lodging till he feels the teeth of the piscivorous gourmet tickling him to death."

The Romans needed not even the use of their teeth to tell from whence the oyster came; a mere look sufficed to distinguish it, as may be seen in the following lines ascribed to Lucilius.

"When I but see the oyster’s shell, I look and recognize the river, marsh or mud, Where it was raised."

Nor was this so very difficult a matter, for the shell, no less than the animal itself, as has already been shown, exhibits the nature of the food upon which the oyster has fed.

In Italy and Gaul it was for a long time a matter of dispute, which country produced the best oysters. At that time the Lucrine Sea maintained the superiority; but Pliny preferred those from Circe. "According to my opinion," he says, "the most delicious and most tender oysters are those from Circe."

At last, however, the preference was given to those of Britain, which under the wise administration of Julius Agricola had conformed to the manners and customs of her conquerors, and there no longer was need of dispute as to whether the Mediterranean oysters of Italy or Gaul should have the precedence. The little watery pulpy dabs, which had hitherto delighted the conquerors of the world, were cast aside in disgust. They had found a real oyster at last, and the insignificant and flavourless bivalves of the coasts of Italy ceased to be in demand. From that time, on the shores of the Atlantic, thousands of slaves were employed in procuring the oysters, which in Rome were paid for by their weight in gold. The expenses were so great that the censors felt themselves obliged to interfere. Not content with getting their oysters from distant shores, they had means by which to preserve them for some time in hot weather; for which purpose, as we see in the Pompeian model-house at the Crystal Palace, their domiciles were furnished with a receptacle for water; for with those famous epicures the water-vivary was an essential necessary for the preservation of living fish, and all that was necessary was to substitute sea-water for fresh. Probably by some such means, Apicius Cœlius, who must not be confounded with the writer of a book of cookery which bears his name, sent Trajan, when that emperor was in the country of the Parthians, oysters, which when received were as fresh as they ever could be eaten when just taken from their beds; and Pliny even believed that the journey had proved beneficial to their flavour.

CHAPTER VI.

THE OYSTER ON ITS TRAVELS.

The Isle of Sheppey, the Medway, and Whitstable; Milton, Queenborough, Rochester, and Faversham Oysters; Colchester and Essex Beds; Edinburgh Pandores and Aberdours; Dublin Carlingfords and Powldoodies; Poole and its Oyster-bank; Cornish Oysters and the Helford Beds; Poor Tyacke, and How he was Done; Dredgers and their Boats; Auld Reekie’s Civic Ceremonials; Song of the Oyster; its Voyage to Market, and Journey by Coach and Rail.

Who that has travelled by water from London Bridge to Herne Bay—and who among us who live within the sound of Bow bells has not?—should the trip have been made in the beginning of August, but must have noticed, after having passed the Isle of Sheppey, a little fishing-town to his right, in East Swale Bay, raising its head out of the river like a joyous child dressed in its gayest attire, anticipating a long-looked-for holiday? It is the 4th of August, and its holiday is at hand, for to-morrow the oyster season begins; and the town is Whitstable, in Kent, standing out gaily with its bright flags and pennons in beautiful relief from the low marshy soil by which it is surrounded. Then, too, the dredgers, in their picturesque costume, add greatly to the gay appearance of the place, whilst some seventy or eighty vessels lying in the offing bespeak the importance of the oyster traffic between it and the Great Metropolis. What the Lucrine was to the citizen of Rome is the estuary of the Medway with the Swale to the citizen of London. The "Natives" obtained at Milton are in the highest repute, and consumed in every part of England; nor are the Faversham, Queenborough, and Rochester denizens less so; nor, indeed, any of the "breedy creatures" which are raised in the other beds of the Swale or the Medway.

The trade in oysters, as we have seen, has been an object of consideration in England for many ages, and now ranks in importance with the herring, pilchard, and other fisheries. The excellence of our oysters made the formation of artificial beds an object of attention soon after the Roman conquest; and the Kentish and Essex beds show a pedigree in consequence much older than that of the noble descendant of any Norman adventurer who came over with the Conqueror, claiming, on this head alone, precedence for our "Natives" amongst all the oysters of the known world. But Britain is the boasted land of liberty, and the "Natives" of one part of her coast boldly assert their equality with the "Natives" of any other. If London delights in Milton and Colchester oysters, Edinburgh has her "whispered Pandores" and Aberdours, and Dublin her Carlingfords[4] and "Powldoodies of Burran;" whilst all round our shores each locality boasts of its own "Natives" as the best oysters in the land. Poole points proudly to her oyster-bank, and tells miraculous tales of her fishery, and of the number of oysters she sends to the London market, besides those which are pickled at sea for the export trade to lands where a fresh oyster is still a luxury unknown. The Poole fishermen who open oysters in their boats for pickling are compelled, by an Act of the Legislature, to throw the shells on the strand, and these, in the course of time, have formed a strong barrier against the waves of the sea at the flow of the tide, having the appearance of an island at high-water; and, simple as it is, such is the sole construction of this celebrated breakwater.

I cannot be expected to take the reader on a voyage of discovery all round the coast, nor to the Channel Islands, to taste the oysters which Providence has spread out for our enjoyment with such a lavish hand. But there is one little spot on the shores of Cornwall which I cannot pass over, because from it came one of the colonies on the banks of the Thames, from which the Whitstable boats still draw their annual supply. Into Mount’s Bay the Helford River, upon which stands the little town of Helstone, empties itself, opposite Mount St. Michael’s, into the sea, and in the estuary of that little river, a person of the name of Tyacke, within the memory of the "oldest inhabitant," rented certain oyster-beds, famous amongst Cornish gourmets for a breed of oysters, which, it is said, the Phœnicians, "a long time ago," had discovered to be infinitely preferable to the watery things they got at home. These Helford oysters are regularly brought to London; but when Tyacke rented the beds they were unknown to the good citizens who frequented the oyster taverns, of which the Cock in Fleet Street is but a last lingering type. Determined to make his venture, Tyacke loaded a fishing smack with the best produce of his beds, and coasted along the southern shores, till passing round the Isle of Thanet he found himself in the Mouth of the Thames. Little did the elated oyster dredger think that that Mouth would swallow up the whole of his cargo; but so it came to pass. It had long been evident to those on board that oysters that travel, no less than men, must have rations allowed on the voyage, if they are to do credit to the land of their birth. Now the voyage had been long and tedious, and the oysters had not been fed, so Tyacke got into his boat, and obtained an interview with the owner of the spot at which it touched land. He asked permission to lay down his oysters, and feed them. This was granted, and after a few days the spores of ulva latissima and enteromorpha, and of the host of delicate fibrous plants which there abound, and all of which are the oyster’s great delight, made the whole green and fat, and in the finest condition for reshipment. Four days, it is said, will suffice to make a lean oyster, on such a diet, both green and plump; and Tyacke, joyful at the improvement which he daily witnessed, let his stock feed on for a week. It was towards evening that he bethought himself, as the tide was out, that if he meant to reach Billingsgate by the next morning, it would be wise to reship his oysters before turning in for the night. The boat was lowered; but, as he attempted to land, he was warned off by the owner of the soil, who stood there with several fierce looking fellows, armed with cutlasses and fowling-pieces, evidently anticipating the Cornishman’s intention, and determined to frustrate it at all hazards.

"What do you want here?" he asked of Tyacke.

"The oysters I put down to feed," was the reply. "They were placed there by your permission, and now I am anxious to reship them, to be in time for to-morrow’s market."

"True," replied the Kentishman, "I gave you leave to lay down the oysters and feed them, but not a word was said about reshipping them. Where they are, there they stay; and if you persist in trespassing, I shall know what to do."

Poor Tyacke found himself much in the predicament of many a flat who has been picked up by a sharp. A century ago law was not justice, nor justice law. Perhaps it may not even be so now; and the story of the lawyer who ate the oyster in dispute, and gave each of the disputants a shell, may hold as good in our day as it did in that when the author of the "Beggar’s Opera" put it into verse.

The demand for oysters, wherever it exists along our coasts, creates a profitable source of employment to a class of men who necessarily become experienced seamen; and dredging for oysters is carried on in fleets, as the beds mostly lie within a comparatively small space. The boats, which are about fifteen feet long, usually carry a man and a boy, or two men. The dredge is about eighteen pounds weight, and is required to be heavier on a hard than on a soft bottom, and each boat is usually provided with two dredges.

In former days the commencement of the dredging season was held sufficiently important to entitle it to a civic ceremonial, at least such was the wont of the municipal authorities of "Auld Reekie," who also paid a particular regard both as to the supply and the price of the"breedy creatures" furnished to the good citizens of Edinburgh. The "Feast of Shells" was ushered in by the municipality of the ancient city making, for provosts and bailiffs, a somewhat perilous voyage to the oyster-beds in the Frith of Forth; and though the solemnity of wedding the Frith formed no part of the chief magistrate’s office, as wedding the Adriatic with a gold ring did that of the Doge of Venice, the welkin was made to ring, as three cheers from all present uprose and announced the lifting of the first dredge upon the deck of the civic barge.

There is something poetical and pretty in the idea, which once prevailed, that the oyster was a lover of music, and as the fishermen trolled their dredging nets they sang,