ctated the Miltonian description. He died at
twenty-four years. Had he lived longer, he might have sung of roast and
boiled as sublimely as Milton has done.

Epicurus, in exalting cookery and eating and drinking to a plane of
philosophical importance, was a true friend of his race, and showed
himself the most sensible and wisest of all the Greek philosophers. A
psychometrical critic of the philosopher of the garden says:--

"The first and last necessity is eating. The animated world is
unceasingly eating and digesting itself. None could see this truth
clearly but an enthusiast in diet like Epicurus, who, discovering the
unexceptionableness of the natural law, proceeded to the work of
adaptation. Ocean, lake, streamlet, was separately interrogated, 'How
much delicious food do you contain? What are your preparations? When
should man partake?' In like manner did the enthusiast peregrinate
through Nature's empire, fixing his chemical eye upon plant and shrub
and berry and vine,--asking every creeping thing, and the animal
creation also, 'What can you do for man?' And such truths as the angels
sent! Sea, earth, and air were overflowing and heavily laden with
countless means of happiness. 'The whole was a cupboard of food or
cabinet of pleasure.' Life must not be sacrificed by man, for thereby he
would defeat the end sought. Man's fine love of life must save him from
taking life." (This is not doctrine to promulgate in the latitude of
Quincy Market, O clairvoyant Davis!) "In the world of fruit, berries,
vines, flowers, herbs, grains, grasses, could be found all proper food
for 'bodily ease and mental tranquillity.'

"Behold the enthusiast! classifying man's senses to be gratified at the
table. All dishes must be beautifully prepared and disposed to woo and
win the sense of sight; the assembled articles must give off odors
harmoniously blended to delight and cultivate the sense of smell; and
each substance must balance with every other in point of flavor, to meet
the natural demands of taste; otherwise the entertainment is shorn of
its virtue to bless and tranquillize the soul!...

"But lo, the fanatic in eating appears! Miserably hot with gluttonous
debauchery. He has feasted upon a thousand deaths! Belshazzar's court
fed on fish of every type, birds of every flight, brutes of every clime,
and added thereto each finer luxury known in the catalogue of the
temperate Epicurus....

"Behold the sceptics. A shivering group of