they are a year old they are perhaps as large as a small lady's-watch, and at the age of five years they are in their prime. The shell remains frail and tender until they reach the size of that rare coin, an American dollar, but is hard and complete, when they become fit for the table, which is in their fourth year. At that time, they are rudely torn from their native bed by terrible iron prongs, to which they yield with philosophic resignation, and are carried unresisting to busy cities and the hum of crowds. If they should escape the gluttony of man, they die at the appointed time, leaving their shell, thickened by old age, and adorned with rings which show their years like the rings of a tree, to serve as a monument for times to come, and to add, with millions of their kind, a new layer to the crust of the earth.

Such is their life, simple and unromantic, but by no means as void of enjoyment as we are apt to imagine. There are countless sneers at the poor immovable oyster to be found in poet and prose writer, as if to be in perpetual motion was to be the perfection of happiness. The oyster has its time of merry wandering, when it is young; but it remembers, by times, that a rolling stone gathers no moss, and settles down quietly in its cool, pleasant home. We are so used to roam over the earth by rail and by steam, that we are apt to forget how Cain's curse was, that he should be a fugitive and a vagabond all of his life! We learn a different lesson from the great Kant, whose philosophy De Quincey praises above all ancient and modern wisdom, and who yet never for a day left his native town on the Baltic, and from thence wielded the lever that moved a world of minds; or from Burns, who said once that he envied only two beings in this world, a wild horse roaming freely over the steppes of Asia, and an oyster on a lonely rock in the ocean-the former had no wish it could not gratify, the latter knew no wish and no fear. Poor Burns preferred to lead the life of the horse, and we all know what came of

it. Others have chosen the better part, and followed the example of the oyster, either withdrawing with stoic heroism into their shell, on which all the storms of Fate could make no impression, or travelling sadly from Babylon to Jerusalem, from the wicked world and its tempest-tossed waves into the quiet convent, the peaceful haven on earth.

An oyster-bed in the sunny sea is the concentration of undisturbed happiness. The countless creatures congregated there may seem to be dormant, but we are sure they lead, each, the beatified existence of an epicurean god. The world without does not trouble them; its cares and joys, its storms and calms, its passions and sins, are all indifferent to the unheeding oyster. Apparently unobservant of what passes around, its whole soul is concentrated in itself, and like the sublime sage of the East in his one word Om, the oyster finds bliss in simple existence. And yet it does not enjoy itself sluggishly or apathetically; its pleasures are neither few nor unvaried, for its body is throbbing with life and a thousand sources of enjoyment. The performance of every function with which the Creator has endowed them-and we know not yet half their number-brings with it as much happiness as they are capable of enjoying.

The mighty ocean itself is subservient to their pleasure, and its rolling waves waft ever fresh and varied food within their reach. They have no care for the morning, for He who feeds the young lions, provides an abundance for their wants; they need no effort, no labor, for the flow of the current brings the food to their very doors. Besides, each atom of water that comes in contact with their delicate, sensitive gills, setsfree its imprisoned air to freshen and invigorate their pellucid blood. Nor can we doubt that the gentle agitation of the water as it flows around them, the equal temperature of the ocean, varying only from one degree of pleasantness to another, the act of imbibing the fluid and softly expelling again what is not required for breathing, that

all these changes, unceasingly affecting their tender substance, afford them both wholesome occupation and cheerful amusement. We little suspect, when looking at the rough shell and the shapeless mass within, how beautiful the structure of the animal is, and at how many countless points it is susceptible to influences from the outer world. But if we put an oyster into a vivarium, and then aid our feeble sight by the inventions of science, we are struck at once by the millions of tiny hairs, cilia, which now are seen to vibrate incessantly, and to keep time most marvellously, as they beat on every fibre of each fringing leaflet. Even the very imperfect instrument in the hands of the great Leeuwenhoeck made him exclaim with amazement: "The motion I saw was so incredibly great, that I could not be satisfied with the spectacle, and it is not in the mind of man to conceive all the motion which I beheld within the compass of a grain of sand;" and yet his untrained eye saw but a tithe of what is now known to careful observers! Well may we marvel, and adore the sublime goodness which devised all this elaborate and inimitable contrivance for the well-being of a despised shellfish.

As the oyster has a mouth, that also must be a source of enjoyment, although its suspicious nearness to the stomach deprives the mollusc, in all probability, of that enjoyment which the passage along the gullet affords to the gourmand among ourselves,--so that one of them wished it could be lengthened out into a mile. The oyster, however, has an appetite, and no doubt also its own power of appreciating the varied provisions with which it is continually supplied, and which are taken impartially from the animal as well as from the vegetable kingdom. It has its nervous system, moreover, very simple as far as we know, but connected with the ovarium, and thus affording the pleasant sensations of love; the mantle, in whose folds its young are so tenderly kept for a long time; and the heart itself, with its two chambers and its gentle pulsations, showing clearly that it feels and

enjoys, though it may have but obscure sensibilities and limited instincts. Then there are still other portions of its frame, which the careless and the ignorant simply declare useless, because they cannot at once see what essential purpose of life they are made to serve, and because they might apparently be omitted without disturbing the course of daily duties. But as they are never found missing, and as we now know that nothing in created beings is the result of chance, we may safely assume that they are symbols of organs to be more fully developed in animals of higher perfection-anticipations, it may be, of limbs and senses given to other creations, and badges of the relationship which exists between these lower and despised beings, and man himself in all his sublime strength and beauty.

It is true, the oyster is not visibly endowed with other senses than taste and touch, which it exercises and enjoys in almost unceasing activity. We do not know that it ever ceases to take in food, and we can see distinctly that the beautiful cilia, more delicate than the costliest lace on the wedding-robe of an aristocratic beauty, shrink and shiver at the slightest warning, by day or by night. There is no outward eye perceptible, as, in fact, there is no head to which it might lend light and beauty in its dark home; and yet the oyster is exquisitely sensitive to every change of light, and finds in this susceptibility at least one means of protecting itself against an enemy. As soon as the shadow of a passing boat falls upon it from on high, and long before the pressure of the agitated waters can have reached its home on the rocks, it closes its shell, unfortunately with no better success than that of the cunning mancuvre of the ostrich, when it hides its head under a bush. The ear is, on the contrary, very fully developed, and a most curious organ, consisting mainly of a number of diminutive grains, shut up in a transparent prison, and there dancing in perpetual motion, which changes with every sound that strikes upon the outer walls. Here, then, is a

new source of enjoyment, and the thousand subdued notes of the great ocean may have their melodies, unknown to human ears, but appreciated by the dwellers in the vasty deep.

In spite of these organs and the undoubted fact that oysters have senses and various sources of happiness, men have generally believed them to be very imperfect beings after all, and fit only to be mentioned among the lowest of created beings. But "there is a philosophy in shellfish, and above their jackets," ," in more senses than one, and whilst we have seen that they are endowed, in their own peculiar way, with sufficient acuteness and sensibility to make their so-called instinctive proceedings often very surprising, there are men, who know them well, claiming for them a certain degree of intelligence and thoughtful action. In fact, utterly helpless and thoughtless molluscs as they seem to be, they have proved themselves capable of learning that hardest lesson which man has to acquire in the world-to keep their mouth shut at the proper time! The manner in which they came first to be trained in this rare accomplishment was this:

There are large establishments on the coast of Calvados, like those near La Rochelle, where oysters are kept to be cleaned and fattened for the market. These artificial beds are constructed between tide-marks, and their denizens, accustomed to spend the greater part of the twenty-four hours under water, open their valves and allow the waves to come in, when so situated, but close them firmly when the receding tide leaves them exposed. Thus they get gradually used to these alternations of submersion and exposure, and the practice of opening and closing the shell becomes a regular habit. After a few years' residence here, they are ready to be carried to Paris; and as the distance is great, even by rail, this habit of gaping at a certain hour would insure their destruction, as the oyster can as little live without its supply of air, which it derives from the sea-water, as we ourselves. The French owners of these

parks, therefore, undertook to train them to keep their valves shut in order to avert the evil. Each batch of oysters intended to make the journey to Paris, is now subjected to a preliminary exercise in keeping close even at such hours, at which the tide is in, by giving them at the right time a slight blow, which instinctively closes the door. The molluscs learn, after a while, to do so whenever they are uncovered by sea-water; and when the time for the journey arrives, they are tapped, and quietly close the shells, keep the gills moist with the water within, and arrive safely and lively in the great capital. Thus they prove themselves capable of understanding and profiting by a lesson, and are enabled to arrive in the metropolis like polished citizens of the Empire, and not like gaping rustics, with their mouths wide open.

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The mollusc is, moreover, by no means so intensely selfish, that all the joys and pleasures connected with its existence should be strictly confined to its own secret life. In building up its house, for instance, it does not labor for itself alone. We cannot yet answer the question, which the fool asked of King Lear, how the oyster built its shell, but see with deep interest how varied its colors and how perfect its form. The upper part is generally raised-the oyster of Holstein alone has a concave top, having caved in, as the poor people say, when the Prussians took possession of the country-the lower part is flatter, only deep enough to hold some water, and both valves are movable by means of a powerful muscle, which holds the door more strongly than the best of our locks or latches. The outside varies according to the locality where the oyster grows: it is dark on black, muddy bottoms; the Spanish oyster is dressed in red, the Illyrian has a brown armor to protect its dingy body, the favorite of the Parisians is green without and within, and the natives of the Red Sea shine after the fashion of the Orient, in all the colors of the rainbow. At night the shell emits a dim, sulphurous light,

arising from a variety of microscopic alge, which enjoy their existence as parasites of the oyster. Nor are the brilliant lustre and the gleaming iridescence of the inner lining of the shell destined to remain hid forever in the depths of the ocean. The nacreous shells, which furnish our mother-ofpearl, belong to a variety of oysters, and are eagerly sought for, wherever they can be procured in sufficient quantities, forming an article of considerable importance in trade. Those of the tropics contain, however, still more precious treasures, for they change the luckless grain of sand or unproductive egg into costly pearls, and teach us the great lesson, that we also should endeavor to treat our troubles in like manner, and convert our secret cankers, by help from on high, into pearls of great value.

"On some far-distant shores, There are who seek the oyster for the pearl She sometimes brings with her, a priceless dowerBut Dando only sought her for herself."

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And Dando was right; for what are all the beauties of the shell, and all the charms of the rare pearl, to the luscious food and the certain health promised to the lover of oysters by the inside? Much has been said in comic wonder and half-serious admiration of the man who first ventured to eat an oyster. A quaint old German writer, Lentilius, said of the mollusc that it was 66 animal of horrid and nauseous appearance, whether you look at it shut up in its shell or open, so that bold must have been the man who first raised it to his lips." The popular legend has it, that a man, walking one day by the side of the sea 66 with its many voices," picked up one of these savory bivalves just as it was in the act of gaping. Observing the extreme smoothness of the sides within, he insinuated his finger to feel the shining surface, when suddenly they closed upon him with a sensation far less pleasant than he had expected. The prompt withdrawal of the finger was hardly a more natural movement than his bringing it to his mouth, by that unfailing instinct which comes to us in early childhood. In this instance

the result was fortunate in the extreme. The happy owner of the injured finger tasted for the first time the delicious juice of an oyster, as the Chinaman in Elia's Essay, having burnt his finger, first tasted Cracklin. The savor was superb, and he had made a great discovery; he picked up the oyster, forced open the shell, banqueted upon the contents, and soon brought the mollusc into fashion-a fashion which, unlike all others, has never gone and never will go out again. To ascribe to the lucky man wonderful courage, is a vulgar error; he deserves admiration, on the contrary, for his highly sensitive and exquisite taste, and his prophetic appreciation of a dainty, as he saw the tempting morsel lie all succulent upon its own plate in its own delicious sauce. We can sympathize with the regret he must have felt, in common with all oyster-eaters, when gazing upon the entombed remains of millions of well-fed and elegantly shaped oysters, which geologists point out to us in the Eocene formation. We can imagine, with Mr. Forbes, how he would chase "a pearly tear" away, as he calls to mind how all these delicious beings came into the world and vanished to so little purpose.

Even when man and oyster were first brought in contact, they do not seem to have taken kindly to each other; at least, the silence of the Old Testament leads to the idea that to the Hebrews the shellfish was forbidden as one of the abominable beings. The ancient Greeks were far wiser in their generation, and enjoyed them heartily, but they deserve no mercy for the vile use they made of the outer shell. It was black ingratitude all around; for after having feasted upon the delicious oysters of their waters at the expense of some great patriot like Aristides, they escaped thanking him for his largess by writing his name on the shell, and banishing him from his native land. How could men blessed with luscious natives ever be guilty of ostracism?

The Romans, on the contrary, showed their appreciation of Nature's rich bounties by the fostering care with

which they raised them, and the religious fastidiousness with which they prepared them for their enjoyment. We have seen already how they learnt to improve them, but they also took to importing them even from distant Britain, whose natives they prized above all others. Unfortunately, the gluttony of the time of the Cæsars affected their appreciation of oysters also, and a Vitellius could with beastly voracity set them the bad example of eating oysters at all times of the day, and up to a round thousand at a sitting. To increase the heinousness of the offence, he availed himself, in order to make this possible, of the abominable fashion prevailing in those days, which made room for new supplies by removing the older inmates through the agency of a peacock-feather, tickling the palate with great effect. Seneca, who so admirably praised poverty in his writings, and complained on the forum that he could not live comfortably with only ten millions of dollars, treated oysters with the same duplicity. The temperate sage eat a few hundred every day, until, in a fit of indigestion, and after having listened to a brother philosopher, who inveighed against all the follies and vices of the times, he renounced them forever. With the bitterness of a friend changed into a foe, he turned round and denounced them as vile things, pleasing only to gluttons, because "they so very readily slipped down, and so very readily came up again." The cooler Cicero, while confessing his fondness for them, claims to find no difficulty in abstaining; but the poets, fortunately, speak with more enthusiasm. Horace, devoted to the delicious mollusc with his whole heart, sings their praise again and again, and Juvenal breaks forth in admiration of him

"who could tell

At the first bite, if his oysters fed On the Rutupian or the Lucrine bed," the Rutupians being the fine natives of Britain, which had but just come into fashion. The Emperor Trajan was so fond of them, that his famous cook,

Apicius, had to provide them even during the summer months, and to send the master's favorite dish after him to Parthia, at a distance of many days' journey from salt-water. From that time onward, nearly all great men have been fond of oysters. Cervantes loved them, and satirized the oyster-dealers of his country: French authors professed a like fondness, from the learned doctors of the Sorbonne under Louis XI., down to the unhappy encyclopedists, who were joined by the great men of the Revolution in the days of their innocence. Nor have the Parisians degenerated since, for they still consume daily a million. Pope and Swift shared this partiality for oysters, and the Scottish philosophers of Hume's day spoke in raptures of their "whiskered pandores," an enthusiasm fully appreciated afterwards by Christopher North and the shepherd.

It is not the mere savor, moreover, which makes oysters such favorites among men, but they have valuable qualities besides, and have been recommended from of old by physicians of all countries for many diseases. It may not be true that their own fertility is transferred to those who eat them, as was fondly and firmly believed in former days; but there can be no doubt that they are marvellously nutritious, very digestible, and especially famous for their effect on the increased production of blood, so that they are often prescribed in cases of wounds or after repeated bleedings. Dr. Pasquier recommended them as curing gout, and Dr. Leroy, by taking two dozen every morning, preserved his youthful vigor to an advanced age. We need not wonder, then, that their consumption is enormous, and nothing can give a better idea of the quantity brought to market, than to see the fleet of oyster-vessels dredging in our great estuaries, or, what is perhaps even more impressive, to pay a visit to Billingsgate, the one great fish-market of the city of London. At the early hour between four and five in the morning, the visitor here sees one of the marvels of the overgrown city;