The diversity of substances which we find in the catalogue of articles of food is as great as the variety with which the art or the science of cookery prepares them: the notions of the ancients on this most important subject are worthy of remark. Their taste regarding meat was various. Beef they considered the most substantial food; hence it constituted the chief nourishment of their athletae. Camels' and dromedaries' flesh was much esteemed, their heels most especially. Donkey-flesh was in high repute; Maecenas, according to Pliny, delighted in it; and the wild ass, brought from Africa, was compared to venison. In more modern times we find Chancellor Dupret having asses fattened for his table. The hog and the wild boar appear to have been held in great estimation; and a hog was called "animal propter convivia natum;" but the classical portion of the sow was somewhat singular--"vulva nil dulcius ampla." Their mode of killing swine was as refined in barbarity as in epicurism. Plutarch tells us that the gravid sow was actually trampled to death, to form a delicious mass fit for the gods. At other times, pigs were slaughtered with red-hot spits, that the blood might not be lost; stuffing a pig with asafoetida and various small animals, was a luxury called "porcus Trojanus;" alluding, no doubt, to the warriors who were concealed in the Trojan horse. Young bears, dogs, and foxes, (the latter more esteemed when fed upon grapes,) were also much admired by the Romans; who were also so fond of various birds, that some consular families assumed the names of those they most esteemed. Catius tells us how to drown fowls in Falernian wine, to render them more luscious and tender. Pheasants were brought over from Colchis, and deemed at one time such a rarity, that one of the Ptolemies bitterly lamented his having never tasted any. Peacocks were carefully reared in the island of Samos, and sold at such a high price, that Varro informs us they fetched yearly upwards of 2000_l._ of our money. The guinea-fowl was considered delicious; but, wretched people! the Romans knew not the turkey, a gift which we moderns owe to the Jesuits. Who could vilify the disciples of Loyola after this information! The ostrich was much relished; Heliogabalus delighted in their brains, and Apicius especially commends them. But, of all birds, the flamingo was not only esteemed as a _bonne-bouche_, but was most valuable after dinner; for, when the gluttonous sensualists had eaten too much, they introduced one of its long scarlet feathers down their throats, to disgorge their dinner. The modern gastronome is perhaps not aware that it is to the ancients he owes his delicious fattened duck and goose livers,--the inestimable _foies gras_ of France. Thus Horace: Pinguibus et ficis pastum jecur anseris albi.