l’ail; deux bons morceaux de jambon; une assiette pleine de patisserie! du fruit et des confitures!” Nor can I doubt the accuracy of the historian, who assures us that a Roman emperor,[73] one of the most moderate of those imperial gluttons, _took_ for his breakfast, 500 figs, 100 peaches, 10 melons, 100 beccaficoes, and 400 oysters. Epicurism was scarcely more prevalent during the decline of the Roman empire than it is at this day amongst some of the wealthy and noble youths of Britain. Not one of my select dinner-party but would have been worthy of a place at the _turbot consultation_ immortalized by the Roman satirist. A friend of mine, a bishop, one day went into his kitchen, to look at a large turbot, which the cook was dressing. The cook had found it so large that he had cut off the fins: “What a shame!” cried the bishop; and immediately calling for the cook’s apron, he spread it before his cassock, and actually sewed the fins again to the turbot with his own episcopal hands. If I might judge from my own experience, I should attribute fashionable epicurism in a great measure to ennui. Many affect it, because they have nothing else to do; and sensual indulgences are all that exist for those who have not sufficient energy to enjoy intellectual pleasures. I dare say, that if Heliogabalus could be brought in evidence in his own case, and could be made to understand the meaning of the word ennui, he would agree with me in opinion, that it was the cause of half his vices. His offered reward for the discovery of a new pleasure is stronger evidence than any confession he could make. I thank God that I was not born an emperor, or I might have become a monster. Though not in the least inclined to cruelty, I might have acquired the taste for it, merely for desire of the emotion which real tragedies excite. Fortunately, I was only an earl and an epicure.