Man has made use of the oyster from the most remote antiquity. Among the débris of festivals which precede by ages the epoch of written history, oyster-shells are found. On the "midden heaps" of northern Europe they are often discovered, mingling with other rubbish and with stone implements, evidently the refuse of very ancient feasts. We have all read of the classic feasts of the Romans, which began with oysters brought from fabulous distances. Vitellius ate oysters all day long, and the idea prevailed that he could eat a thousand. Calisthenes, the philosopher, was a passionate oyster eater; so was Caligula; Seneca the wise could eat his hundred, and the great Cicero did not despise the savoury bivalve. Lucullus had sea-water brought to his villa from the shores of the Campania, in which he bred them in great abundance for the use of his guests. To another Roman, Sergius Orata, we owe the original idea of the oyster-park. He invented the oyster-pond, in which he bred oysters, not for his own table, but for profit. Among modern celebrities whose love of oysters is recorded, we may mention Louis XI., who feasted the learned doctors of the Sorbonne once a year on oysters. Another Louis invested his cook with an order of nobility, in reward for his skill in cooking them. Cervantes loved oysters, although he satirized oyster dealers. Marshal Turgot used to eat a hundred or two just to whet his appetite. Rousseau, Helvetius, Diderot, the Abbé Raynal, and Voltaire, are recorded lovers of oysters. Danton, Robespierre, and other of the revolutionists, frequented the oyster _salons_ of Paris. Cambaceres was famous for his oyster feasts, and it is recorded of the great Napoleon that he always partook of the bivalve on the eve of his great battles, when they could be procured. In short, it has been demonstrated as a gastronomic truth that there is no feast worthy of a connoisseur where oysters do not come to the front. It is their office to open the way by that gentle excitement which prepares the stomach for its sublime function, digestion; in a word, the oyster is the key of that paradise called appetite. "There is no alimentary substance, not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under given circumstances," says Reveille-Parise, "but oysters never." This is an homage which is due to them: "We may eat them to-day, to-morrow, eat them always, and in profusion, without fear of indigestion." Dr. Gastaldi could swallow, we are assured, his forty dozen with impunity--quite a bank must he have eaten. He was unfortunately struck with apoplexy at table before a _paté de foie gras_. Montaigne quaintly says, to be subject to colic, or deny oneself oysters, presents two evils to choose from, since one must choose between the two, and hazard something for his pleasure.