The modern restaurateurs of the Barrières of Paris, have, perhaps, read the biography of Mecænas, and endeavour to render popular the dish so honoured by the celebrated favourite. Who can blame them? THE DOG. We must beg pardon of the reader for informing him that the dog presented a very relishing dish to many nations advanced in culinary science. To them, one of these animals, young, plump, and delicately prepared, appeared excellent food.[XVI-154] The Greeks, that people so charming by their seductive folly, their love of the arts, their poetic civilization, and the intelligent spirit of research presiding over their dishes--the Greeks (we grieve to say it) ate dogs, and even dared to think them good: the grave Hippocrates himself--the most wise, the least gluttonous, and therefore the most impartial of their physicians--was convinced that this quadruped furnished a wholesome and, at the same time, a light food.[XVI-155] As to the Romans, they also liked it,[XVI-156] and no doubt prepared it in the same manner as the hare, which they thought it resembled in taste.[XVI-157] However, it is but right to add, that this dish, which we will not even hear mentioned, was never favourably received by the fashionable portion of Roman society, and that the legislators of ancient gastrophagy even repulsed it with disdain. There is every reason to believe that the people regaled themselves with a roast or boiled dog, especially once a year, at the period when they celebrated the deliverance of the Capitol from the siege of the Gauls. It is known that, at this solemnity, a goose, laid on a soft cushion, was carried in triumph, followed by an unhappy dog nailed to a cross,[XVI-158] whose loud cries greatly amused the populace. In this manner they commemorated the signal service rendered by one animal, and the fatal negligence of the other. The Gauls scaled the Capitol while the dogs slept, and Rome had been lost if the deafening cries of the geese had not given an alarm to the garrison, who, it must be allowed, should have kept better watch. The quadrupeds last mentioned are the only domestic animals of the kind used as food by the ancients. The chase afforded them several others, which we shall mention, after having just glanced at the poultry--one of the most interesting divisions in natural history for the serious and reflective appreciator of gastronomic productions. XVII. POULTRY. The air is less dense than the earth, said Aristotle; poultry ought, then, to stand higher in estimation than quadrupeds.[XVII-1] It is, adds Galen, the lightest and best of all aliments.[XVII-2] After this, would any one dare to accuse of sensuality those who, wisely following the diet recommended by these great men, prefer a fat capon or delicate fowl, to heavy, common butcher’s meat?