In a physiological point of view, something also is to be said. Imbuccation (swallowing) is effected in a less natural manner. The food is passed with more difficulty into the stomach. The ingestion of liquids, or drinking, is yet more difficult. It required particular attention not to spill the wine from the large cups on the tables of the great. Thence came the proverb: "Between the cup and lip, There is often time a slip." None could eat comfortably when reclining, especially when we remember that many of the guests had long beards, and that fingers, or at least only knives were used. Forks are an invention of modern times, for none were found at Herculaeneum. Some violations of modesty must also have occurred at repasts which frequently exceeded the bounds of temperance, and where the two sexes have fallen asleep, and were mingled together. A poet says: "Nam pransus, jaceo, et satur supinus, Pertimdo tunicamque, palliumque." When Christianity had acquired some power, its priests lifted up their voices against intemperance. They declaimed against the length of meals which violated all prudence by surrounding persons by every species of voluptuousness. Devoted by choice to an austere regimen, they placed gourmandise in the list of capital sins, and rigidly commented on the mingling of sexes and the use of beds, a habit which they said produced the luxury they deplored. Their menacing voice was heard; couches disappeared, and the old habit of eating sitting, was restored. Fortunately this did not violate the demands of pleasure. POETRY. Convivial poetry then underwent a new modification, and in the mouths of Horace and Tibullus assumed a languor the Greeks were ignorant of. Dulce ridentem Lalagem amabo, Dulce luquentem. HOR. Quaeris quot mihi batiationes Tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque. CAT. Pande, puella, pande capillulos Mavos, lucentus ut aurum nitidum. Pande, puella, collum candidum Productum bene candidis humeris. GALLUS. IRRUPTION OF THE BARBARIANS. The five or six centuries we shall run over in a few pages, were glorious days for the cuisine; the irruption however of northern men overturned and destroyed everything. When the strangers appeared, alimentary art made its appearance, as did the others that are its companions. The greater portion of the cooks were massacred in the palaces they served. The foreigners came and they were able to eat as much in an hour as civilized people did in a week. Although that which is excessive is not durable--conquerors are always cruel. They united themselves with the victors, who received some tints of civilization, and began to know the pleasures of civilized life. * * * * * * * About the seventeenth century, the Dutch imported coffee into Europe. Solyman Agu, a Turk, whom our great, great grandfathers well remember, sold the first cups in 1760. An American sold it in 1670, and dealt it out from a marble bar, as we see now.