repast.  Originally this name had been restricted to the earlier meal.  But a distinction without a difference could not sustain itself:  and both alike disguised their emptiness under this pompous quadrisyllable.  In the identity of substance, therefore, lay a second ground of confusion.  And, then, thirdly, even as to the time, which had ever been the sole real distinction, there arose from accident a tendency to converge.  For it happened that while some had jentaculum but no prandium, others had prandium but no jentaculum; a third party had both; a fourth party, by much the largest, had neither.  Out of which varieties (who would think that a nonentity could cut up into so many somethings?) arose a fifth party of compromisers, who, because they could not afford a regular coena, and yet were hospitably disposed, fused the two ideas into one; and so, because the usual time for the idea of a breakfast was nine to ten, and for the idea of a luncheon twelve to one, compromised the rival pretensions by what diplomatists call a mezzo termine; bisecting the time at eleven, and melting the two ideas into one.  But by thus merging the separate times of each, they abolished the sole real difference that had ever divided them.  Losing that, they lost all.

Perhaps, as two negatives make one affirmative, it may be thought that two layers of moonshine might coalesce into one pancake; and two Barmecide banquets might compose one poached egg.  Of that the company were the best judges.  But probably, as a rump and dozen, in our land of wagers, is construed with a very liberal latitude as to the materials, so Martial’s invitation, “to take bread with him at eleven,” might be understood by the [Greek:  sunetoi] as significant of something better than [Greek:  artositos].  Otherwise, in good truth, “moonshine and turn-out” at eleven, A.M., would be even worse than “tea and turn-out” at eight, P.M., which the “fervida juventus” of young England so loudly detests.  But however that might be, in this convergement of the several frontiers, and the confusion that ensued, one cannot wonder that, whilst the two bladders collapsed into one idea, they actually expanded into four names, two Latin and two Greek, gustus and gustatio, [Greek:  geusis], and [Greek:  geusma], which all alike express the merely tentative or exploratory act of a praegustator or professional “taster” in a king’s household:  what, if applied to a fluid, we should denominate sipping.

At last, by so many steps all in one direction, things had come to such a pass—­the two prelusive meals of the Roman morning, each for itself separately vague from the beginning, had so communicated and interfused their several and joint vaguenesses, that at last no man knew or cared to know what any other man included in his idea of either; how much or how little.  And you might as well have hunted in the woods of Ethiopia for Prester John, or fixed the parish of the everlasting Jew,[8] as have attempted to say what “jentaculum” might be, or what “prandium.”  Only one thing was clear—­what they were not.  Neither was or wished to be anything that people cared for.  They were both empty shadows; but shadows as they were, we find from Cicero that they had a power of polluting and profaning better things than themselves.