Darteneuf.—­Yes, I have heard the Americans say so, but I never ate any; for in my time they were not brought over to England.

Apicius.—­Never ate any turtle!  How couldst thou dare to accuse me of not going to Sandwich to eat oysters, and didst not thyself take a trip to America to riot on turtles?  But know, wretched man, I am credibly informed that they are now as plentiful in England as sturgeons.  There are turtle-boats that go regularly to London and Bristol from the West Indies.  I have just received this information from a fat alderman, who died in London last week of a surfeit he got at a turtle feast in that city.

Darteneuf.—­What does he say?  Does he affirm to you that turtle is better than venison?

Apicius.—­He says, there was a haunch of the fattest venison untouched, while every mouth was employed on the turtle alone.

Darteneuf.—­Alas! how imperfect is human felicity!  I lived in an age when the noble science of eating was supposed to have been carried to its highest perfection in England and France.  And yet a turtle feast is a novelty to me!  Would it be impossible, do you think, to obtain leave from Pluto of going back for one day to my own table at London just to taste of that food?  I would promise to kill myself by the quantity of it I would eat before the next morning.

Apicius.—­You have forgot you have no body.  That which you had has long been rotten, and you can never return to the earth with another, unless Pythagoras should send you thither to animate a hog.  But comfort yourself that, as you have eaten dainties which I never tasted, so the next age will eat some unknown to this.  New discoveries will be made, and new delicacies brought from other parts of the world.  But see; who comes hither?  I think it is Mercury.

Mercury.—­Gentlemen, I must tell you that I have stood near you invisible, and heard your discourse—­a privilege which, you know, we deities use as often as we please.  Attend, therefore, to what I shall communicate to you, relating to the subject upon which you have been talking.  I know two men, one of whom lived in ancient, and the other in modern times, who had much more pleasure in eating than either of you through the whole course of your lives.

Apicius.—­One of these happy epicures, I presume, was a Sybarite, and the other a French gentleman settled in the West Indies.

Mercury.—­No; one was a Spartan soldier, and the other an English farmer.  I see you both look astonished.  But what I tell you is truth.  Labour and hunger gave a relish to the black broth of the former, and the salt beef of the latter, beyond what you ever found in the tripotanums or ham pies, that vainly stimulated your forced and languid appetites, which perpetual indolence weakened, and constant luxury overcharged.

Darteneuf.—­This, Apicius, is more mortifying than not to have shared a turtle feast.