He said:  Patroclus o’er the blazing fire Heaps in a brazen vase three chines entire:  The brazen vase Automedon sustains, ’Which flesh of porket, sheep, and goat contains:  Achilles at the genial feast presides, The parts transfixes, and with skill divides.  Meanwhile Patroclus sweats the fire to raise; The tent is brightened with the rising blaze: 

Then, when the languid flames at length subside, He strews a bed of glowing embers wide, Above the coals the smoking fragments turns And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns; With bread the glittering canisters they load.  Which round the board Menoetius’ son bestow’d:  Himself, opposed to Ulysses, full in sight, Each portion parts, and orders every rite.  The first fat offerings, to the immortals due, Amid the greedy Patroclus threw; Then each, indulging in the social feast, His thirst and hunger soberly repress’d.  That done, to Phoenix Ajax gave the sign; Not unperceived; Ulysses crown’d with wine The foaming bowl, and instant thus began, His speech addressing to the godlike man:  “Health to Achilles!”

Thus then a king, a son of a king, and three Grecian leaders dined very comfortably on bread, wine, and broiled meat.

We cannot but think that Achilles and Patroclus themselves prepared the entertainment, if only to do honor to the distinguished guests they received.  Ordinarily the kitchen business was abandoned to slaves and women, as Homer tells us in Odyssey when he refers to the entertainment of the heralds.

The entrails of animals stuffed with blood were at that time looked on as very great delicacies.

At that time and long before, beyond doubt, poetry and music, were mingled with meals.  Famous minstrels sang the wonders of nature, the loves of the gods, and warlike deeds of man.  Theirs was a kind of priesthood and it is probable that the divine Homer himself was sprung from one of those men favored by heaven.  He would not have been so eminent had not his poetical studies begun in his childhood.

Madame Dacier observes that Homer does not speak of boiled meat anywhere in his poems.  The Jews had made much greater progress in consequence of their captivity in Egypt.  They had kettles.  Esau’s mess of potage must have been made thus.  For this he sold his birthright.

It is difficult to say how men learned the use of metals.  Tubal Cain, it is said, was the inventor.

In the present state of knowledge, we use one metal to manufacture another.  We overcome them with iron pincers; cut them with steel files, but I never met with any one who could tell me who made the first file or pair of pincers.

Oriental entertainments.—­Grecian.

Cookery made great advances.  We are ignorant however of its utensils, whether of iron, pottery or of tin material.

The oldest books we know of make honorable mention of oriental festivals.  It is not difficult to believe that monarchs who ruled such glorious realms abounded in all that was grateful.  We only know that Cadmus who introduced writing into Greece, was cook of the king of Sidon.