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Show Facts Aboat Oysters. "Oysters; these things must have been made in heaven," fervently declared the great Richard Bently, who, history says, could never pass an oyster-shop without going in and ordering a "mess." j Old Dr. Betram, an equally appreciative gourmand, maintains that the oyster can be cooked in many ways, but the pure animal is best of all, gulping him tip in his own juice is the best way to eat him. The same discriminating authority holds it true that the man who ends the day with an oyster in his mouth ri3es with a clean tongue in the morning and a . clear head as weir. But history is burdened with praises of the oyster. It is recorded that Thomson, the poet, died from a surfeit of oysters. Peter the Great always had oysters for his dinner and called oystermen: his "life-preser-j vers." Pope, before accepting Lord Bol-ingbroke's Bol-ingbroke's invitation tQ dinner, exacted the promise from his host that he would be served with an oyster stew. - - I Cicero nourished his eloquence with the dainty, and Caligula, the Roman tyrant, was at the will of all designing courtiers who knew of his weakness for oysters. H is said that Cervantes used to eat five hundred oysters every day, and the wonderful: originality and ; piquant style- of his narrative he attributed to the mental exhiliration ;" gained .by eating oysters.1 .' ' . V - ' " . . " '. - It was Alexander Hamilton's practice, before applying- himself to complicated problems of government, to first sharpen his wits by reading Euclid ; but the great Napoleon gained all the mental clearness he required by dining on oysters. . The "little corporal," on the eve of his battles, bat-tles, used always to partake of oysters. The Scottish philosophers of the last cen tury Hume, Dugald Stewart, and the others, werepassionately fond of oysters, and Louis IX., to check the decline of scholarship in France, sought to create the. interest in letters by feasting the learned doctors of Sorbonne once a year on oysters. "They produce a peculiar charm," declared de-clared an old Latin writer,- "an inexplicable inexplic-able pleasure. After eating oysters we feel joyous, light, and agreeable yes, one might say fabulously well." ". |