flesh of animals newly killed, if cooked before it has entirely lost its natural warmth, is exceedingly tender and savoury, as we are assured in many books of travels. Formerly all articles of food were cut into small, morsels before they were served up; and this was the more necessary, as the company did not sit, at table, but lay on couches turned towards it, consequently could not well use both their hands for eating. For cutting meat, persons of rank kept in their houses a carver, who had learned to perform his duty according to certain rules, and who was called scissor, carpus, carptor, and by Apuleius is named diribitor'. person used a knife, the only one placed on the table, and which in the houses of the opulent had an ivory handle, and was commonly ornamented with silver. This Bread also was never cut at table. In former times it was not baked so thick as at present, but rather like cakes, and could easily be broken; hence mention is so often made of the breaking of bread. Juvenal, when he wishes to describe old bread, does not say that it could not be cut, but that it could not be broken3. The ancient form of bread is still retained in the paschal cake of the Jews, and in the knæckbröd of the Swedes. The latter, which is almost as brittle as biscuit, is not cut when used, but broken. The Chinese, who also use no forks, have however small sticks of ivory, which are often of very fine workmanship, and inlaid with silver and gold. A couple of these is placed before each guest, who employs them for putting into his mouth the meat which has been cut into small bits. But even this resource was not known two centuries ago in Europe, where people, as is still done by the Turks, everywhere used their fingers. As a proof, I shall not quote pas 1 See this word in Pitisci, Lexicon Antiq. Rom. 2 Clemens Alexandr. Pædagog. lib. ii. p. 161. Posidonius elates, in Athenæus, iv. 13, p. 151, that the Gauls used to take roast meat in their hand and tear it to pieces with their teeth, or to cut it with a small knife which each carried in his girdle. This was told as a thing uncommon to the Greeks. Baumgarten, who quotes this passage in Algem. Welgeschichte, xvi. p. 657, adds, that Posidonius said also that the Gauls had bread so flat and hard that it could be easily broken. But this circumstance I cannot find in Athenæus. a Sat. v. 65. This word, according to the Swedish dictionaries, signifies thin cakes, hard and crisp. sages where mention is made of persons putting their hands or fingers into the dish'; for such a mode of speaking is yet employed, though forks, as is well known, are in common use. I shall refer only to one passage in Ovid, which admits of no doubt, and where the author would certainly have men tioned these instruments, or rather have communicated to his pupils in the art of love a precept which at present is given to children, had the former been taught when young how to make use of forks. 5 Had they been used by the Romans, they must necessarily have occurred among the numerous remains of antiquity which have been collected in modern times. But Baruffaldi and Biörnstähl3, who both made researches respecting them, assure us that they were never able to find any. Count Caylus and Grignon only assert the contrary. The former has given a figure and description of a silver two-pronged fork, which was found among rubbish in the Appian Way. It is of exceedingly beautiful workmanship, and at one end terminates in a stag's foot. Notwithstanding the high reputation of this French author, I cannot possibly admit that everything of which he has given figures is so old as he seems to imagine. Grignon found in the ruins of a Roman town in Champagne some articles which he considers as table-forks; but he merely mentions them, without giving a description sufficient to convince one of the truth of what he asserts, which, in regard to a thing so unexpected, was certainly requisite. One fork was of copper or brass; two others were of iron; and he says, speaking of the latter, that they seem to have served as table-forks, but were coarsely made. I however doubt whether he conjectured right in regard to the use of them. As far as I know, the use of forks was first known in Italy towards the end of the fifteenth century; but at that time they were not very common. Galeotus Martius, an Italian, resident at the court of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, who reigned from 1458 to 1490, relates, in a book which he wrote in regard to the life and actions of this prince, that in 1 Homeri Odyss. xiv. 453. a Reisen, i. p. 268. 2 De Arte Amandi, iii. 755. 4 Rec. d'Antiq. iii. p. 312. tab. lxxxiv. Bulletin des Fouilles, i. p. 17; ii. p. 131. Hungary, at that time, forks were not used at table, as they were in many parts of Italy', but that at meals each person laid hold of the meat with his fingers, and on that account they were much stained with saffron, which was then put into sauces and soup. He praises the king for eating without a fork, yet conversing at the same time and never dirtying his clothes. That in France, at the end of the sixteenth century, forks even at court were entirely new, is proved by a book, already quoted in the present volume of this work, entitled l'Isle des Hermaphrodites. It will therefore excite no wonder that in the same century forks were not used in Sweden. But it must appear very strange that Thomas Coryate, the traveller, should see forks for the first time in Italy, and in the same year be the first person who used them in England, on which account he was called, by way of joke, Furcifer 2. 1 Galeoti Martii de Dictis et Factis Regis Matthiæ Liber. This work has also been printed in Schwandtneri Script. Rerum Hungar. tom. i. p. 548. 2 Coryate, in the year 1608, travelled for five months, through France, Italy, Switzerland, and a part of Germany. An account of this tour was published by him, in 1611, under the singular title of Crudities, a new edition of which appeared in 1776. He travelled afterwards to the East Indies, and in 1615 wrote in that country some letters which may be seen in Purchas his Pilgrims, vol. ii.; also in the second edition of the Crudities published in 1776. In page 90 of the Crudities the author says, "Here j will mention a thing that might have been spoken of before in discourse of the first Italian towne. J observed a custome in all those Italian cities and townes through the which j passed, that is not used in any other country that j saw in my travels, neither do j thinke that any other nation of Christendome doth use it, but only Italy. The Italian, and also most strangers that are commorant in Italy, do alwaies at their meales use a little forke when they cut their meat. For while with their knife which they hold in one hand they cut the meate out of the dish, they fasten their forke, which they hold in their other hand, upon the same dish; so that whatsoever he be that sitting in the company of any others at meale, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meate with his fingers from which all at the table doe cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the lawes of good manners, insomuch that for his error he shall be at least brow beaten if not reprehended in wordes. This form of feeding j understand is generally used in all places of Italy; their forkes being for the most part made of yron or steele, and some of silver, but those are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any meanes indure to have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men's fingers are not alike cleane. In many parts of Spain, at present, drinking-glasses, spoons and forks are rarities1; and even yet, in taverns, in many countries, particularly in some towns of France, knives are not placed on the table, because it is expected that each person should have one of his own; a custom which the French seem to have retained from the old Gauls. But as no person would any longer eat without forks, landlords were obliged to furnish these, together with plates and spoons. Among the Scotch highlanders, as Dr. Johnson asserts, knives have been introduced at table only since the time of the revolution. Before that period every man had a knife of his own as a companion to his dirk or dagger. The men cut the meat into small morsels for the women, who then put them into their mouths with their fingers. The use of forks at table was at first considered as a superfluous luxury, and therefore they were forbidden to convents, as was the case in regard to the congregation of St. Maur. The English, Dutch and French have adopted the Italian names forca and forchetta, given to our table-forks; though these appellations, in my opinion, were used at an earlier period to denote large instruments, such as pitch-forks, fleshforks, furnace-forks; because in the low German, forke is a very old name given to such implements. The German word gabel, Hereupon j myselfe thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by this forked cutting of meate, not only while j was in Italy, but also in Germany, and oftentimes in England since j came home, being once quipped for that frequent using of my forke by a certain learned gentleman, a familiar friend of mine, one Mr. Laurence Whitaker, who in his merry humour doubted not to call me at table furcifer, only for using a forke at feeding, but for no other cause.' [The use of forks was at first much ridiculed in England, as an effeminate piece of finery; in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, "your fork-carving traveller" is spoken of with much contempt; and Ben Jonson has joined in the laugh against them in his Devil's an Ass, Act. v. Scene 4. Meercraft says to Gilthead and Sledge : "Have I deserved this from you two? for all "Meercraft. Upon my project of the forks. 66 Meercraft. The laudable use of forks, Brought into custom here as they are in Italy, 1 Fischer's Reise nach Madrid, p. 238. which occurs first in dictionaries for these large instruments, is of great antiquity, and has been still retained in the Swedish and Dutch. It appears to have been used for many things which were split or divided into two; at any rate, it is certain that it is not derived from the Latin word gabalus. LOTTERY. TONTINE. Ar present there are two kinds of lottery in Europe. One is called the Italian or Genoese lotto, or merely the lotto; the other is the common lottery well known in England. Of the former, which has been long proved to be attended with great deception, and must soon be universally acknowledged to be hurtful, I do not mean here to treat, but only of the latter, which at any rate may be honourable or harmless, if we do not take into account the delusion it occasions to credulous and ignorant people, by exciting hopes which have little probability in their favour. I however do not promise a complete history of this invention: it experienced so many changes before it acquired its present form, that to give a full account of them would be tiresome to me as well as to the reader. I shall not either, as some have done, reckon among the first traces of lotteries every division of property made by lot, otherwise it might be said, that Joshua partitioned the promised land into lottery-prizes, before it was conquered. In my opinion the peculiarity of lotteries consists in this, that numbers are distributed gratuitously, or, as in our public lotteries, for a certain price, and it is then left to chance to determine what numbers are to obtain the prizes, the value of which is previously settled. The various conditions and changes invented by ingenuity to entice people to purchase shares, and to conceal and increase the gain of the undertakers, are not here taken into consideration, because they do not appear to be essential. In the whole history of antiquity, I find nothing which has a greater resemblance to our lotteries than the congiaria of |