University of Virginia Library

THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER.

The impenetrable veil of antiquity hangs over the antediluvian
oyster, but the geological finger-post points
to the testifying fossil. We might, in pursuing this subject,
sail upon the broad pinions of conjecture into the remote,
or flutter with lighter wings in the regions of fable,
but it is unnecessary: the mysterious pages of Nature are
ever opening freshly around us, and in her stony volumes,
amid the calcareous strata, we behold the precious mollusc
—the primeval bivalve,

—Bryant.

Yet, of its early history we know nothing. Etymology
throws but little light upon the matter. In vain have
we carried our researches into the vernacular of the maritime

Phœnicians, or sought it amid the fragments of Chaldean
and Assyrian lore. To no purpose have we analyzed the
roots of the comprehensive Hebrew, or lost ourselves in the
baffling labyrinths of the oriental Sanscrit. The history
of the ancient oyster is written in no language, except in
the universal idiom of the secondary strata! Nor is this surprising
in a philosophical point of view. Setting aside the
pre-Adamites, and taking Adam as the first name-giver,
when we reflect, that Adam lived IN-land, and therefore
never saw the succulent periphery in its native mud, we
may deduce this reasonable conclusion: viz, that as he
never saw it, he probably never NAMED it—never!—not
even to his most intimate friends. Such being the case,
we must seek for information in a later and more enlightened
age. And here let me take occasion to remark, that
oysters and intelligence are nearer allied than many persons
imagine. The relations between Physiology and Psychology
are beginning to be better understood. A man might
be scintillant with facetiousness over a plump “Shrewsbury,”
who would make a very sorry figure over a bowl of water-gruel.
The gentle, indolent Brahmin, the illiterate Laplander,
the ferocious Libyan, the mercurial Frenchman, and
the stolid (I beg your pardon), the stalwart Englishman,
are not more various in their mental capacities than in
their table æsthetics. And even in this Century, we see
that wit and oysters come in together with September, and
wit and oysters go out together in May—a circumstance
not without its weight, and peculiarly pertinent to the subject-matter.
With this brief but not irrelevant digression,
I will proceed. We have “Ostreum” from the Latins,
“Oester” from the Saxons, “Auster” from the Teutons,
“Ostra” from the Spaniards, and “Huitre” from the French
—words evidently of common origin—threads spun from
the same distaff! And here our archæology narrows to a
point, and this point is the pearl we are in search of: viz.,
the genesis of this most excellent fish.

“Words evidently derived from a common origin.”
What origin? Let us examine the venerable page of history.
Where is the first mention made of oysters? Hudibras
says:

This is the first mention in the classics of oysters; and
we now approach the cynosure of our inquiry. From this
we infer that oysters came originally from Britain. The
word is unquestionably primitive. The broad open vowelly
sound is, beyond a doubt, the primal, spontaneous
thought that found utterance when the soft, seductive
mollusc first exposed its white bosom in its pearly shell to
the enraptured gaze of aboriginal man! Is there a question
about it? Does not every one know, when he sees an
oyster, that that is its name? And hence we reason that
it originated in Britain, was latinized by the Romans, replevined
by the Saxons, corrupted by the Teutons, and
finally barbecued by the French. Oh, philological ladder by
which we mount upward, until we emerge beneath the
clear vertical light of Truth!! Methinks I see the First
Oyster-Eater! A brawny, naked savage, with his wild
hair matted over his wild eyes, a zodiac of fiery stars tattooed
across his muscular breast—unclad, unsandalled, hirsute
and hungry—he breaks through the underwoods that margin
the beach, and stands alone upon the sea-shore, with

nothing in one hand but his unsuccessful boar-spear, and
nothing in the other but his fist. There he beholds a
splendid panorama! The west all a-glow; the conscious
waves blushing as the warm sun sinks to their embraces;
the blue sea on his left; the interminable forest on his
right; and the creamy sea-sand curving in delicate tracery
between. A Picture and a Child of Nature! Delightedly
he plunges in the foam, and swims to the bald erown of
a rock that uplifts itself above the waves. Seating himself
he gazes upon the calm expanse beyond, and swings his
legs against the moss that spins its filmy tendrils in the
brine. Suddenly he utters a cry; springs up; the blood
streams from his foot. With barbarous fury he tears up
masses of sea moss, and with it clustering families of testacea.
Dashing them down upon the rock, he perceives a
liquor exuding from the fragments; he sees the white pulpy
delicate morsel half-hidden in the cracked shell, and instinctively
reaching upward, his hand finds mouth, and
amidst a savage, triumphant deglutition, he murmurs—
Oyster!! Champing, in his uncouth fashion, bits of shell
and sea-weed, with uncontrollable pleasure he masters this
mystery of a new sensation, and not until the gray veil of
night is drawn over the distant waters, does he leave the
rock, covered with the trophies of his victory.

We date from this epoch the maritime history of England.
Ere long, the reedy cabins of her aborigines clustered
upon the banks of beautiful inlets, and overspread her
long lines of level beaches; or pencilled with delicate
wreaths of smoke the savage aspect of her rocky coasts.
The sword was beaten into the oyster-knife, and the spear
into oyster rakes. Commerce spread her white wings
along the shores of happy Albion, and man emerged at
once into civilization from a nomadic state. From this
people arose the mighty nation of Ostrogoths; from the
Ostraphagi of ancient Britain came the custom of Ostracism
—that is, sending political delinquents to that place where
they can get no more oysters.

There is a strange fatality attending all discoverers. Our
Briton saw a mighty change come over his country—a change
beyond the reach of memory or speculation. Neighboring
tribes, formerly hostile, were now linked together in bonds
of amity. A sylvan, warlike people had become a peaceful,
piscivorous community; and he himself, once the lowest
of his race, was now elevated above the dreams of his ambition.
He stood alone upon the sea-shore, looking toward
the rock, which, years ago, had been his stepping-stone to
power, and a desire to revisit it came over him. He stands
now upon it. The season, the hour, the westerly sky, remind

him of former times. He sits and meditates. Suddenly
a flush of pleasure overspreads his countenance; for
there just below the flood, he sees a gigantic bivalve—
alone—with mouth agape, as if yawning with very weariness
at the solitude in which it found itself. What I am
about to describe may be untrue. But I believe it. I
have heard of the waggish propensities of oysters. I have
known them, from mere humor, to clap suddenly upon a rat's
tail at night; and, what with the squeaking and the clatter,
we verily thought the devil had broke loose in the
cellar. Moreover, I am told upon another occasion, when
a demijohn of brandy had burst, a large “Blue-pointer” was
found, lying in a little pool of liquor, just drunk enough to
be careless of consequences—opening and shutting his
shells with a “devil-may-care” air, as if he didn't value
anybody a brass farthing, but was going to be as noisy as
he possibly could.

But to return. When our Briton saw the oyster in
this defenceless attitude, he knelt down, and gradually
reaching his arm toward it, he suddenly thrust his fingers
in the aperture, and the oyster closed upon them with a spasmodic
snap! In vain the Briton tugged and roard; he
might as well have tried to uproot the solid rock as to
move that oyster! In vain he called upon all his heathen

gods—Gog and Magog—elder than Woden and Thor;
and with huge, uncouth, druidical d—ns consigned all
shell-fish to Nidhogg, Hela, and the submarines. Bivalve
held on with “a will.” It was nuts for him certainly.
Here was a great, lubberly, chuckle-headed fellow, the destroyer
of his tribe, with his fingers in chancery, and the
tide rising! A fellow who had thought, like ancient Pistol,
to make the world his oyster, and here was the oyster
making a world of him. Strange mutation! The poor
Briton raised his eyes: there were the huts of his people;
he could even distinguish his own, with its slender spiral of
smoke; they were probably preparing a roast for him;
how he detested a roast! Then a thought of his wife, his
little ones awaiting him, tugged at his heart. The waters
rose around him. He struggled, screamed in his anguish;
but the remorseless winds dispersed the sounds, and ere the
evening moon arose and flung her white radiance upon the
placid waves, the last billow had rolled over the First Oys
ter-Eater!

I purpose at some future time to show the relation existing
between wit and oysters. It is true that Chaucer (a
poet of considerable promise in the fourteenth century) has
alluded to the oyster in rather a disrespectful manner; and
the learned Du Bartas (following the elder Pliny) hath accused

this modest bivalve of “being incontinent,” a charge
wholly without foundation, for there is not a more chaste
and innocent fish in the world. But the rest of our poets
have redeemed it from these foul aspersions in numberless
passages, among which we find Shakspeare's happy allusion
to

And no one now, I presume, will pretend to deny, that
it hath been always held

In addition to a chapter on wit and oysters, I also may
make a short digression touching cockles.