University of Virginia Library

XVI.
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 “Shrewsbery,” 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 “Ostrcum” 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 aglow; 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 crown
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 his 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 penciled 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 broken 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 defenseless 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 roared;

he might as well have tried to uproot the solid rock as to
move that oyster! In vain he called upon his heathen
gods—Gog and Magog—elder than Woden and Thor;
and with huge, uncouth, druidical oaths 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 Oyster-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 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 and lobsters.