there was much in the paper which he could not have derived from that original, and that, therefore, unless he invented a great deal, he must have had other authorities at hand. I failed at the time to discover what these other authorities were,-De Quincey having had a habit of secretiveness in such matters; but since then an incidental reference of his own, in his Homer and the Homerida (see ante, Vol. VI, p. 88), has given me the clue. The author from whom he chiefly drew such of his materials as were not supplied by the French edition of Kien Long's narrative, was, it appears from that reference, the German traveller Benjamin Bergmann, whose Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803 came forth from a Riga press, in four parts or volumes, in 1804-5. The book consists of a series of letters written by Bergmann from different places during his residence among the Tartars, with interjected essays or dissertations of an independent kind on subjects relating to the Tartars,—one of these occupying 106 pages, and entitled Versuch zur Geschichte der Kalmükenflucht von der Wolga ("Essay on the History of the Flight of the Kalmucks from the Volga "). A French translation of the Letters, with this particular Essay included, appeared in 1825 under the title Voyage de Benjamin Bergmann chez les Kalmuks: Traduit de l'Allemand par M. Moris, Membre de la Société Asiatique. Both works are now very scarce; but, having seen copies of both (the only copies, I think, in Edinburgh, and possibly the very copies which De Quincey used), I have no doubt left that it was Bergmann's Essay of 1804 that supplied De Quincey with the facts, names, and hints he needed for filling up that outline-sketch of the history of the great Tartar Transmigration of 1771 which was already accessible for him in the Narrative of the Chinese Emperor Kien Long, and in other Chinese State Papers, as these had been published in translation in 1776 by the French Jesuit missionaries. At the same time, no doubt is left that he passed the composite material freely and boldly through his own imagination, on the principle that here was a theme of such unusual literary capabilities that it was a pity it should be left in the pages of ordinary historiographic summary or record, inasmuch as it would

be most effectively treated, even for the purposes of real history, if thrown into the form of an epic or romance. Accordingly, he takes liberties with his authorities, deviating from them now and then, and even once or twice introducing incidents not reconcilable with either of them, if not irreconcilable also with historical and geographical possibility. Hence one may doubt sometimes whether what one is reading is to be regarded as history or as invention. On that point I can but repeat words I have already used :— "As it is, we are bound to be thankful. In quest of a literary theme, De Quincey was arrested some"how by that extraordinary transmigration of a Kalmuck "horde across the face of Asia in 1771 which had also "struck Gibbon; he inserted his hands into the vague chaos "of Asiatic inconceivability enshrouding the transaction; "and he tore out the connected and tolerably conceivable story which we now read. There is no such vivid version "of any such historical episode in all Gibbon, and possibly nothing truer essentially, after all, to the substance of the "facts as they actually happened." D. M.

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THE CASUISTRY OF ROMAN MEALS 1

GREAT misconceptions have always prevailed about the Roman dinner. Dinner (cana) was the only meal which the Romans as a nation took. It was no accident, but arose out of their whole social economy. This I shall endeavour to show by running through the history of a Roman day. Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? And the course of this review will expose one or two important truths in ancient political economy, which have been too much overlooked.

With the lark it was that the Roman rose. Not that the earliest lark rises so early in Latium as the earliest lark in England—that is, during summer; but then, on the other hand, neither does it ever rise so late. The Roman citizen was stirring with the dawn—which, allowing for the shorter longest-day and longer shortest-day of Rome, you may call about four in summer, about seven in winter. Why did he do this? Because he went to bed at a very early hour. But why did he do that? By backing in this way, we shall surely back into the very well of truth: always, where it is possible, let us have the pourquoi of the pourquoi. The Roman went to bed early for two remarkable reasons. 1st, because in Rome, built for a martial destiny, every habit of life had reference to the usages of war. Every citizen, if he

1 Published first in Blackwood's Magazine for December 1839, under the title "Dinner: Real and Reputed"; reprinted by De Quincey in 1854, in Vol. III of his Collected Writings, under the present title, and with only the slightest verbal changes, such as the substitution of "I" and "my" for "we" and "our" when he speaks in his own person.-M.

" 1

were not a mere proletarian animal kept at the public cost with a view to his proles or offspring, held himself a soldierelect the more noble he was, the more was his liability to military service; in short, all Rome, and at all times, was consciously "in procinct.' Now, it was a principle of ancient warfare that every hour of daylight had a triple worth, as valued against hours of darkness. That was one reason—a reason suggested by the understanding. But there was a second reason, far more remarkable; and this was a reason suggested by a blind necessity. It is an important fact that this planet on which we live, this little industrious earth of ours, has developed her wealth by slow stages of increase. She was far from being the rich little globe in Cæsar's days that she is at present. The earth in our days is incalculably richer, as a whole, than in the time of Charlemagne; and at that time she was richer, by many a million of acres, than in the era of Augustus. In that Augustan era we descry a clear belt of cultivation, averaging perhaps six hundred miles in depth, running in a ring-fence about the Mediterranean. This belt, and no more, was in decent cultivation. Beyond that belt, there was only a wild Indian cultivation; generally not so much. At present, what a difference! We have that very belt, but much richer, all things considered, æquatis æquandis, than in the Roman era, and much beside. The reader must not look to single cases, as that of Egypt or other parts of Africa, but take the whole collectively. On that scheme of valuation, we have the old Roman belt, the circum-Mediterranean girdle, not much tarnished, and we have all the rest of Europe to boot. Such being the case, the Earth, being (as a whole) in that Pagan era so incomparably poorer, could not in the Pagan era support the expense of maintaining great empires in cold latitudes. Her purse would not reach that cost. Wherever she undertook in those early ages to rear man in great abundance, it must be where nature would consent to work in partnership with herself; where warmth

1 "In procinct":-Milton's translation somewhere in the "Paradise Lost" of the technical phrase "in procinctu." [The phrase, often quoted by De Quincey from Milton, occurs in Par. Lost, vi. 198.-M.]

was to be had for nothing; where clothes were not so entirely indispensable but that a ragged fellow might still keep himself warm; where slight shelter might serve and where the soil, if not absolutely richer in reversionary wealth, was more easily cultured. Nature, in those days of infancy, must come forward liberally, and take a number of shares in every new joint-stock concern, before it could move. Man, therefore, went to bed early in those ages, simply because his worthy mother earth could not afford him candles. She, good old lady (or good young lady, for geologists know not1 whether she is in that stage of her progress which corresponds to grey hairs, or to infancy, or to "a certain age”)—she, good lady, would certainly have shuddered to hear any of her nations asking for candles. "Candles, indeed!" she would have said; "who ever heard of such a thing? and with so much excellent daylight running to waste, as I have provided gratis! What will the wretches want next?"

The daylight furnished gratis was certainly "undeniable ” in its quality, and quite sufficient for all purposes that were honest. Seneca, even in his own luxurious period, called those men "lucifugo," and by other ugly names, who lived chiefly by candle-light. None but rich and luxurious men,-nay, even amongst these, none but idlers,-did live or could live by candle-light. An immense majority of men in Rome never lighted a candle, unless sometimes in the early dawn. And this custom of Rome was the custom also of all nations that lived round the great lake of the Mediterranean. In Athens, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, everywhere, the ancients went to bed, like good boys, from seven to nine o'clock.2 The

1 66 "Geologists know not": In man, the sixtieth part of six thousand years is a very venerable age. But, as to the planet, as to our little earth, instead of arguing dotage, six thousand years may have scarcely carried her beyond babyhood. Some people think she is cutting her first teeth; some think her in her teens. But, seriously, it is a very interesting problem. Do the sixty centuries of our earth imply youth, maturity, or dotage?

2"Everywhere the ancients went to bed, like good boys, from seven to nine o'clock" :-As I am perfectly serious, I must beg the reader who fancies any joke in all this to consider what an immense difference it must have made to the Earth, considered as a steward of her own resources, whether great nations, in a period when their resources were so feebly developed, did, or did not, for many centuries, require