he lived in the days when the Gothic barbarians besieged
THE IMPERIAL CITY;
famine left him no matter for gustatory experiment;
and pestilence deprived him of cooks to enlighten!
Opposed at all points by the force of adverse circumstances,
finding his life of no further use to the culinary
interests of Rome,
he called his chosen friends together to assist him,
conscientiously drank up every drop of wine remaining
in his cellars,
lit the funeral pile of himself and his guests,
in the banqueting-hall of his own palace,
and died, as he had lived,
the patriotic CATO
of his country's gastronomy!

'Behold!' cried Vetranio, pointing triumphantly to the epitaph--'behold
in every line of those eloquent letters at once the seal of my resolute
adherence to the engagement that unites us here, and the foundation of
my just claim to the reverence of posterity on the most useful of the
arts which I exercised for the benefit of my species! Read, friends,
brethren, fellow-martyrs of glory, and, as you read, rejoice with me
over the hour of our departure from the desecrated arena, no longer
worthy the celebration of the Games of Life! Yet, ere the feast
proceeds, hear me while I speak--I make my last oration as the arbiter
of our funeral sports, as the host of the Banquet of Famine!

'Who would sink ignobly beneath the slow superiority of starvation, or
perish under the quickly glancing steel of the barbarian conqueror's
sword, when such a death as ours is offered to the choice?--when wine
flows bright, to drown sensation in oblivion, and a palace and its
treasures furnish alike the scene of the revel and the radiant funeral
pile? The mighty philosophers of India--the inspired
Gymnosophists--died as we shall die! Calanus before Alexander, Zamarus
in the presence of Augustus, lit the fires that consumed them! Let us
follow their glorious example! No worms will prey upon our bodies, no
hired mourners will howl discordant at our funerals! Purified in the
radiance of primeval fire, we shall vanish triumphant from enemies and
friends--a marvel to the earth, a vision of glory to the gods
themselves!

'Is it a day more or a day less of life that is now of importance to
us? No; it is only towards the easiest and the noblest death that our
aspirations can turn! Among our number there is now not one whom the
care of existence can further occupy!

'Here,