_;) with respect to the
other--that he _was seen_, ("_videbatur_.") Even Plutarch mentions it as
a common boast in his times, [Greek: aemas eiden ho basileus]--_Caesar is
in the habit of seeing me_; or, as a common plea for evading a suit,
[Greek: ora mallon]--_I am sorry to say he is more inclined to look upon
others_. And this usage derived itself (mark that well!) from the
_republican_ era. The aulic spirit was propagated by the Empire, but from
a republican root.

Having paid his court, you will suppose that our friend comes home to
breakfast. Not at all: no such discovery as "breakfast" had then been made:
breakfast was not invented for many centuries after that. We have always
admired, and always shall admire, as the very best of all human stories,
Charles Lamb's account of the origin of _roast pig_ in China. Ching Ping,
it seems, had suffered his father's house to be burned down; the outhouses
were burned along with the house; and in one of these the pigs, by
accident, were roasted to a turn. Memorable were the results for all future
China and future civilization. Ping, who (like all China beside) had
hitherto eaten his pig raw, now for the first time tasted it in a state
of torrefaction. Of course he made his peace with his father by a part
(tradition says a leg) of the new dish. The father was so astounded with
the discovery, that he burned his house down once a year for the sake of
coming at an annual banquet of roast pig. A curious prying sort of fellow,
one Chang Pang, got to know of this. He also burned down a house with a
pig in it, and had his eyes opened. The secret was ill kept--the discovery
spread--many great conversions were made--houses were blazing in every part
of the Celestial Empire. The insurance offices took the matter up.
One Chong Pong, detected in the very act of shutting up a pig in his
drawing-room, and then firing a train, was indicted on a charge of arson.
The chief justice of Pekin, on that occasion, requested an officer of the
court to hand him a piece of the roast pig, the _corpus delicti_, for pure
curiosity led him to taste; but within two days after it was observed that
his lordship's town-house was burned down. In short, all China apostatized
to the new faith; and it was not until some centuries had passed, that a
great genius arose, who established the second era in the history of roast
pig, by showing that it could be had without burning down a house.

No such genius had yet ar