k,) [Greek: artos xaeros!] And what may this word
_dry_ happen to mean? "Does it mean stale bread?" says Salmasius. "Shall
we suppose," says he, in querulous words, "_molli et recenti opponi_," and
from that antithesis conclude it to be, "_durum et non recens coctum, eoque
sicciorem_?" Hard and stale, and for that reason the more arid! Not quite
so bad as that, we hope. Or again--"_siccum pro biscocto, ut hodie vocamus,
sumemus_?"[5] By _hodie_ Salmasius means, amongst his countrymen of France,
where _biscoctus_ is verbatim reproduced in the word _bis_ (twice) _cuit_,
(baked;) whence our own _biscuit_. Biscuit might do very well, could we be
sure that it was cabin biscuit: but Salmasius argues--that in this case he
takes it to mean "_buccellatum, qui est panis nauticus_;" that is, the ship
company's biscuit, broken with a sledge-hammer. In Greek, for the benefit
again of the learned reader, it is termed [Greek: dipuros], indicating
that it has passed twice under the action of fire.

"Well," you say, "No matter if it had passed fifty times--and through the
fires of Moloch; only let us have this biscuit, such as it is." In good
faith, then, fasting reader, you are not likely to see much more than you
_have_ seen. It is a very Barmecide feast, we do assure you--this same
"jentaculum;" at which abstinence and patience are much more exercised than
the teeth: faith and hope are the chief graces cultivated, together with
that species of the _magnificum_ which is founded on the _ignotum_. Even
this biscuit was allowed in the most limited quantities; for which reason
it is that the Greeks called this apology for a a meal by the name
of [Greek: bouchismos], a word formed (as many words were in the
Post-Augustan ages) from a Latin word--viz., _buccea_, a mouthful; not
literally such, but so much as a polished man could allow himself to put
into his mouth at once. "We took a mouthful," says Sir William Waller, the
Parliamentary general, "took a mouthful; paid our reckoning; mounted;
and were off." But there Sir William means, by his plausible "mouthful,"
something very much beyond either nine or nineteen ordinary quantities of
that denomination, whereas the Roman "jentaculum" was literally such; and,
accordingly, one of the varieties under which the ancient vocabularies
express this model of evanescent quantities is _gustatio_, a mere tasting;
and again it is called by another variety, _gustus_, a mere taste: [whence
by the usual sup