"Let me, then, first observe that these gentlemen at the bar have actually a very bad character, and that it is not likely that this would be the case unless they were really great sinners.
"Here, some will exclaim, no doubt, 'Prejudice, my dear sir! vulgar prejudice is capable of the grossest injustice--ignorant prejudice has driven from our tables a delicious article of food, and deprived the poor of a wholesome diet.' It is often said that he was a brave man who first ate an oyster, and truly a more uninviting mouthful than it was could scarcely be imagined; and yet the fact that it _is_ good and wholesome soon disposed of any prejudice against it. And is it not likely that such would be the case, were the fungus tribe fit for human food? Can we suppose any prejudice arising from their leathery looks would not evaporate like mists before the morning sun, were they really the nutritious and delicious dainties they are described to be by their enthusiastic advocates?
"I think it may be observed that the general character which a man bears is, on the whole, a true one. That big school, the world in which we live, contrives, in some way or other, to hit off pretty accurately our average merit and take our measure, and though it may make a mistake now and then in some particular instance, its general estimate is a fair one; and so with funguses. There may be a too-sweeping condemnation of all kinds of them: nay, it may be even probable that _Agaricus campestris_ is not the best that grows, and yet, after all, the prevalent distrust of the tribe is well founded.
"When, _e.g._, some family in a parish is known to have been poisoned by eating a wrong sort, it is not surprising, nor can it be called stupid prejudice, if their neighbours are ever after rather shy of the article of food which produced that result. But it will be said that the mischief arose from ignorance--had that family known the marks that distinguish between the wholesome and the poisonous kinds this would never have taken place. If ever there was a case in which ignorance was bliss, surely this is it. A short time ago, I accompanied a scientific friend in a foray among the funguses, which we made with a special view to the improvement of our intended repast, and was on that occasion struck with the elaborate precautions which seemed to be necessary to observe in discriminating the good from the bad. It would almost seem that Nature had purposely contrived a labyrinth of ingenious stumbling-blocks to guard this mysterious product from the insatiable appetites of mankind; and so it came to pass after all, my good friend--who really seemed well up in the subject, and who found at every turn some well-known test of wholesomeness or otherwise to guide him in the specimens we collected--wound up the day by nearly poisoning a member of my family: for he had, it appears, mistaken _Boletus flavus_, a violent poison, for the very similar but wholesome and excellent _Boletus luteus_--the only difference being that the pores of the one are somewhat smaller and less angular than those of the other. Surely, in this instance, knowledge (and it was not in his case a little knowledge either) was a dangerous thing.