Laudator Temporis Acti

G.G. Coulton (1858-1947), Fourscore Years: An Autobiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943), pp. 59-60:

He [Coulton's father, John James Coulton] was, in his humbler way, of the school of the late Latin Professor at Cambridge, 'Johnny' Mayor, with whom for a while he corresponded. Both, in their later years, were vegetarians, except that my father abhorred neither eggs nor fish. This troubled his conscience, and he wrote to consult Mayor as to a purer title for the fraternity. 'Let us choose not a Latin name but a Greek, and call ourselves Azoöphags.' At that point, the correspondence broke down: no answer ever came from Mayor. And yet, names apart, the practice itself was one to which Mayor had devoted—his nephew, Robin Mayor, would have said, sacrificed—all the latter part of a long life. In my undergraduate days, he put out a pamphlet entitled Modicus cibi medicus sibi. He reinforced this by the story of two heroic abstainers in the past, the Venetian senator Cornaro (who probably inspired some of the Second Part of Goethe's Faust) and the Jesuit scholar Lessius. Mayor himself, report said, was living then upon sixpence a day: brown bread, bananas, and water. He started a little Food Reform Shop in the curious building which stands anomalously at the junction of Corn Exchange Street and Pembroke Street. He employed his cook or housekeeper to compound a very excellent home-made marmalade, which was appreciated as it deserved. The good lady used for this purpose a collection of second-hand jam pots from every quarter. Therefore, shortly after I went down there appeared in some Cambridge and other papers an advertisement to something of this effect: 'Be it hereby known that I, John Eyton Bickersteth Mayor, do most humbly apologize to Messrs Keiller and Sons, of Dundee, for selling marmalade in vessels distinguished by their trade-mark; and I thank them for accepting this confession in lieu of legal proceedings.' Mayor kept his vegetarian faith to the last, but condescended to all sorts of complicated special dishes in Hall. The College cook, I am told, would sometimes whisper in confidence: 'Professor Mayor, Sir, 'e thinks 'e eats nothing but vegetables: but we allus puts something in to keep 'im up.'

I believe that this is the first appearance of the word azoöphag on the World Wide Web.

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John James Coulton (1818-1908)

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John Eyton Bickersteth Mayor (1825-1910)