ough to do to attend upon half a dozen
persons. There should be half as many candles as there are guests, and
their flame should not be more than eighteen inches above the table. The
modern candelabras answer no other purpose than that of giving an
appearance of pomp and magnificence, and seem intended to illuminate the
ceiling, rather than to shed light upon the plates.

_Quality of Provisions to be regarded._

The leading consideration about food ought always to be its
wholesomeness. Cookery may produce savoury and elegant looking dishes,
without their possessing any of the real qualities of food. It is at the
same time both a serious and a ludicrous reflection, that it should be
thought to do honour to our friends and to ourselves to set out a table
where indigestion with all its train of evils, such as fever,
rheumatism, gout, and the whole catalogue of human diseases, lie lurking
in almost every dish. Yet this is both done, and taken as a compliment.
The practice of flavouring custards, for example, with laurel leaves,
and adding fruit kernels to the poison of spirituous liquors, though far
too common, is attended with imminent danger: for let it be remembered,
that the flavour given by laurel essence is the most fatal kind of
poison. Children, and delicate grown-up persons, have often died
suddenly from this cause, even where the quantity of the deleterious
mixture was but small.

How infinitely preferable is a dinner of far less show, where nobody
need to be afraid of what they are eating; and such a one will always be
genteel and respectable. If a person can give his friend only a leg of
mutton, there is nothing of which to be ashamed, provided it is good and
well dressed. Nothing can be of greater importance to the mistress of a
family, than the preservation of its health; but there is no way of
securing this desirable object with any degree of certainty, except her
eye watches over every part of the culinary process. The subject of
cookery is too generally neglected by mistresses, as something beneath
their notice; or if engaged in, it is to contrive a variety of
mischievous compositions, both savoury and sweet, to recommend their own
ingenuity. Yet it is quite evident that every good housewife ought to be
well acquainted with this important branch of domestic management, and
to take upon herself at least its entire direction and controul. This is
a duty which her husband, children, and domestics, have a r