ay have been
carelessly adopted. But you shall see what a book of cookery I could
make. I shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copyright."

Miss SEWARD:--"That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed!"

JOHNSON:--"No, Madam. Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a
good book of cookery."

But the Doctor's philosophical cookery book belongs to the voluminous
calendar of works which never passed beyond the stage of proposal; he
did not, so far as we know, ever draw out a title-page, as Coleridge
was fond of doing; and perhaps the loss is to be borne with. The
Doctor would have pitched his discourse in too high a key.

Among the gastronomical enlargements of our literature in the
latter half of the last century, one of the best books in point of
classification and range is that by B. Clermont, of which the third
edition made its appearance in 1776, the first having been anonymous.
Clermont states that he had been clerk of the kitchen in some of the
first families of the kingdom, and lately to the Earl of Abingdon. But
elsewhere we find that he had lived very recently in the establishment
of the Earl of Ashburnham, for he observes in the preface: "I beg the
candour of the Public will excuse the incorrectness of the Language
and Diction. My situation in life as an actual servant to the Earl of
Ashburnham at the time of the first publication of this Book will I
trust plead my Apology." He informs his readers on the title-page, and
repeats in the preface, that a material part of the work consists of a
translation of "Les Soupers de la Cour," and he proceeds to say,
that he does not pretend to make any further apology for the title of
_supper_, than that the French were, in general, more elegant in their
suppers than their dinners. In other words, the late dinner was still
called supper.

The writer had procured the French treatise from Paris for his own
use, and had found it of much service to him in his capacity as clerk
of the kitchen, and he had consequently translated it, under the
persuasion that it would prove an assistance to gentlemen, ladies,
and others interested in such matters. He specifies three antecedent
publications in France, of which his pages might be considered the
essence, viz., "La Cuisine Royale," "Le Maitre d'Hotel Cuisinier," and
"Les Dons de Comus"; and he expresses to some of his contemporaries,
who had helped him in his researches, his obligations in the following
terms:--"As every cou