een pointed out by the kindness of friends, down to the
middle of the last century.

It was probably Charles, Duke of Bolton (1698-1722), who was at one
time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and who in the beginning of his ducal
career, at all events, resided in St. James's Street, that possessed
successively as head-cooks John Nott and John Middleton. To each of
these artists we owe a volume of considerable pretensions, and the
"Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary," 1723, by the former, is
positively a very entertaining and cyclopedic publication. Nott
inscribes his book "To all Good Housewives," and declares that he
placed an Introduction before it merely because fashion had made it
as strange for a book to appear without one as for a man to be seen
in church without a neckcloth or a lady without a hoop-petticoat. He
congratulates himself and his readers on living in a land flowing with
milk and honey, quotes the saw about God sending meat and somebody
else sending cooks, and accounts for his omission of pigments by
saying, like a gallant man, that his countrywomen little needed such
things. Nott opens with _Some Divertisements in Cookery, us'd at
Festival-Times, as Twelfth-Day, etc._, which are highly curious,
and his dictionary itself presents the novelty of being arranged,
lexicon-wise, alphabetically. He seems to have been a fairly-read and
intelligent man, and cites, in the course of his work, many celebrated
names and receipts. Thus we have:--To brew ale Sir Jonas Moore's way;
to make Dr. Butler's purging ale; ale of health and strength, by the
Viscount St. Albans; almond butter the Cambridge way; to dress a leg
of mutton _a la Dauphine_; to dress mutton the Turkish way; to stew
a pike the City way. Dr. Twin's, Dr. Blacksmith's, and Dr. Atkin's
almond butter; an amber pudding, according to the Lord Conway's
receipt; the Countess of Rutland's Banbury cake; to make Oxford cake;
to make Portugal cakes; and so on. Nott embraces every branch of his
subject, and furnishes us with bills of fare for every month of the
year, terms and rules of carving, and the manner of setting out
a dessert of fruits and sweetmeats. There is a singular process
explained for making China broth, into which an ounce of china is
to enter. Many new ways had been gradually found of utilising the
materials for food, and vegetables were growing more plentiful. The
carrot was used in soups, puddings, and tarts. Asparagus and spinach,
which are want