!
Know on thyself thy genius must depend.
All books of cookery, all helps of art,
All critic learning, all commenting notes,
Are vain, if, void of genius, thou wouldst cook!"
The culinary sage thus spoke: his friend
Demands, "Where is the ideal cook thou paint'st?"
"Lo, I the man?" the savouring sage replied.
"Now be thine eyes the witness of my art!
This tunny drest, so odorous shall steam,
The spicy sweetness so shall steal thy sense,
That thou in a delicious reverie
Shalt slumber heavenly o'er the Attic dish!"

In another passage a Master-Cook conceives himself to be a pupil of
Epicurus, whose favourite but ambiguous axiom, that "Voluptuousness is
the sovereign good," was interpreted by the _bon-vivans_ of antiquity in
the plain sense.

MASTER COOK.
Behold in me a pupil of the school
Of the sage Epicurus.

FRIEND.
Thou a sage!

MASTER COOK.
Ay! Epicurus too was sure a cook,
And knew the sovereign good. Nature his study,
While practice perfected his theory.
Divine philosophy alone can teach
The difference which the fish _Glociscus_[124] shows
In winter and in summer: how to learn
Which fish to choose, when set the Pleiades,
And at the solstice. 'Tis change of seasons
Which threats mankind, and shakes their changeful frame.
This dost thou comprehend? Know, what we use
In season, is most seasonably good!

FRIEND.
Most learned cook, who can observe these canons

MASTER COOK.
And therefore phlegm and colics make a man
A most indecent guest. The aliment
Dress'd in my kitchen is true aliment;
Light of digestion easily it passes;
The chyle soft-blending from the juicy food
Repairs the solids.

FRIEND.
Ah! the chyle! the solids!
Thou new Democritus! thou sage of medicine!
Versed in the mysteries of the Iatric art!

MASTER COOK.
Now mark the blunders of our vulgar cooks!
See them prepare a dish of various fish,
Showering profuse the pounded Indian grain,
An overpowering vapour, gallimaufry
A multitude confused of pothering odours!
But, know, the genius of the art consists
To make the nostrils feel each scent distinct;
And not in washing plates to free from