assic dainties have come
down to this later age. We will drink to the Carmelites at a sect, but
we will drink also to the monks as a body. Had we lived in those days,
we had been monks ourselves."

"It is singular," answered Lord Guloseton--"(by the by, what think you
of this turbot?)--to trace the history of the kitchen; it affords the
greatest scope to the philosopher and the moralist. The ancients seemed
to have been more mental, more imaginative, than we are in their
dishes; they fed their bodies as well as their minds upon delusion: for
instance, they esteemed beyond all price the tongues of nightingales,
because they tasted the very music of the birds in the organs of their
utterance. That is what I call the poetry of gastronomy!"

"Yes," said I, with a sigh, "they certainly had, in some respects, the
advantage over us. Who can pore over the suppers of Apicius without
the fondest regret? The venerable Ude [Note: Q.--The venerable
Bede--Printer's Devil.] implies, that the study has not progressed.
'Cookery (he says, in the first part of his work) possesses but few
innovators.'"

"It is with the greatest diffidence," said Guloseton, (his mouth full
of truth and turbot,) "that we may dare to differ from so great an
authority. Indeed, so high is my veneration for that wise man, that if
all the evidence of my sense and reason were on one side, and the dictum
of the great Ude upon the other, I should be inclined--I think, I should
be determined--to relinquish the former, and adopt the latter." [Note:
See the speech of Mr. Brougham in honour of Mr. Fox.]

"Bravo, my lord," cried I, warmly. "'Qu'un Cuisinier est un mortel
divin!' Why should we not be proud of our knowledge in cookery? It is
the soul of festivity at all times, and to all ages. How many marriages
have been the consequence of meeting at dinner? How much good fortune
has been the result of a good supper? At what moment of our existence
are we happier than at table? There hatred and animosity are lulled
to sleep, and pleasure alone reigns. Here the cook, by his skill and
attention, anticipates our wishes in the happiest selection of the best
dishes and decorations. Here our wants are satisfied, our minds and
bodies invigorated, and ourselves qualified for the high delights of
love, music, poetry, dancing, and other pleasures; and is he, whose
talents have produced these happy effects, to rank no higher in the
scale of man than a common servant? [Note: Ude,