] art--which the Editor has chosen to endeavour to
illustrate, because nobody else has, and because he knew not how he
could employ some leisure hours more beneficially for mankind, than to
teach them to combine the "_utile_" with the "_dulce_," and to increase
their pleasures, without impairing their health, or impoverishing their
fortune, has been for many years his favourite employment; and "THE ART
OF INVIGORATING AND PROLONGING LIFE BY FOOD, &C. &C." and this Work,
have insensibly become repositories for whatever observations he has
made which he thought would make us "LIVE HAPPY, AND LIVE LONG!!!"

The Editor has considered the ART OF COOKERY, not merely as a mechanical
operation, fit only for working cooks, but as the _Analeptic part of the
Art of Physic_.

"How best the fickle fabric to support
Of mortal man; in healthful body how
A healthful mind the longest to maintain,"

(ARMSTRONG,)

is an occupation neither unbecoming nor unworthy philosophers of the
highest class: such only can comprehend its importance; which amounts to
no less, than not only the enjoyment of the present moment, but the more
precious advantage of improving and preserving _health_, and prolonging
_life_, which depend on duly replenishing the daily waste of the human
frame with materials pregnant with nutriment and easy of digestion.

If _medicine_ be ranked among those arts which dignify their professors,
_cookery_ may lay claim to an equal, if not a superior, distinction; to
_prevent_ diseases is surely a more advantageous art to mankind than to
_cure_ them. "Physicians should be good cooks, at least in theory."--Dr.
MANDEVILLE _on Hypochondriasis_, p. 316.

The learned Dr. ARBUTHNOT observes, in page 3 of the preface to his
_Essay on Aliment_, that "the choice and measure of the materials of
which our body is composed, what we take daily by _pounds_, is at least
of as much importance as what we take seldom, and only by _grains_ and
spoonfuls."

Those in whom the organ of taste is obtuse, or who have been brought up
in the happy habit of being content with humble fare, whose health is so
firm, that it needs no artificial adjustment; who, with the appetite of
a cormorant, have the digestion of an ostrich, and eagerly devour
whatever is set before them without asking any questions about what it
is, or how it has been prepared--may perhaps imagine that the Editor has
sometimes been rather over-much refining the busine