iples of indulging the palate as far as it can be done without
injury or offence to the stomach, and forbidding[18-*] nothing but what
is absolutely unfriendly to health.

----"That which is not good, is not delicious
To a well-govern'd and wise appetite."--MILTON.

This is by no means so difficult a task as some gloomy philosophers
(uninitiated in culinary science) have tried to make the world believe;
who seem to have delighted in persuading you, that every thing that is
nice must be noxious, and that every thing that is nasty is wholesome.

"How charming is divine philosophy?
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns."--MILTON.

Worthy William Shakspeare declared he never found a philosopher who
could endure the toothache patiently:--the Editor protests that he has
not yet overtaken one who did not love a feast.

Those _cynical_ slaves who are so silly as to suppose it unbecoming a
wise man to indulge in the common comforts of life, should be answered
in the words of the French philosopher. "Hey--what, do you philosophers
eat dainties?" said a gay Marquess. "Do you think," replied DESCARTES,
"that God made good things only for fools?"

Every individual, who is not perfectly imbecile and void of
understanding, is an _epicure_ in his own way. The epicures in boiling
of potatoes are innumerable. The perfection of all enjoyment depends on
the perfection of the faculties of the mind and body; therefore, the
temperate man is the greatest epicure, and the only true voluptuary.

THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE have been highly appreciated and carefully
cultivated in all countries and in all ages;[19-*] and in spite of all
the stoics, every one will allow they are the first and the last we
enjoy, and those we taste the oftenest,--above a thousand times in a
year, every year of our lives!

THE STOMACH is the mainspring of our system. If it be not sufficiently
wound up to warm the heart and support the circulation, the whole
business of life will, in proportion, be ineffectively performed: we can
neither _think_ with precision, _walk_ with vigour, _sit down_ with
comfort, nor _sleep_ with tranquillity.

There would be no difficulty in proving that it influences (much more
than people in general imagine) all our actions: the destiny of nations
has often depended upon the more or less lab