"

The peculiarities of his constitution were as great as those of his
character: luxury and intemperance are relative terms, depending on
other circumstances than mere quantity and quality. Nature gave him an
excellent palate, and a craving appetite, and his intense application
rendered large supplies of nourishment absolutely necessary to recruit
his exhausted spirits.

The fact is, this great man had found out that animal and intellectual
vigour,[21-*] are much more entirely dependent upon each other than is
commonly understood; especially in those constitutions whose digestive
and chylopoietic organs are capricious and easily put out of tune, or
absorb the "_pabulum vitae_" indolently and imperfectly: with such, it is
only now and then that the "_sensorium commune_" vibrates with the full
tone of accurately considerative, or creative energy. "His favourite
dainties were, a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a
veal-pie, with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of
beef. With regard to _drink_, his liking was for the strongest, as it
was not the _flavour_, but the _effect_ that he desired." Mr. Smale's
Account of Dr. Johnson's Journey into Wales, 1816, p. 174.

Thus does the HEALTH always, and very often the LIFE of invalids, and
those who have weak and infirm STOMACHS, depend upon the care and skill
of the COOK. Our forefathers were so sensible of this, that in days of
yore no man of consequence thought of making a day's journey without
taking his "MAGISTER COQUORUM" with him.

The rarity of this talent in a high degree is so well understood, that
besides very considerable pecuniary compensation, his majesty's first
and second cooks[22-*] are now esquires by their office. We have every
reason to suppose they were persons of equal dignity heretofore.

In Dr. Pegge's "Forme of Cury," 8vo. London, 1780, we read, that when
Cardinal Otto, the Pope's legate, was at Oxford, A. D. 1248, his brother
officiated as "MAGISTER COQUINAE."

This important post has always been held as a situation of high trust
and confidence; and the "MAGNUS COQUUS," Anglice, the _Master
Kitchener_, has, time immemorial, been an officer of considerable
dignity in the palaces of princes.

The cook in PLAUTUS (_pseudol_) is called "_Hominum servatorem_," the
preserver of mankind; and by MERCIER "_un medecin qui guerit
radicalement deux maladies mortelles, la faim et la soif_."

The Norman conqueror WILLIAM best