inations no rational being
would ever think of either dressing or eating; and without ascertaining
the practicability of preparing the receipts, and their fitness for food
when done, they should never have ventured to recommend them to others:
the reader of them will often put the same _quaere_, as _Jeremy_, in
Congreve's comedy of "_Love for Love_," when _Valentine_ observes,
"There's a page doubled down in Epictetus that is a feast for an
emperor.--_Jer._ Was Epictetus a real cook, or did he only write
receipts?"

Half of the modern cookery books are made up with pages cut out of
obsolete works, such as the "Choice Manual of Secrets," the "True
Gentlewoman's Delight," &c. of as much use, in this age of refinement,
as the following curious passage from "The Accomplished Lady's Rich
Closet of Rarities, or Ingenious Gentlewoman's Delightful Companion,"
12mo. London, 1653, chapter 7, page 42; which I have inserted in a
note,[29-*] to give the reader a notion of the barbarous manners of the
16th century, with the addition of the arts of the confectioner, the
brewer, the baker, the distiller, the gardener, the clear-starcher, and
the perfumer, and how to make pickles, puff paste, butter, blacking, &c.
together with my _Lady Bountiful's_ sovereign remedy for an inward
bruise, and other ever-failing nostrums,--_Dr. Killemquick's_
wonder-working essence, and fallible elixir, which cures all manner of
incurable maladies directly minute, _Mrs. Notable's_ instructions how to
make soft pomatum, that will soon make more hair grow upon thy head,
"than Dobbin, thy thill-horse, hath upon his tail," and many others
equally invaluable!!!--the proper appellation for which would be "a
dangerous budget of vulgar errors," concluding with a bundle of extracts
from "the Gardener's Calendar," and "the Publican's Daily Companion."

Thomas Carter, in the preface to his "City and Country Cook," London,
1738, says, "What I have published is almost the only book, one or two
excepted, which of late years has come into the world, that has been the
result of the author's own practice and experience; for though very few
eminent practical cooks have ever cared to publish what they knew of the
art, yet they have been prevailed on, for a small premium from a
bookseller, to lend their names to performances in this art unworthy
their owning."

Robert May, in the introduction to his "Accomplished Cook," 1665, says,
"To all honest and well-intending person