about time, to overdress
every thing--the guests had better wait than the dinner--a little delay
will improve their appetite; but if the dinner waits for the guests, it
will be deteriorated every minute: the host who wishes to entertain his
friends with food perfectly well dressed, while he most earnestly
endeavours to impress on their minds the importance of being punctual to
the appointed hour, will still allow his cook a quarter of an hour's
grace.

The old adage that "the eye is often bigger than the belly," is often
verified by the ridiculous vanity of those who wish to make an
appearance above their fortune. Nothing can be more ruinous to real
comfort than the too common custom of setting out a table, with a parade
and a profusion, unsuited not only to the circumstances of the hosts,
but to the number of the guests; or more fatal to true hospitality, than
the multiplicity of dishes which luxury has made fashionable at the
tables of the great, the wealthy, and the ostentatious, who are, often,
neither great nor wealthy.

Such pompous preparation, instead of being a compliment to our guests,
is nothing better than an indirect offence; it is a tacit insinuation,
that it is absolutely necessary to provide such delicacies to bribe the
depravity of their palates, when we desire the pleasure of their
company; and that society now, must be purchased, at the same price
SWIFT told POPE he was obliged to pay for it in Ireland. "I should
hardly prevail to find one visiter, if I were not able to hire him with
a bottle of wine." Vide Swift's letters to Pope, July 10th, 1732.

When twice as much cooking is undertaken as there are servants, or
conveniences in the kitchen to do it properly, dishes must be dressed
long before the dinner hour, and stand by spoiling--the poor cook loses
her credit, and the poor guests get indigestions. Why prepare for eight
or ten friends, more than sufficient for twenty or thirty visiters?
"Enough is as good as a feast," and a prudent provider, who sensibly
takes measure of the stomachic, instead of the SILLY ocular, appetite of
his guests, may entertain his friends, three times as often, and ten
times as well.

It is your SENSELESS SECOND COURSES--ridiculous variety of WINES,
LIQUEURS, ICES,[38-*] DESSERTS, &c.--which are served up merely to feed
the eye, or pamper palled appetite, that _overcome the stomach and
paralyze digestion_, and seduce "children of a larger growth" to
sacrifice the hea