in women's clothes, and finified them like any babies; then ordered
them to meet my lord at his coming near the drawbridge. So the
complimenting monsieur came, and there kissed the petticoated lads with
great formality. At last the ladies, who minded passages in the gallery,
burst out with laughing, and made signs to the pages to take off their
dress; which the good lord having observed, the devil a bit he durst make
up to the true ladies to kiss them, but said, that since they had disguised
the pages, by his great grandfather's helmet, these were certainly the very
footmen and grooms still more cunningly disguised. Odds fish, da jurandi,
why do not we rather remove our humanities into some good warm kitchen of
God, that noble laboratory, and there admire the turning of the spits, the
harmonious rattling of the jacks and fenders, criticise on the position of
the lard, the temperature of the pottages, the preparation for the dessert,
and the order of the wine service? Beati immaculati in via. Matter of
breviary, my masters.

Chapter 4.XI.

Why monks love to be in kitchens.

This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk; I mean like a right
monking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling. Truly you put me in mind
of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in a
company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeing
the antiquities of Italy, among whom I was. As we viewed the situation and
beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of the
churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them their
due; when a certain monk of Amiens, Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry,
scandalized, and out of all patience, told us, I don't know what the devil
you can find in this same town, that is so much cried up; for my part I
have looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you; I think my
eyesight is as clear as another body's, and what can one see after all?
There are fine houses, indeed and that's all. But the cage does not feed
the birds. God and Monsieur St. Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in
all this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet
I have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a
commonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with
the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right and
left, how many, and on what side, we might