1. CHAPTER I.
The Introduction to the Work, or Bill of Fare to the Feast
An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives
a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a
public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.
In the former case, it is well known that the entertainer provides
what fare he pleases; and though this should be very indifferent,
and utterly disagreeable to the taste of his company, they must not
find any fault; nay, on the contrary, good breeding forces them
outwardly to approve and to commend whatever is set before them. Now
the contrary of this happens to the master of an ordinary. Men who pay
for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates, however
nice and whimsical these may prove; and if everything is not agreeable
to their taste, will challenge a right to censure, to abuse, and to
d--n their dinner without control.
To prevent, therefore, giving offence to their customers by any such
disappointment, it hath been usual with the honest and well-meaning
host to provide a bill of fare which all persons may peruse at their
first entrance into the house; and having thence acquainted themselves
with the entertainment which they may expect, may either stay and
regale with what is provided for them, or may depart to some other
ordinary better accommodated to their taste.
As we do not disdain to borrow wit or wisdom from any man who is
capable of lending us either, we have condescended to take a hint from
these honest victuallers, and shall prefix not only a general bill
of fare to our whole entertainment, but shall likewise give the reader
particular bills to every course which is to be served up in this
and the ensuing volumes.
The provision, then, which we have here made is no other than
Human Nature. Nor do I fear that my sensible reader, though most
luxurious in his taste, will start, cavil, or be offended, because I
have named but one article. The tortise- as the alderman of Bristol,
well learned in eating, knows by much experience- besides the
delicious calipash and calipee, contains many different kinds of food;
nor can the learned reader be ignorant, that in human nature, though
here collected under one general name, is such prodigious variety,
that a cook will have sooner gone through all the several species of
animal and vegetable food in the world, than an author will be able to
exhaust so extensive a subject.
An objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more delicate, that
this dish is too common and vulgar; for what else is the subject of
all the romances, novels, plays, and poems, with which the stalls
abound? Many exquisite viands might be rejected by the epicure, if
it was a sufficient cause for his contemning of them as common and
vulgar, that something was to be found in the most paltry alleys under
the same name. In reality, true nature is as difficult to be met
with in authors, as the Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage, is to be
found in the shops.
But the whole, to continue the same metaphor, consists in the
cookery of the author; for, as Mr. Pope tells us-
"True wit is nature to advantage drest;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest."
The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh
eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part,
and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in
town. Where, then, lies the difference between the food of the
nobleman and the porter, if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf,
but in the seasoning, the dressing, the garnishing, and the setting
forth? Hence the one provokes and incites the most languid appetite,
and the other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and keenest.
In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment
consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well
dressing it up. How pleased, therefore, will the reader be to find
that we have, in the following work, adhered closely to one of the
highest principles of the best cook which the present age, or
perhaps that of Heliogabalus, hath produced. This great man, as is
well known to all lovers of polite eating, begins at first by
setting plain things before his hungry guests, rising afterwards by
degrees as their stomachs may be supposed to decrease, to the very
quintessence of sauce and spices. In like manner, we shall represent
human nature at first to the keen appetite of our reader, in that more
plain and simple manner in which it is found in the country, and shall
hereafter hash and ragoo it with all the high French and Italian
seasoning of affectation and vice which courts and cities afford. By
these means, we doubt not but our reader may be rendered desirous to
read on for ever, as the great person just above-mentioned is supposed
to have made some persons eat.
Having premised thus much, we will now detain those who like our
bill of fare no longer from their diet, and shall proceed directly
to serve up the first course of our history for their entertainment.