18 Comments on Corpulency. 



have been brave and wise — but would Brummel wish to dine 

 with them ? 



Athens was httle skilled in the higher branches of cookery ; 

 — and even imperial Rome considered quantity more than qua- 

 lity. Lucullus, Apicius, and Cselius indeed deserved to have 

 lived in the days of turtle, French sauces, and Kitchener — the. 

 great culinary censor of the age. He was, indeed, the " Oracle 

 of Cooks." No man ever possessed a tact of palate more cer- 

 tain, more delicate, or more infallible. He fed with the gravity 

 of a senator — and tasted with the zeal of an artist, whose whole 

 gustatory organs were employed in promoting the progress of 

 his art. In the profundity of his reflections, he usually took 

 three or four hours to digest a peptic precept, or solve a dinner- 

 problem. Hence his opinions became oracular. From his de- 

 cisions respecting whatever appertained to the art of alimenta- 

 tion, there was no appeal. His opinion constituted law; and 

 should it ever be possible to form a collection of such decisions, 

 it will be hailed as the Epicurean code of the age. 



In these days of philosophical fancies, we read a man's his- 

 tory and character at a single glance. As a craniologist will 

 tell you his good or evil propensities — so a physician, by the 

 expression of his visage, will say what he dines upon — and, 

 moreover, (what may not be generally known,) that our personal 

 beauty depends upon eating and drinking ; the ugUness of the 

 Calmucks being solely owing to their feasting on raw flesh, — 

 an alarming piece of news to all eaters of (half-dressed) beef, 

 and a convincing proof of the importance of cookery. In truth, 

 as many of our best physicians, and some of our ablest modern 

 surgeons, have demonstrated "that a healthy state of the body 

 depends on the due regulation of diet," the importance o^ judi- 

 cious cookery must be very evident. Nay, the philosophy of 

 some have carried them so far, as to conjecture that not only 

 the health of the body corporate, but that the safety of the state 

 is connected with this art. Ill-concocted viands not only pro- 

 duce commotions in the human bowels, but 



" Convulsions and heats in the bowels of Europe : " 



for it is an axiom sanctioned by the highest authority, that well- 

 digested opinions are the product of well-digested viands, and 



