240 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
that I have contracted a most religious veneration for your 
spiritual nouriture. Only imagine that I here every day see 
men who are mountains of roast beef, and who only seem just 
roughly hewn out into the outlines of human form, like the great 
rock at Pratelino! I shudder when I see them brandish their 
knives in act to carve, and I look on them as savages that devour 
one another. I shouldn’t stare at all more than I do if your 
Alderman at the lower end of the table was to stick his fork into 
his neighbour’s jolly cheek, and cut a brave slice of brown and 
fat! Why, I swear I see no difference between a country 
gentleman and a sirloin; whenever the first laughs, or the 
second is cut, there run out just the same streams of gravy.” 
In Moxon’s Life of Edmund Kean, the famous actor, we are told 
that Mossop, another stage celebrity, chose his dish to suit the 
character he was about to assume: “ Broth,” said he, “for 
tone; roast pork for tyrants ; steaks with ‘Measure for Measure’; 
boiled mutton for lovers; pudding for Tancred, etc.” James 
Howell, contemporary with Sir Kenelm Digby (1603), com- 
mended to Lady Wallis a Spanish cook “ who hath intellectuals, 
and senses; mutton, beef, and bacon are to her as the will, 
understanding, and memory are to the soul. Cabbage, Turnip, 
Artichoke, Potatoes, and Dates are her five senses, and Pepper 
the common sense. She must have marrow to keep life in her, 
and some birds to make her light.” 
As to the question of how to maintain the body properly 
nourished under adverse conditions, ‘“ Like all divine truths,” 
said Dr. K. Chambers, “to love your neighbour as yourself is 
found to be taught by material nature as well as by revelation. 
Respecting the effect of practical benevolence, and philanthropy, 
upon our race, the fact is highly convincing that directly a man 
begins to care for others in preference to himself alone, his cares 
cease to wear and exhaust him. There rather seems to be 
herein a sustaining force. This is the reason why in sieges, and 
famine, medical men have often remained sleek, and plump, 
while their neighbours pined; and perhaps also why military 
officers bear short rations better than the men.” As to regulating 
the food in quantity, or precise chemical constitution, according 
to tables of percentages, and the like, which are dry calculations 
(in a double sense) rather than of any sure practical use for 
individual consumers, we may take a lesson from the Captain 
_ Gulliver of Swift’s tale; “for whom a coat, waistcoat, and 
