14 Mission to the Kitchen. [Juvy, 
arms (and a pightly rising is upon record, whose object really was the 
abduction of a school-master)—yet would the four provinces remain 
secure from rebellion, provided the peasantry sat down every day to a 
good round-of-beef and a pot of “ London particular.” “ Sa Majesté 
de la France est dans la cuisine,” said a profound statesman; and when 
Henri Quatre wished all his subjects their Sunday poulet au pot, the 
wish had clearly a reference to the difficulties he had encountered in 
governing men, more addicted to texts than to stew-pans, more given 
to controversy than to conviviality, and more disposed to pike a seceder 
and burn a heretic, than to piquer a capon or roast a duck. It is a fact 
but little known, that the first professed cooks in modern Europe were 
members of the church ; hence, however, arose the proverbial phrase of 
“ Latin de la cuisine,” to express what in England is called dog Latin. 
For the worthy “ Fréres”” who professed the gastronomic art in those 
days, so wholly gave themselves up to the study of its mysteries, that 
they were often less proficients ‘in their humanities than their learned 
brethren above stairs, who knew of no other proof of the pudding but 
the eating. When it is considered that “God,” as every body must 
have heard, “sends meat while the Devil sends cooks” (and malice 
infernal could go no further), the source of this connexion between good 
eating and good principles, well digested meats and well digested 
opinions, becomes at once manifest to the plainest understanding ; nor 
can we longer be surprised that the use of ill concocted viands should 
raise as many commotions in the state as in the bowels, and should tend 
equally to the production of heart-burnings in the body natural and the 
body politic. 
Influenced by these considerations, and with a laudable view to coun- 
teract the suspicious progress of Lancasterian schools, mechanics’ insti- 
tutions, and such like provocatives to sedition and insubordination, 
certain individuals, friends of establishment and enemies to innovation, 
have formed themselves into an association for the promotion of orthodox 
and loyal cookery ; for the due education of a convenient number of able- 
bodied young men in the best foreign and domestic schools of good 
eating, and for sending them forth as missionaries through the “ benight- 
ed provinces” of the land; to disseminate sounder and more salutary 
notions on culinary matters, than those which unfortunately are too 
prevalent, more especially in the manufacturing districts of this country. 
As soon as a competent quantity of well-ascertained axioms shall have 
been obtained, through the labours and researches of these seminarists, 
it is further proposed to arrange them, according to the newest processes 
of codification, into a well digested system of legitimate gastronomy : 
and at the same time to mince and hash them up in the form of cheap 
tracts, suited to the meanest intellects, of a size to be bound up with 
“ Sinful Sally” and « New Milk for Babes,” and to be dropped at the 
doors of the peasantry in the insurgent districts of Ireland, or to be 
distributed gratuitously among the distressed weavers and the operatives 
most suspected of a tendency to combination. It is, moreover, in con 
templation to have floating kitchens established on the Thames, and at 
the several outposts, to supersede Dibdin’s sea-songs, which, by long 
keeping, have lost their efficacy, and to correct the crudities of the 
officers, who cannot longer digest the favouritism and parliamentary 
influence which, as they fancy, regulate the distribution of promotions. 
When these great and paramount objects shall have been ebtained, and 
