LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 245 



modify her laws. But, unfortunately, they were all 

 in such a merry mood, that they spilled the ink 

 over the page, and rendered the greater part of 

 the manuscript almost illegible, for ever. 



To illustrate this : I have said, that as hunger 

 instructs us when to eat, so disrelish teaches us 

 when we should desist. But by what labour, and 

 pains, and contrivances, has the unnatural art of 

 cookery endeavoured to annul this law ? For what 

 are the spices, and sauces, and gravies, and kick- 

 shaws of the cook, but so many provocatives, to 

 induce him to eat more who has already eaten 

 enough? to provoke him to drink who is not 

 athirst and him to eat who is not hungry ? The 

 very ne-phm-ultra of the cook's art is to destroy this 

 sensation of disrelish ; which is almost as necessary 

 to our health as hunger itself. According to Dr. 

 Fordyce, " it is a universal maxim " in the Black 

 Art that is, the art of cookery " never to em- 

 ploy one spice, if more can be procured." Now, 

 pray open both your eyes, and mark the object of 

 this ; " the object, in this case," says he, " being, to 

 make the stomach bear a large quantity of food 

 without nausea !" So that the object of modern 

 cookery is, to cram into the stomach as much as it 

 can possibly hold, without being sick. Said I not 



