482 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



one would willingly quarrel^ for all are sensible that such 

 a man alone can maintain pubHc order and domestic 

 comfort ; by him aU clubs are held together; nor could 

 the pohtical world get on better without his aid^ for 

 what modern ministry could hope to hold out a month 

 but by means of those cabinet puddings and other skilful 

 culinary liaisons which unite men of the most opposite 

 sentiments and interests into one catholic fellowship^ by 

 the tenderest of all sympathies, the great sympathetic 

 nerve of their stomachs ? No country ever prospered 

 where these artists have been either unknown or neg- 

 lected. Sparta may be cited as a memorable warning to 

 other nations of the danger of quarrelling with func- 

 tionaries so important, for, having made the rash experi- 

 ment of trying to do without cooks, the result proved, as 

 might have been anticipated, a complete failure : but it 

 was then too late to undo the mischief such precipitancy 

 had occasioned, and the ungrateful country, unable to 

 recall her proscribed sons (now settled and floiu-ishing 

 citizens in other states) , sopped penitential bread in nau- 

 seous black broth, further embittered by the daily re- 

 flection that she had brought it all upon herself. The 

 rest of Greece, more correctly appreciating the value 

 of cooks, treated them very differently, and it is one of 

 these flourishing representatives of the ancient art whom 

 we shall now endeavour to delineate to the reader. The 

 Greeks may be said to have borrowed their early kitchen 

 from the luxurious Asiatics, whence it might seem more 

 natural to have taken our ' lay' chef from Asia ; but as 

 they 'touched not without adorning it,' the apt pupils soon 

 surpassed their instructors, while the world at large came 

 to reap the advantage of their matured experience and 

 very careful training. Even at Rome, where sumptuous 

 living had reached its height, the chief apron was gene- 

 rally either a Greek or the disciple of a Greek. And 

 just as the other countries of Europe are now indebted 



