SOT 
When I hear a man say* “ X never care what I eat or drink,” I 
; set down the remark, either as proof of affectation not founded in 
i truth- — or of sordid and miserly attention to worldly gain, that impro- 
| perly absorbs all the thoughts- — or of gross ignorance and incivil- 
! ization. Why has the benevolence which framed our system, set 
before us, choice without end, but for the purpose of enabling us to 
choose ? and the power of encreasing the- zest of every pleasure, 
but that we may exercise it? Such a man may be a- fit companion 
j for the St. Simeons and St. Anthony’s of former times, for a Hot* 
tentet or a new Zealander, a miser or a misanthrope of modem- 
days, but he is not exactly fitted for good society in any sense of the 
word. X know of no use whatever attendant upon civilization, but 
the means it affords, and the skill it confers, of multiplying ail our 
enjoyments, and indefinitely encreasing their powers of exciting 
pleasurable- sensations. In my humble opinion, all happiness de- 
pends upon our wants and desires ; the more numerous are these 
sources of gratification when they can be gratified, the happier the 
being. A stone has no wants and therefore no pleasures ; a brute 
has.few, a man in a state of nature more, but the wants of civilized,, 
cultivated man, are innumerable. They are permitted to arise 
for the very purpose of promoting our happiness ; they are the re- 
wards. of social improvement ; and the human creature who ne-* 
gleets any pleasure within his reach, which he can innocently and 
prudently partake of, or sullenly refuse to cherish every want that 
his situation in life permits him innocently and prudently to gratify, 
is in my mind worse than unwise. 
With respect to cookery in particular, I should be glad to know, 
whether that science whose aid we require twice or thrice in every 
day of our lives,— -that science which teaches us to give sapidity to 
insipid substances— to heighten the flavour and encrease the nu- 
tritious power of food— to prevent the innumerable evils of indiges- 
tion arising from ill prepared nutriment— that science, which pro- 
motes the savings and encreases the enjoyments of the poor— which 
contributes to comfort, by inculcating cleanliness and economy— 
which banishes waste and therefore want— which gives habitual 
feelings of cheerfulness and good humor, by making every social 
repast equally wholesome and pleasant— and diffuses, the light of 
practical philosophy among the lowest classes of society— I should 
be glad to know, I say, why such a science, is. not as well worth pur- 
suing, and as important to the world, as one that teaches us to give 
a. brighter tint to a ribband, a clearer hue to the varnish of a tea- 
'bojftrd, or a higher polish to a pair of scissars. 
