496 
eourt, should banish ‘the author to 
Nantes; particularly when complaints 
were urged from another quarter, for the 
freedom which he took in speaking of 
the Count of Ulefeld. 
Dr. Sprat’s Observations, which ac- 
company the Vovage, are addressed in a 
Letter to Dr. Wren, Professor of Astro- 
nomy at Oxford; forming a spirited De- 
fence of his Country, from thé unfounded 
assertions of M. Sorbiere ; who not only 
reflects upon the English in general for 
rudeness, because he received iif lan- 
guage from some boys at Dover; but has 
left it problematical, whether he be- 
Nieved what, he says, some have had the 
hardihood to assert, “that the English 
have skimm/’d the vices of other coun- 
tries, and despise their virtues.” 
“ The Forme of Cury, a Roll of Ancient 
English Cookery, compiled about 1390, 
by the Master-Cooks of King Ri- 
. chard IT. presented afterwards to 
Queen Elizabeth, by Edward Lord 
Stafford, and now in the Possession of 
Gustavus Brander, Esq. illustrated 
with Notes, and a copious Index, or 
Glossary. A Manuscript of the Edi- 
tor, of the sume Age and Subject, is 
subjoined. By an Antiquary.”—inge- 
nivsa gula est.—London, 8v0, 1780. 
In the “ Preface to the curious 
Antiquarian Reader,” Dr. Pegge, the 
editor of the work, descants largely on 
the progress of the culinary art, from 
early times. ; 
‘© The Aborigines of Britain, (he says,) 
could have no great expertnessin cookery, 
as they had no oil, and we hear nothing 
of their butter. They used only sheep 
and oxen, eating neither hares, though so 
greatly esteemed at Rome, nor hens, 
nor geese, froma notion of superstition. 
Nor did they eat fish. There was little 
corn in the interior part of the island, 
but they livedon milk and flesh ;* though 
it is expressly asserted by Strabo, that 
they had no cheese.t The later Britons, 
however, well knew how to make the 
best use of the cow, since, as appears 
from the Jaws of Hoel Dha, A.D. 943, 
this animal was a creature so essential, 
so common, and useful in Wales, as to be 
the standard in rating fines, &c.f 
<< Hengist, leader of the Saxons, made 
in ee ee 
* Cesar de B. G. v. §. 10. 
t Strabo, lib. iv. 200. Pegge’s Essay on 
Coins of Cunob. p: 95. 
{ Archzologia, iv. ps Ole Godwia, de 
Presul, p. 505, seq. 
Scarce Tracts, Xe. 
[Dec. f; 
grand entertaiiments for King Vorti- 
gern,* but no particulars have come down 
to us; and certainly little exquisite can 
be expected from a people then so ex- 
tremely barbarous,-as- not ‘o be able 
either to read or write. ‘ Burbari homines 
@ septentrione, (they are the words of 
Dr. Lister,) caseo eé¢- ferina subcruda 
victituntes, omnia condinenta adjectiva 
respuerunt "> 
“Some have fancied; that as the 
Danes imported the custom of hard and 
deep drinking; so they likewise intro- 
ductd the practice of gormandizing; aud 
that this word itself is derived from 
Gormund, the name of that Danish king 
whom /Elfred the Great persuaded to be 
christened, and called A&thelstane.f 
Now it is certain, that Hardicnut stands 
on record as an egregious gluttonsg but 
he is not particularly famous, for being a 
curious Viunder; it 1s true again, that 
the Danes in general indulged excessively 
in feasts and entertainments,|| but we 
have no reason to imagine any elegance 
of cookery to have flourished amongst 
them. And though Guthrum, the Danish 
prince, is in some authors named Gor- 
mundus ;f yet this is not the right ety- 
mology of our English word, Gormandize; 
since it 1s rather the French Gourmand, 
of the British Gormod.** So that we have 
little to say as to the Danes. , 
“T shall take the later English and the 
Normans together, on account of the 
intermixture of the two nations after the 
conquest, since, as Lord Lyttleton ob- 
serves, the English accommodated them- 
selves to the Norman manners, except 
in point of temperance in eating and 
drinking, and communicated to them 
their own habits of drunkenness and ime 
moderate feasting+ Erasmus also re= 
marks, that the “English, in his time, 
were attached. to plentiful and splendid 
tables ; and the same is observed by Har 
rison.j{t As to the Normans, both Wil- 
liam I. and Rufus, made grand enter- 
* Malmsb. p. 9..Gales. Mon. V1. 12. 
+ Lister, ad Apic. p. xi. where, Sce more 
to the same purpose. 
{ Spelm. Life of Aélfred, p. 665; Drake, 
Ebor. Append. p. civ. » 
§ Speed’s History. ~ 
|| Mong. Mallet. cap. 12. : 
€| Wilkins, Concil. I. p. 204. Drakes 
Ebor. p. 376. Append. p. civ. cv. 
#* Menage, Orig. v. Gourmand. 
++ Lord Lyttleton, Hist. of H. II. vol. iii, 
p. 49. 
ti Harrison, Descript, of Britain, p. 165, 
166. : ; 
tainments 3 
