* Although pleasing the palate be the main end in most books of cookery, it is my aim to blend the toothsome with the wholesome; for, after all, however the hale Gourmand may at first differ from me in opinion, the latter is the chief concern ; since if he be even so entirely devoted to the pleasure of eating, as to think of no other, still the care of his health becomes part of that ; if he is sick, he cannot relish his food.

The Receipts are the results of experiments carefully made and accurately and circumstantially detailed, the time requisite for dressing being stated, and the quantities of the various articles contained in each composition being given either by weight or measure*, a precision never before attempted in former cookery books, but which I found indispensable, from the impossibility of guessing the quantities intended by the usual obscure expressions employed for this purpose in former works; such as, a little bit of salt, a good bit of butter, a handful of this, a pinch of that, a shake of pepper, a squeeze of lemon, a dash of vinegar, a dust of flour, and season it to your palate, (meaning the cook's,) which, if she has any, it is very unlikely that it is in unison with that of her employers, as, by continually tasting piquante relishes, it becomes blunted and insensible, and soon loses the faculty of appreciating delicate flavours, so that every thing is done at random.

* The weights are avoirdupois; the measure, the graduated glass used by apothecaries, which appeared more accurate and convenient than any, the pint being divided into sixteen ounces, and the ounce into eight drachms: by a wineglass, is to be understood two ounces of apothecaries' liquid measure; by a large or tablespoonful, half an ounce; by a small or tea spoonful, a drachm, or half a quarter of an ounce, i, e. nearly equal to two drachms avoirdupois. At Hancock's glass warehouse, in Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, you may get measures divided into tea and table spoons. No cook should be without one, who wishes to be regular in her business.

These culinary technicals* are so differently estimated by different cooks, and "the rule of thumb" is so extremely indefinite, that if the same dish be dressed by two persons, it will generally be so unlike, that nobody would imagine they had worked from the same directions; nor will they assist a person who has not served a regular apprenticeship in the kitchen, more than reading "Robinson Crusoe" would enable a sailor to steer safely from England to India.

* "In the present language of cookery, there has been a woeful departure from the simplicity of our ancestors; such a farrago of unappropriate and unmeaning terms, many corrupted from the French, others disguised from the Italian, some misupplied from the German, while many are a dis grace to the English. What can any person suppose to be the meaning of a shoulder of lamb in epigram, unless it were a poor dish, for a pennyless poet? aspect of fish, would appear calculated for an astrologer, and shoulder of mutton surprised, designed for a sheep-stealer." - A. C. junr.

This carelessness in the cook is the more surprising, as the confectioner is regularly attentive, in the description of his preparations, to give the exact quantities, though his business, compared to cookery, is as unimportant as the ornamental is inferior to the useful: vet the maker of blanchmange, custards, and trifles, and the endless and useless collection of pretty play-things for the palate, is scrupulously exact, even to a grain, in his ingredients, whilst the cooks affect to be most unintelligibly indefinite, although they are intrusted with the administration of our food, upon the proper preparation of which all our powers of both body and mind-depend; the energy being invariably in the ratio of the performance of the restorative process. Unless the stomach be in good humour, every part of the machinery of life will vibrate with languor.

We may compare the human frame to a watch, of which the heart is the main spring, the stomach the regulator, and what we put into it the key by which the machine is set agoing; according to the quantity, quality, and proper digestion of what we eat and drink, will be the pace of the pulse, and the action of the system in general: and when a due proportion is preserved between the quantum of exercise and that of excitement, all goes well: when disordered, the same expedients are employed for its readjustment as are used by the watch maker; the machine requires to be carefully cleaned, and then judiciously oiled.

Thus does our health always, and the life often of invalids, and those who have weak and infirm stomachs, depend upon the skill of the cook. Our forefathers were so well aware of this, that in days of yore no man of consequence thought of making a day's journey without taking his "Magister Coquorum' with him. The variety of this talent in a high degree is so well understood, that besides very considerable pecuniary compensation, his Majesty's first and second cooks are now Esquires by their office; and we have every reason to suppose they were persons of equal dignity heretofore. In Dr. Pegge's "Forme of Cury," Svo. London, 1780, we read, that when Cardinal Otto, the pope's legate, was at Oxford, A.D. 1248, his brother officiated as "Magister Coquince." This important post has always been held as a situation of high trust and confidence, and the "Magnus Coquus," chief cook, or Master-Kitchiner, has, time immemorial, been an officer of considerable dignity in the palaces of princes.

I believe it is a generally received opinion, which the experience of every individual can confirm, that the food we fancy most, appears to sit easiest on the stomach: the functions of digestion must go on more merrily when exercised by food we relish, than when we eat merely because it is the usual hour of dining, or swallow something out of necessity, to appease the raging of the gastric juices.