Mangez-vous bien, Monsieur? Oui, et bois encore mieux.--Mons. de
Porceaugnac.
My pamphlet took prodigiously. The authorship was attributed to the most
talented member of the Opposition; and though there were many errors in
style, and (I now think) many sophisms in the reasoning, yet it carried
the end proposed by all ambition of whatever species--and imposed upon
the taste of the public.
Sometime afterwards, I was going down the stairs at Almack’s, when I
heard an altercation, high and grave, at the door of reception. To my
surprise, I found Lord Guloseton and a very young man in great wrath;
the latter had never been to Almack’s before, and had forgotten his
ticket. Guloseton, who belonged to a very different set to that of
the Almackians, insisted that his word was enough to bear his juvenile
companion through. The ticket inspector was irate and obdurate, and
having seldom or ever seen Lord Guloseton himself, paid very little
respect to his authority.
As I was wrapping myself in my cloak, Guloseton turned to me, for
passion makes men open their hearts: too eager for an opportunity
of acquiring the epicure’s acquaintance, I offered to get his friend
admittance in an instant; the offer was delightedly accepted, and I soon
procured a small piece of pencilled paper from Lady--, which effectually
silenced the Charon, and opened the Stygian via to the Elysium beyond.
Guloseton overwhelmed me with his thanks. I remounted the stairs
with him--took every opportunity of ingratiating myself--received an
invitation to dinner on the following day, and left Willis’s transported
at the goodness of my fortune.
At the hour of eight on the ensuing evening, I had just made my entrance
into Lord Guloseton’s drawing-room. It was a small apartment furnished
with great luxury and some taste. A Venus of Titian’s was placed over
the chimney-piece, in all the gorgeous voluptuousness of her unveiled
beauty--the pouting lip, not silent though shut--the eloquent lid
drooping over the eye, whose reveille you could so easily imagine--the
arms--the limbs--the attitude, so composed, yet so redolent of life--all
seemed to indicate that sleep was not forgetfulness, and that the dreams
of the goddess were not wholly inharmonious with the waking realities
in which it was her gentle prerogative to indulge. On either side, was
a picture of the delicate and golden hues of Claude; these were the only
landscapes in the room; the remaining pictures were more suitable to
the Venus of the luxurious Italian. Here was one of the beauties of Sir
Peter Lely; there was an admirable copy of the Hero and Leander. On
the table lay the Basia of Johannes Secundus, and a few French works on
Gastronomy.
As for the genius loci--you must imagine a middle-sized, middle-aged
man, with an air rather of delicate than florid health. But little of
the effects of his good cheer were apparent in the external man. His
cheeks were neither swollen nor inflated--his person, though not thin,
was of no unwieldy obesity--the tip of his nasal organ was, it is true,
of a more ruby tinge than the rest, and one carbuncle, of tender age
and gentle dyes, diffused its mellow and moonlight influence over the
physiognomical scenery--his forehead was high and bald, and the few
locks which still rose above it, were carefully and gracefully curled a
l’antique: Beneath a pair of grey shaggy brows, (which their noble owner
had a strange habit of raising and depressing, according to the nature
of his remarks,) rolled two very small, piercing, arch, restless orbs,
of a tender green; and the mouth, which was wide and thick-lipped, was
expressive of great sensuality, and curved upwards in a perpetual smile.
Such was Lord Guloseton. To my surprise no other guest but myself
appeared.
“A new friend,” said he, as we descended into the dining-room, “is like
a new dish--one must have him all to oneself, thoroughly to enjoy and
rightly to understand him.”
“A noble precept,” said I, with enthusiasm. “Of all vices,
indiscriminate hospitality is the most pernicious. It allows us neither
conversation nor dinner, and realizing the mythological fable of
Tantalus, gives us starvation in the midst of plenty.”
“You are right,” said Guloseton, solemnly; “I never ask above six
persons to dinner, and I never dine out; for a bad dinner, Mr. Pelham, a
bad dinner is a most serious--I may add, the most serious calamity.”
“Yes,” I replied, “for it carries with it no consolation: a buried
friend may be replaced--a lost mistress renewed--a slandered character
be recovered--even a broken constitution restored; but a dinner, once
lost, is irremediable; that day is for ever departed; an appetite once
thrown away can never, till the cruel prolixity of the gastric agents
is over, be regained. ‘Il y a tant de maitresses, (says the admirable
Corneille), ‘il n’y a qu’un diner.’”
“You speak like an oracle--like the Cook’s Oracle, Mr. Pelham: may I
send you some soup, it is a la Carmelite? But what are you about to do
with that case?”
“It contains” (said I) “my spoon, my knife, and my fork. Nature
afflicted me with a propensity, which through these machines I have
endeavoured to remedy by art. I eat with too great a rapidity. It is
a most unhappy failing, for one often hurries over in one minute, what
ought to have afforded the fullest delight for the period of five. It
is, indeed, a vice which deadens enjoyment, as well as abbreviates it;
it is a shameful waste of the gifts, and a melancholy perversion of the
bounty of Providence: my conscience tormented me; but the habit,
fatally indulged in early childhood, was not easy to overcome. At last
I resolved to construct a spoon of peculiarly shallow dimensions, a fork
so small, that it could only raise a certain portion to my mouth, and a
knife rendered blunt and jagged, so that it required a proper and just
time to carve the goods ‘the gods provide me.’ My lord, ‘the lovely
Thais sits beside me’ in the form of a bottle of Madeira. Suffer me to
take wine with you?”
“With pleasure, my good friend; let us drink to the memory of the
Carmelites, to whom we are indebted for this inimitable soup.”
“Yes!” I cried. “Let us for once shake off the prejudices of sectarian
faith, and do justice to one order of those incomparable men, who,
retiring from the cares of an idle and sinful world, gave themselves
with undivided zeal and attention to the theory and practice of the
profound science of gastronomy. It is reserved for us, my lord, to pay
a grateful tribute of memory to those exalted recluses, who, through
a long period of barbarism and darkness, preserved, in the solitude of
their cloisters, whatever of Roman luxury and classic dainties have come
down to this later age. We will drink to the Carmelites at a sect, but
we will drink also to the monks as a body. Had we lived in those days,
we had been monks ourselves.”
“It is singular,” answered Lord Guloseton--“(by the by, what think you
of this turbot?)--to trace the history of the kitchen; it affords the
greatest scope to the philosopher and the moralist. The ancients seemed
to have been more mental, more imaginative, than we are in their
dishes; they fed their bodies as well as their minds upon delusion: for
instance, they esteemed beyond all price the tongues of nightingales,
because they tasted the very music of the birds in the organs of their
utterance. That is what I call the poetry of gastronomy!”
“Yes,” said I, with a sigh, “they certainly had, in some respects, the
advantage over us. Who can pore over the suppers of Apicius without
the fondest regret? The venerable Ude [Note: Q.--The venerable
Bede--Printer’s Devil.] implies, that the study has not progressed.
‘Cookery (he says, in the first part of his work) possesses but few
innovators.’”
“It is with the greatest diffidence,” said Guloseton, (his mouth full
of truth and turbot,) “that we may dare to differ from so great an
authority. Indeed, so high is my veneration for that wise man, that if
all the evidence of my sense and reason were on one side, and the dictum
of the great Ude upon the other, I should be inclined--I think, I should
be determined--to relinquish the former, and adopt the latter.” [Note:
See the speech of Mr. Brougham in honour of Mr. Fox.]
“Bravo, my lord,” cried I, warmly. “‘Qu’un Cuisinier est un mortel
divin!’ Why should we not be proud of our knowledge in cookery? It is
the soul of festivity at all times, and to all ages. How many marriages
have been the consequence of meeting at dinner? How much good fortune
has been the result of a good supper? At what moment of our existence
are we happier than at table? There hatred and animosity are lulled
to sleep, and pleasure alone reigns. Here the cook, by his skill and
attention, anticipates our wishes in the happiest selection of the best
dishes and decorations. Here our wants are satisfied, our minds and
bodies invigorated, and ourselves qualified for the high delights of
love, music, poetry, dancing, and other pleasures; and is he, whose
talents have produced these happy effects, to rank no higher in the
scale of man than a common servant? [Note: Ude, verbatim.]
“‘Yes,’ cries the venerable professor himself, in a virtuous and
prophetic paroxysm of indignant merit--‘yes, my disciples, if you adopt,
and attend to the rules I have laid down, the self-love of mankind will
consent at last, that cookery shall rank in the class of the sciences,
and its professors deserve the name of artists!’” [Note: Ibid.]
“My dear, dear Sir,” exclaimed Guloseton, with a kindred glow, “I
discover in you a spirit similar to my own. Let us drink long life to
the venerable Ude!”
“I pledge you, with all my soul,” said I, filling my glass to the brim.
“What a pity,” rejoined Guloseton, “that Ude, whose practical science
was so perfect, should ever have written, or suffered others to write,
the work published under his name; true it is that the opening part
which you have so feelingly recited, is composed with a grace, a charm
beyond the reach of art; but the instructions are vapid, and frequently
so erroneous, as to make me suspect their authenticity; but, after
all, cooking is not capable of becoming a written science--it is the
philosophy of practice!”
“Ah! by Lucullus,” exclaimed I, interrupting my host, “what a visionary
bechamelle! Oh, the inimitable sauce; these chickens are indeed worthy
of the honour of being dressed. Never, my lord, as long as you live, eat
a chicken in the country; excuse a pun, you will have foul fare.”
“‘J’ai toujours redoute la volaille perfide, Qui brave les efforts
d’une dent intrepide; Souvent par un ami, dans ses champs entraine.
J’ai reconnu le soir le coq infortune Qui m’avait le matin a l’aurore
naissante Reveille brusquement de sa voix glapissante; Je l’avais admire
dans le sein de la cour, Avec des yeux jaloux, j’avais vu son amour.
Helas! la malheureux, abjurant sa tendresse, Exercait a souper sa fureur
vengeresse.’
“Pardon the prolixity of my quotation for the sake of its value.”
“I do, I do,” answered Guloseton, laughing at the humour of the lines:
till, suddenly checking himself, he said, “we must be grave, Mr. Pelham,
it will never do to laugh. What would become of our digestions?”
“True,” said I, relapsing into seriousness; “and if you will allow me
one more quotation, you will see what my author adds with regard to any
abrupt interruption.
“‘Defendez que personne au milieu d’un banquet, Ne vous vienne donner
un avis indiscret, Ecartez ce facheux qui vers vous s’achemine, Rien ne
doit deranger l’honnete homme qui dine.”
“Admirable advice,” said Guloseton, toying with a filet mignon de
poulet. “Do you remember an example in the Bailly of Suffren, who, being
in India, was waited upon by a deputation of natives while he was at
dinner. ‘Tell them,’ said he, ‘that the Christian religion peremptorily
forbids every Christian, while at table, to occupy himself with any
earthly subject, except the function of eating.’ The deputation retired
in the profoundest respect at the exceeding devotion of the French
general.”
“Well,” said I, after we had chuckled gravely and quietly, with the care
of our digestion before us, for a few minutes--“well, however good the
invention was, the idea is not entirely new, for the Greeks esteemed
eating and drinking plentifully, a sort of offering to the gods; and
Aristotle explains the very word, THoinai, or feasts, by an etymological
exposition, ‘that it was thought a duty to the gods to be drunk;’ no
bad idea of our classical patterns of antiquity. Polypheme, too, in
the Cyclops of Euripides, no doubt a very sound theologian, says, his
stomach is his only deity; and Xenophon tells us, that as the Athenians
exceeded all other people in the number of their gods, so they exceeded
them also in the number of their feasts. May I send your lordship an
ortolan?”
“Pelham, my boy,” said Guloseton, whose eyes began to roll and twinkle
with a brilliancy suited to the various liquids which ministered to
their rejoicing orbs; “I love you for your classics. Polypheme was a
wise fellow, a very wise fellow, and it was a terrible shame in Ulysses
to put out his eye. No wonder that the ingenious savage made a deity
of his stomach; to what known and visible source, on this earth, was he
indebted for a keener enjoyment--a more rapturous and a more constant
delight? No wonder he honoured it with his gratitude, and supplied it
with his peace-offerings;--let us imitate so great an example:--let us
make our digestive receptacles a temple, to which we will consecrate the
choicest goods we possess;--let us conceive no pecuniary sacrifice too
great, which procures for our altar an acceptable gift;--let us deem it
an impiety to hesitate, if a sauce seems extravagant, or an ortolan
too dear; and let our last act in this sublunary existence, be a solemn
festival in honour of our unceasing benefactor.”
“Amen to your creed,” said I: “edibilatory Epicurism holds the key to
all morality: for do we not see now how sinful it is to yield to an
obscene and exaggerated intemperance?--would it not be to the last
degree ungrateful to the great source of our enjoyment, to overload it
with a weight which would oppress it with languor, or harass it with
pain; and finally to drench away the effects of our impiety with some
nauseous potation which revolts it, tortures it, convulses, irritates,
enfeebles it, through every particle of its system? How wrong in us to
give way to anger, jealousy, revenge, or any evil passion; for does not
all that affects the mind operate also upon the stomach; and how can we
be so vicious, so obdurate, as to forget, for a momentary indulgence,
our debt to what you have so justly designated our perpetual
benefactor?”
“Right,” said Lord Guloseton, “a bumper to the morality of the stomach.”
The desert was now on the table. “I have dined well,” said Guloseton,
stretching his legs with an air of supreme satisfaction; “but--” and
here my philosopher sighed deeply--“we cannot dine again till to-morrow!
Happy, happy, happy common people, who can eat supper! Would to Heaven,
that I might have one boon--perpetual appetite--a digestive Houri,
which renewed its virginity every time it was touched. Alas! for the
instability of human enjoyment. But now that we have no immediate hope
to anticipate, let us cultivate the pleasures of memory. What thought
you of the veau a la Dauphine?”
“Pardon me if I hesitate at giving my opinion, till I have corrected my
judgment by yours.”
“Why, then, I own I was somewhat displeased--disappointed as it
were--with that dish; the fact is, veal ought to be killed in its very
first infancy; they suffer it to grow to too great an age. It becomes a
sort of hobbydehoy, and possesses nothing of veal, but its insipidity,
or of beef, but its toughness.”
“Yes,” said I, “it is only in their veal, that the French surpass us;
their other meats want the ruby juices and elastic freshness of ours.
Monsieur L--allowed this truth, with a candour worthy of his vast mind.
Mon Dieu! what claret!--what a body! and, let me add, what a soul,
beneath it! Who would drink wine like this? it is only made to taste. It
is like first love--too pure for the eagerness of enjoyment; the rapture
it inspires is in a touch, a kiss. It is a pity, my lord, that we do
not serve perfumes at dessert: it is their appropriate place. In
confectionary (delicate invention of the Sylphs,) we imitate the forms
of the rose and the jessamine; why not their odours too? What is nature
without its scents?--and as long as they are absent from our desserts,
it is in vain that the Bard exclaims, that--
“‘L’observateur de la belle Nature, S’extasie en voyant des fleurs en
confiture.’”
“It is an exquisite idea of yours,” said Guloseton--“and the next time
you dine here, we will have perfumes. Dinner ought to be a reunion of
all the senses--
“‘Gladness to the ear, nerve, heart, and sense.’”
There was a momentary pause. “My lord,” said I, “what a lusty
lusciousness in this pear! it is like the style of the old English
poets. What think you of the seeming good understanding between Mr.
Gaskell and the Whigs?”
“I trouble myself little about it,” replied Guloseton, helping himself
to some preserves--“politics disturb the digestion.”
“Well,” thought I, “I must ascertain some point in this man’s character
easier to handle than his epicurism: all men are vain: let us find out
the peculiar vanity of mine host.”
“The Tories,” said I, “seem to think themselves exceedingly secure; they
attach no importance to the neutral members; it was but the other day,
Lord--told me that he did not care a straw for Mr.--, notwithstanding he
possessed four votes. Heard you ever such arrogance?”
“No, indeed,” said Golouston, with a lazy air of indifference--“are you
a favourer of the olive?”
“No,” said I, “I love it not; it hath an under taste of sourness, and
an upper of oil, which do not make harmony to my palate. But, as I was
saying, the Whigs, on the contrary, pay the utmost deference to their
partizans; and a man of fortune, rank, and parliamentary influence,
might have all the power without the trouble of a leader.”
“Very likely,” said Guloseton, drowsily.
“I must change my battery,” thought I; but while I was meditating a new
attack, the following note was brought me:--
“For God’s sake, Pelham, come out to me: I am waiting in the street to
see you; come directly, or it will be too late to render me the service
I would ask of you.
“R. Glanville.”
I rose instantly. “You must excuse me, Lord Guloseton, I am called
suddenly away.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the gourmand; “some tempting viand--post prandia
Callirhoe.”
“My good lord,” said I, not heeding his insinuation--“I leave you with
the greatest regret.”
“And I part from you with the same; it is a real pleasure to see such a
person at dinner.”
“Adieu! my host--‘Je vais vivre et manger en sage.’”