The kitchen is his hell, and he the devil in it, where his meat and he
fry together. His revenues are showered down from the fat of the land,
and he interlards his own grease among, to help the drippings. Choleric
he is not by nature so much as his art, and it is a shrewd temptation
that the chopping-knife is so near. His weapons ofter offensive are a
mess of hot broth and scalding water, and woe be to him that comes in
his way. In the kitchen he will domineer and rule the roast in spite of
his master, and curses in the very dialect of his calling. His labour is
mere blustering and fury, and his speech like that of sailors in a
storm, a thousand businesses at once; yet, in all this tumult, he does
not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench
it. He is never a good Christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked
him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and
dispossessed. His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds
strange fabrics in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the
assault of valiant teeth, and like Darius' palace in one banquet
demolished. He is a pitiless murderer of innocents, and he mangles poor
fowls with unheard-of tortures; and it is thought the martyrs'
persecutions were devised from hence: sure we are, St. Lawrence's
gridiron came out of his kitchen. His best faculty is at the dresser,
where he seems to have great skill in the tactics, ranging his dishes in
order military, and placing with great discretion in the fore-front
meats more strong and hardy, and the more cold and cowardly in the rear;
as quaking tarts and quivering custards, and such milk-sop dishes, which
scape many times the fury of the encounter. But now the second course is
gone up and he down in the cellar, where he drinks and sleeps till four
o'clock[67] in the afternoon, and then returns again to his regiment.