An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a
private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public
ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money. In the former
case, it is well known that the entertainer provides what fare he pleases;
and though this should be very indifferent, and utterly disagreeable to
the taste of his company, they must not find any fault; nay, on the
contrary, good breeding forces them outwardly to approve and to commend
whatever is set before them. Now the contrary of this happens to the
master of an ordinary. Men who pay for what they eat will insist on
gratifying their palates, however nice and whimsical these may prove; and
if everything is not agreeable to their taste, will challenge a right to
censure, to abuse, and to d—n their dinner without controul.
To prevent, therefore, giving offence to their customers by any such
disappointment, it hath been usual with the honest and well-meaning host
to provide a bill of fare which all persons may peruse at their first
entrance into the house; and having thence acquainted themselves with the
entertainment which they may expect, may either stay and regale with what
is provided for them, or may depart to some other ordinary better
accommodated to their taste.
As we do not disdain to borrow wit or wisdom from any man who is capable
of lending us either, we have condescended to take a hint from these
honest victuallers, and shall prefix not only a general bill of fare to
our whole entertainment, but shall likewise give the reader particular
bills to every course which is to be served up in this and the ensuing
volumes.
The provision, then, which we have here made is no other than Human
Nature. Nor do I fear that my sensible reader, though most luxurious
in his taste, will start, cavil, or be offended, because I have named but
one article. The tortoise—as the alderman of Bristol, well learned
in eating, knows by much experience—besides the delicious calipash
and calipee, contains many different kinds of food; nor can the learned
reader be ignorant, that in human nature, though here collected under one
general name, is such prodigious variety, that a cook will have sooner
gone through all the several species of animal and vegetable food in the
world, than an author will be able to exhaust so extensive a subject.
An objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more delicate, that this
dish is too common and vulgar; for what else is the subject of all the
romances, novels, plays, and poems, with which the stalls abound? Many
exquisite viands might be rejected by the epicure, if it was a sufficient
cause for his contemning of them as common and vulgar, that something was
to be found in the most paltry alleys under the same name. In reality,
true nature is as difficult to be met with in authors, as the Bayonne ham,
or Bologna sausage, is to be found in the shops.
But the whole, to continue the same metaphor, consists in the cookery of
the author; for, as Mr Pope tells us—
The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten
at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part, and some
of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town. Where,
then, lies the difference between the food of the nobleman and the porter,
if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf, but in the seasoning, the
dressing, the garnishing, and the setting forth? Hence the one provokes
and incites the most languid appetite, and the other turns and palls that
which is the sharpest and keenest.
In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less
in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up. How
pleased, therefore, will the reader be to find that we have, in the
following work, adhered closely to one of the highest principles of the
best cook which the present age, or perhaps that of Heliogabalus, hath
produced. This great man, as is well known to all lovers of polite eating,
begins at first by setting plain things before his hungry guests, rising
afterwards by degrees as their stomachs may be supposed to decrease, to
the very quintessence of sauce and spices. In like manner, we shall
represent human nature at first to the keen appetite of our reader, in
that more plain and simple manner in which it is found in the country, and
shall hereafter hash and ragoo it with all the high French and Italian
seasoning of affectation and vice which courts and cities afford. By these
means, we doubt not but our reader may be rendered desirous to read on for
ever, as the great person just above-mentioned is supposed to have made
some persons eat.
Having premised thus much, we will now detain those who like our bill of
fare no longer from their diet, and shall proceed directly to serve up the
first course of our history for their entertainment.