During the Herculean labour of my tedious progress through these books, few of which afford the germ of a single idea, I have often wished that the authors of them had been satisfied with giving us the results of their own practice and experience, instead of idly perpetuating the errors, prejudices, and plagiarisms of their predecessors; the strange, and unaccountable, and uselessly extravagant farragoes and heterogeneous compositions which fill their pages, are combinations no rational being would ever think of either dressing or eating; and without ascertaining the practicability of preparing the receipts, and their fitness for food when done, they should never have ventured to recommend them to others: the reader of them will often put the same _quære_, as _Jeremy_, in Congreve's comedy of "_Love for Love_," when _Valentine_ observes, "There's a page doubled down in Epictetus that is a feast for an emperor.--_Jer._ Was Epictetus a real cook, or did he only write receipts?"
Half of the modern cookery books are made up with pages cut out of obsolete works, such as the "Choice Manual of Secrets," the "True Gentlewoman's Delight," &c. of as much use, in this age of refinement, as the following curious passage from "The Accomplished Lady's Rich Closet of Rarities, or Ingenious Gentlewoman's Delightful Companion," 12mo. London, 1653, chapter 7, page 42; which I have inserted in a note,[29-*] to give the reader a notion of the barbarous manners of the 16th century, with the addition of the arts of the confectioner, the brewer, the baker, the distiller, the gardener, the clear-starcher, and the perfumer, and how to make pickles, puff paste, butter, blacking, &c. together with my _Lady Bountiful's_ sovereign remedy for an inward bruise, and other ever-failing nostrums,--_Dr. Killemquick's_ wonder-working essence, and fallible elixir, which cures all manner of incurable maladies directly minute, _Mrs. Notable's_ instructions how to make soft pomatum, that will soon make more hair grow upon thy head, "than Dobbin, thy thill-horse, hath upon his tail," and many others equally invaluable!!!--the proper appellation for which would be "a dangerous budget of vulgar errors," concluding with a bundle of extracts from "the Gardener's Calendar," and "the Publican's Daily Companion."