ON THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE. So down they sat, And to their viands fell; nor seemingly I HAVE long sought for the reasons. Taking the subject in the plainest point of view, we should begin with infancy, and see what honest unsophisticated Nature says and does. The first cry of childhood is for food; and when every other appetite is dead, that most wholesome of all continues to the extremity of (healthy) old age. Nature thus gives her broadest sanction to this indulgence, and we may well exclaim, with the poet O foolishness of men ! that lend their ears Children, in their innocence, are the greatest gluttons in the world, except old people perhaps. I have not examined the latter so closely; but neither one nor the other are slaves to that artificial refinement which throws a bar against their comforts: the first have not learned these qualms, and the latter forget them. Amidst all the joys of my early life, some of the happiest were those snatched by stealth in the larder, the dairy, and the housekeeper's room; and I often taste in fancy the identical smack on my palate, which followed the surreptitious delights of some violated cream-bowl or pot of preserves. I appeal to all my candid readers-to all Milton. at least who had the good fortune of passing their years of youth in the country-who, with their brothers and sisters, (for there lay the charm after all,) a joyous little knot of freebooters, have stolen into the orchard by a passage scratched through the white-thorn hedge, have lived hours entrenched in the turnip-field, or the lofty sanctuary of the bean-rows; sucked the new-laid eggs in the hen-house; made puddings of raw peas with a paste of bread mixed up with pump-water, or river-water, or ditch-water-whatever came first ;lain listless under a gooseberry bush, nibbling the large, hairy green, or bursting red fruit, like young goats browsing on heath-blossoms; or stolen a march on the dairy-maid, and laughed at her from behind the hedge, when she found the cows had been milked. And then the blackberries-the crab-apples the sloes-the sop in the pan ! But why raise in my readers these mouthwatering reminiscences? why conjure up a feast of memory and flow of recollections,scarcely less undefined and shadowy than those of reason or the soul? I am not a very old man, but old enough to have grown garrulous and discursive-old enough to know that he who has eaten the bread of bitterness, and drunk the waters of disappointment, may be allowed the indulgence of a retrospect of whatever was enjoyment. I therefore claim the privilege of dwelling awhile on my boyish days. Well do I remember when I thought the fate of Nebuchadnezzar by no means an unquestionable punishment; when I calculated the delights of his liberty, ranging the pastures with the cattle, eating clover to his heart's content, rolling on the grass, splashing in the rivulets, jumping the hedges, and learning no lessons! Thus balancing the phytivorous advantages of his degradation with the splendid miseries of his throne and greatness, I was very much tempted to consider him most worthy of pity when the term of probation expired. But passing by the vapoury abstractions of my youthful mind, which led me into fanciful contemplations such as this, and turning to a less mighty personage than the last, I will regale my recollection with the picture of Old Edward, my father's butler. I have bim this instant in my eye: his sleek hair combed nicely on his forehead, his rosy cheeks, carbuncled nose, liquorish lip-smacking smile, and true bon vivant glance, which measures the merit and tastes by anticipation every dish on the table. He had a noble protuberance of belly too, a real holiday rotundity, such as might be thought the legitimate consequence of earlier and better times, when "our ancestors ran Christmas day, New-year's day, and Twelfth-night, all into one, and kept the wassail-bowl flowing the whole time." Such a man was Old Edward the living epitome of goodnature and good-living, the breathing personification of enjoyment, the moral type of merry-making, the Falstaff of real life, the very counterpart of Spenser's October, -"Full of merrie glee, The while his nowle was totty of the must Which he was treading in the wine fat's see, And of the joyous oyle, whose gentle gust Made him so full of frolic and of lust." I verily believe that this old servant was the primary cause of my relishing, as I have done through life, the good things of life. He used to secrete for me (and himself) the nicest imaginable tit-bits; used often and often to tip me his benevolent wink, as I passed the pantry-door; and many were the moments that we spent there, in hail-fellow-well-met companionship, discussing the remains of tarts, pies, and puddings, "In many a bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out." His example was of one real benefit to me, however-be had no selfishness in him, and he taught me to despise gluttony, for he could never eat for eating sake. He would sooner let his most delicate morsels rot in a crust of mouldiness than devour them alone. I believe that it is from regard for this poor fellow's memory that I am so fond of corpulence. I cry out continually with Cæsar, "Give me the man that is fat!" I love the look of an alderman-a stage-coachman-the king's butler, and the king himself; because the very paunch of each and every of them seems to tell a round unvarnished tale of good fellowship. Yet I think poor Edward had more of the thing itself stamped on his countenance than any of them. He had not a wrinkle or care-worn line on his cheeks or forehead.-But enough of him! My heart and my eyes are full. Enough of myself too! I will quit my egotism, and speak generally. What then, let me ask you, candid reader, what was the happiest hour of the day at school? Not the dinnerhour, most assuredly-for we remember well what rough, tough stuff we had, all of us; little meat, and plenty of pudding-and such pudding! No, the happiest hour of the four and twenty was invariably that in which we skulked in the barn, or hay-loft, or a corner of the shrubbery, (two or three sworn friends,) and fell upon the purchase of our joint quotas of pocketmoney-some savoury sausages bought at the porkshop hard by-or a hot loaf (slipped in, for the fee of a penny, by our trusty and well-beloved cousin, the baker's boy) with a huge lump of butter, bursting in liquified luxuriousness through the yawning rents which we made in the smoking quartern. And down the feast! if a pot of porter or bottle-ale washed Next to the butter and the baker's boy aforesaid, (I believe I have ego once more, but I cannot get on in the third person or second person, singular or plural)-I have to thank the poets for my real relish for the pleasures of the table. I have remarked that all of that tribe, whatever their language or their subject, have contrived some how or other to bring in, some where or other, the praise and recommendation of feasting. It was not till my afteryears that I began to marvel, how the deuce these rhyming epicureans had that particular branch of imagination so common and so forcible. But now for the simple and self-evident delights of feasting. I will speak of it in its most elevated associations, as a raiser of the spirits and a warmer of the heart. I shall not press the well-known fact, that feasting had been in most ages and countries a sine qua non in all arrangements, religious, political, or amatory-whether sacrifices to the gods, coronation feasts, ministerial dinners, or wedding fêtes champêtres. I forbear to quote heathen authorities, and shall simply let the minds of my readers repose on the contemplation of the installation feast of an English archbishop, in the reign of one of our Edwards, when there was a consumption of 104 oxen, 1000 sheep, 2000 pigs, 104 peacocks, and 400 swans ! Neither shall I cite the poetry, even of scripture, for I shrink from the possibility of connecting it with a trivial subject; but I shall draw on the sublimest of profane writers, Milton-and hastily recal to my readers the reception which our first parents gave to the angel Raphael, in Paradise. They will remember that Eve was busied, on her angel's approach, preparing For dinner savoury fruits, of taste to please I need not recapitulate the abundant bill of fare, containing all the delicious fruits "in coat rough or smooth rin'd," Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields And every one will remember, or can Minister'd naked, and their flowing cups My motto for this article will be recognised as taken from the description of this exquisite repast. From that it will be seen how the greatest and most pious of bards looked upon the affect15 ATHENEUM VOL. 12. ed niceties of abstinence, and what a What neat repast shall feast us light and choice, The pleasures of the table adapt themselves to all situations and seasons, but may perhaps be best enjoyed in winter, when a good fire, a good dinner, good wine, and good company, form an assemblage of most surpassing delights. In the country, too, all this have not so many distractions to interis better felt than in town. We fere with our appetite or destroy it; small business, little politics, and no pastry-cooks' shops-those gluttonfostering, dinner-spoiling receptacles, where the consumers of pies and patties remind one of "the bevy of jolly, gossiping wenches" reproached by the fox in Sir Roger L'Estrange's fable, who "lay stuffing their guts with hens and capons, and not a word of the pudding!" No, no, give me the real charms of country fare and a hearty welcome at holiday times, and let me see as much as possible the revival of old English hospitality,-full plates, bumper-toasts, hob-nobbing, and the great hall thrown wide open, when, as Ben Jonson wrote to Sir Robert Wroth, "The rout of rural folk come thronging in] It will be perceived that I despise all illustration drawn from turtle-feasts, Lord Mayor's days, and the like, loving more to dwell on the repasts of the country people. The pleasures of these most unsophisticated members of the community have been ever deeply involved in feasts and carousings; not in their excesses, but in their simple and moderate participation. I do not include in that class the wood-ranging party in the seventh book of Virgil, whose sharp-set appetites did not spare even the adorea liba, if we can be lieve the authority of Iülus, who ex- ute to his good fellowship, but not a claims Quaffs syllabubs in cans." What a picture of social without sensual indulgence! But I confess myself better pleased with the more substantial enumeration of Herrick, "the most rural of our poets, who passed his life, like a bird, in singing and making love." Hear him! "Ye shall see first the large and cheefe And, to conclude the subject of country tastes, let me now quote the amorous Cuddy from Gray's first pas toral. "In good roast-beef my landlord sticks his knife, Proofs of the importance of the "jus divin" might be cited never-endingly; but my observations have turned rather upon solid than liquid delights. I shall only then allude to the great Czar Vladimir, who, when about to change the idolatrous worship of his country, balanced awhile in his choice of a new religion. He was ravished (says Gibbon) with the voluptuous delights of Mahometanism, but rejected the Koran, exclaiming "Wine is the joy of the Russians: no, no, we cannot live without wine !" Fill me a bumper then, I say, to the memory of the Czar Vladimir! a trib homage to excess. I am far from being the apologist of drunkenness or gluttony-and I say again, that moderate and honest indulgence is as distinct from that selfish enormity, as is the wholesome delight with which a hungry sportsman attacks a leg of mutton from the hellish voraciousness of Count Uglino, in Dante's Inferno, feeding on the skull of the Archbishop Ruggieri. Gluttony-one of the worst of solitary vices-is the bane of table pleasures. It concentrates all that is gross in nature with all that is unamiable in feeling, and unfits its victims for the not preach forbearance to a starving real enjoyment of a feast. I would man, for I know that "un ventre affame N'a point des oreilles :" but I believe that "If all the world Should in a pet of intemperance feed on pulse, Th' All-giver would be unthanked." Yes! I do believe that the Dispenser of all good placed us here with feelings to enjoy, and surrounded us with the good things of life for our enjoyment; that He gave us palates to be gratified, not tantalized; and that the best way to shew our gratitude is to take the goods which He provides us. Give me, then, the pleasures of the table, in their moral and physical meanings together. I care not whether it be in the cottage of a peasant, or a stately palace, set out like that of Comus, "with all manner of deliciousness." But, best of any, let me have, in my own humble mansion, the blessings of the table-my friends around me-plenty of cheer-thankfulness to the Giver-a happy mind-a clean cloth-and, crowning all, let "good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both!" I On the Characteristics of Natural Health. T is but too true that very few persons set a value upon health, if they are to be at any pains to obtain it; and that they esteem it a blessing only when they can have it for nothing. Nature has done all that lies in her power to facilitate our acquisition of this benefit. Animals, whom she has confined within a much narrower range than man, are subject to few diseases, and mostly attain the natural limits of their career without suffering much by the way. To man, on the other hand, she has given greater liberty, and he avails himself of it without knowing where to stop. The heart demands new pleasures, and the understanding invents them; deluded reason approves, and the will hurries him to their enjoyment, without his being aware of the misery into which they will lead him. As he was destined to be a free and a rational creature, Providence had no other method of keeping him in the paths of nature, which conduct through health to long life, than to confer upon him the discrimination necessary to enable him to recognise and avoid dangerous by-ways, and by reason to restrain the unruly passions, which are incessantly urging him into excesses. This discrimination we actually possess. Physicians preach up to us maxims of health which are cònsistent with reason, and which reason, gladly as she would do it, cannot annul: for she is in league with the passions which she cannot control, or at least treats them with as much indulgence as a mother does her spoiled child. This treason is our misfortune. Though Nature, solicitous for the welfare of man, gives to reason the most express commands against inordinate gratification, she performs her office too much like the custom-house officer who takes a bribe. When the passions knock for admittance, she indeed inquires," Are ye pernicious?" but they need only anawer-"No," and then present an intoxicating potion; her vigilance is lulled, and the illicit traffic encouraged. But for this wilful negligence men would be much more healthy than they are at present; it is in vain, however, to pity or to censure this misconduct, for,while there are human beings upon earth, we must not expect the case to be otherwise. Each avoids only what he fears; and he fears only such things as are disagreeable to his feelings, but disregards his own false heart, the blandishments of his passions, and the treachery of his reason. Besides this voluntary neglect of health by mankind, there is a natural obstacle to its enjoyment of the blessings of which I am treating, when its members are not so fortunate as to be born with a frame possessing the essential characteristics of health. It is this good-fortune more especially that I wish my fellow-creatures to possess. The health for which we are solely indebted to the performance of the duties prescribed by Nature, is a blessing that we may enjoy if we please. We have only to study those duties with attention, and we shall know the way to attain voluntary health. A poet, whose name I have forgotten, has some lines to this effect: When God created man, that he might not set limits to his happiness, he conferred on him the faculty of thought and said, "Be thou the architect of thine own felicity." Such is the answer I might justly expect, were I to importune Heaven to bestow on all my fellow-creatures a blessing, which seems to be so little prized, that we cheerfully sacrifice it to a momentary gratification. The diseases resulting from our deviations from the path of duty must not be laid to the charge of Heaven; and in regard to them, I would give the same advice to my readers as Bias, the Greek philosopher, did to the graceless sailors, who, in a tremendous tempest, implored the gods to save them from shipwreck: "Don't pray so loud," said he, "that the gods may not notice Our voluntary that you are here." misery is a natural consequence of our Ever anxious to combine the useful with the a musing, it gives us much pleasure to be able to announce a regular series of papers under this title from the pen of an eminent physician. |