Poet. You are not his majesty's confectioner, are you?

Cook. No, but one that has a good title to the room, his Master-cook. What are you, sir?

Poet. The most unprofitable of his servants, I, sir, the Poet. A kind of a Christmas ingine: one that is used at least once a year, for a trifling instrument of wit, or so.

Cook. Were you ever a cook?

Poet. A cook! no, surely.

Cook. Then you can be no good poet: for a good poet differs nothing at all from a master-cook. Either's art is the wisdom of the mind.

Poet. As how, sir?

Cook. Expect. I am by my place, to know how to please the palates of the guests; so you are to know the palates of the times; study the several tastes, what every nation, the Spaniard, the Dutch, the French, the Walloun, the Neapolitan, the Britain, the Sicilian, can expect from you.

Poet. That were a heavy and hard task, to satisfy Expectation, who is so severe an exactress of duties; ever a tyrannous mistress, and most times a pressing enemy.

Cook. She is a powerful great lady, sir, at all times, and must be satisfied: so must her sister, madam Curiosity, who hath as dainty a palate as she; and these will expect.

Poet. But what if they expect more than they understand?

Cook. That's all one, master Poet, you are bound to satisfy them. For there is a palate of the understanding, as well as of the senses. The taste is

taken with good relishes, the sight with fair objects, the hearing with delicate sounds, the smelling with pure scents, the feeling with soft and plump bodies, but the understanding with all these; for all which

you must begin at the kitchen. There the art of Poetry was learn'd, and found out, or nowhere; and the same day with the art of Cookery.

Poet. I should have given it rather to the cellar, if my suffrage had been ask'd.

Cook. O, you are for the oracle of the bottle, I see; hogshead Trismegistus; he is your Pegasus. Thence flows the spring of your muses, from that hoof.

Seduced Poet, I do say to thee——

A boiler, range, and dresser were the fountains
Of all the knowledge in the universe,

And that's the kitchen. What! a master-cook!

Thou dost not know the man, nor canst thou know

him,

Till thou hast serv'd some years in that deep school,
That's both the nurse and mother of the arts,
And heard'st him read, interpret, and demonstrate.
A master-cook!' why, he's the man of men,
For a professor! he designs, he draws,
He paints, he carves, he builds, he fortifies,
Makes citadels of curious fowl and fish,

Some he dry-ditches, some motes round with broths;
Mounts marrow-bones; cuts fifty-angled custards;
Rears bulwark pies; and, for his outer works,
He raiseth ramparts of immortal crust;
And teacheth all the tactics at one dinner :2

1 A master-cook! &c.] Cartwright has reduced this into practice in his Ordinary, and furnished out a military dinner with great pleasantry, at the expense of Have-at-all, who is desirous to grow valiant, as lawyers do learned, by eating. This speech is also closely imitated by the master-cook in Fletcher's tragedy of Rollo Duke of Normandy.

2 And teacheth all the tactics at one dinner.] This seems to be taken from the poet Posidippus, who in Athenæus compares a good cook to a good general:

Αγαθου στρατηγου διαφέρειν ουδεν δοκει.

And Athenion in like manner (see Athenæus, 1. 14. c. 23) attributes to the art of cookery, and kitchen-philosophy, what the poets

What ranks, what files, to put the dishes in,
The whole art military! then he knows
The influence of the stars, upon his meats;
And all their seasons, tempers, qualities,
And so to fit his relishes, and sauces!

He has Nature in a pot, 'bove all the chemists,
Or bare-breech'd brethren of the Rosy-cross!
He is an architect, an inginer,

A soldier, a physician, a philosopher,

A general mathematician!

Poet. It is granted.

Cook. And that you may not doubt him for a PoetPoet. This fury shews, if there were nothing else; And 'tis divine!

Cook. Then, brother poet.

Poet. Brother.

Cook. I have a suit.

Poet. What is it?

Cook. Your device.

Poet. As you came in upon me, I was then

assign to the legislators of society, and the first founders of states and commonwealths. WHAL.

The Greek poet is truly excellent; and the apparent seriousness with which his cook descants on the importance of his profession adds greatly to its genuine humour. The concluding lines are very amusing:

Καταρχομεθ' ἡμεῖς οἱ μαγειροι, θυομεν,
Σπονδας ποιουμεν, τω μάλιστα τους θεούς
Ήμιν ὑπακούειν, δια το ταυθ' ευρηκεναι
Τα μαλιστα συντείνοντα προς το ζην καλως.
"We slay the victims,

We pour the free libations, and to us
The gods themselves lend a propitious ear;
And, for our special merits, scatter blessings
On all the human race, because from us
And from our art, mankind was first induced
To live the life of reason."

There is no translating the sly felicity of n kaλws, which looks, at the same time, to good morals and good eating.

Offering the argument, and this it is.

Cook. Silence!

Poet. [reads.] The mighty Neptune, mighty in his styles,

And large command of waters, and of isles;
Not as the "lord and sovereign of the seas,"
But "chief in the art of riding," late did please,
To send his Albion forth, the most his own,
Upon discovery, to themselves best known,
Through Celtiberia; and, to assist his course,
Gave him his powerful Manager of Horse,
With divine Proteus, father of disguise,
To wait upon them with his counsels wise,
In all extremes. His great commands being done,
And he desirous to review his son,

He doth dispatch a floating isle, from hence,
Unto the Hesperian shores, to waft him thence.
Where, what the arts were, us'd to make him stay,
And how the Syrens woo'd him by the way,
What monsters he encounter'd on the coast,
How near our general joy was to be lost,*
Is not our subject now; though all these make
The present gladness greater, for their sake.
But what the triumphs are, the feast, the sport,
And proud solemnities of Neptune's court,
Now he is safe, and Fame's not heard in vain,
But we behold our happy pledge again.

3 With divine Proteus, &c.] This, I believe, was sir Francis Cottington. He had been secretary to sir Charles Cornwallis, and was, at this time, private secretary to the prince; he was well versed in political affairs, and particularly in those of Spain, where he had resided many years in a public capacity.

4 How near our general joy was to be lost.] This alludes to the storm which took place on the Spanish coast, and in which the prince, together with a number of the Spanish nobility who came to take leave of him, was nearly wrecked. The other dangers which Charles is said to have encountered are probably exaggerated by the "poet."

That with him, loyal Hippius is return'd,
Who for it, under so much envy, burn'd

5

With his own brightness, till her starv'd snakes saw
What Neptune did impose, to him was law.
Cook. But why not this, till now?

Poet. -It was not time,

To mix this music with the vulgar's chime.
Stay, till the abortive, and extemporal din
Of balladry, were understood a sin,

Minerva cried; that, what tumultuous verse,
Or prose could make, or steal, they might rehearse,
And every songster had sung out his fit;

That all the country, and the city wit,

Of bells and bonfires, and good cheer was spent,
And Neptune's guard had drunk all that they meant ;
That all the tales and stories now were old

Of the sea-monster Archy, or grown cold:
The Muses then might venture, undeterr'd,
For they love, then, to sing, when they are heard.
Cook. I like it well, 'tis handsome; and I have
Something would fit this. How do you present them?
In a fine island, say you?

Poet. Yes, a Delos:

Such, as when fair Latona fell in travail,

5 That with him loyal Hippius is return'd.] By Hippius is meant the duke of Buckingham, master of the horse to James I., who accompanied the prince into Spain, to which this speech alludes. WHAL.

6 Of the sea-monster, Archy.] Archibald Armstrong, the court jester, who followed the prince into Spain. Charles seems to have taken a strange fancy to this buffoon, who joined the surly savageness of the bear to the mischievous tricks of the monkey. Howell, who was at Madrid during the prince's visit, says, in one of his letters, "Our cousin Archy hath more privilege here, than any, for he often goes with his fool's coat where the Infanta is with her Meninos and ladies of honour, and keeps a blowing and blustering among them, and flurts out what he lists." In conclusion, he gives a specimen of his ill-manners, which must have been offensive in the highest degree. Book i. let. 18.