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 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, Some he dry-ditches, some motes round with broths; 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, He has Nature in a pot, 'bove all the chemists, 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, We pour the free libations, and to us 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; He doth dispatch a floating isle, from hence, 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, 5 With his own brightness, till her starv'd snakes saw Poet. -It was not time, To mix this music with the vulgar's chime. Minerva cried; that, what tumultuous verse, That all the country, and the city wit, Of bells and bonfires, and good cheer was spent, Of the sea-monster Archy, or grown cold: 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. |