is now a most accomplished fine gentleman, is an excellent judge of fashions, and can calculate the odds at any game as readily as Hoyle or Demoivre : the Alderman is the most knowing man upon 'Change; and understands the rise and fall of stocks better than any Jew. Both of them know the world, but with this difference, That one by his consummate knowledge has run out a large estate, while the other has raised a plumb by it. 0.

"WHAT cloying meat is love, when matrimony is the sauce to it!" says Sir John Brute. But if he had been married to such an Epicurean consort as I am joined with, those expressions, that savour of the kitchen, would have been real instead of metaphorical. We live in a land really flowing with milk and honey, and keep an house of entertainment for all comers and goers: we hardly ever sit down to table less in number than twenty or thirty; and very often to above double that number of dishes. In short, Sir, so much feasting has given me a surfeit.

There are, I see scattered up and down your papers, several accounts of the petty distresses and domestic concerns of private families. As you have listened to many complaints from husbands, I flatter myself, you will not refuse your attention to the humble remonstrance of a wife: being assured, that my only reason for thus serving up my dear lord as a new dish to gratify the public taste, is to check (if possible) his violent passion for giving his friends entertainments of another kind; which, if indulged much longer, must eat us out of house and home.

The magnificent feasts of Timon of Athens, or the stories of old English hospitality, would give you but a faint idea of the perpetual riot and luxury of our family. Our house is always stored with as large a quantity of provisions as a garrison in expectation of a siege, and those too of the dearest and most extravagant kind. Ortolans and woodcocks are as common as sparrows; and red mullets are scarce a greater rarity with us than gudgeons or sprats; while turtle and venison are regarded as branches of citizen-luxury, which scarce deserve notice among the many other delicacies in which we abound. Authors, they say, (you will pardon me, Mr. Town) are seldom admitted to great entertainments; and I can assure you, that it is not easy for any, but those who are present, to conceive the parade and extravagance displayed in our house. I myself am condemned to sit at the head of the table, while my lord is placed at the other end, in pain and uneasiness at my awkward mistakes in doing the honours. You must know, Sir, that I was bred up under an housewifely aunt in the country, who taught me to pickle and preserve; and gave me, as I thought, a tolerable notion of cookery. But, alas! though I understand plain boiled and roast, and have a very good notion of a pudding, I am often totally ignorant of the names and compositions of the delicacies before me; and have imagined fish to be fowl, and have mistaken a petit pattee for a plebeian mince-pie. In the mean time, my lord is displaying his exquisite taste, by deciding upon every dish, and pronouncing with a critical smack, upon the flavour of the wines; all the while not a little solicitous about the exactness of the Removes, and the duly adjusting the entremets. Claret, Burgundy, and Champagne abound like ale or small-beer; and even Hermitage and Tokay are swallowed with as little remorse as Port or Lisbon. To add to all this, is most absurdly introduced the French custom of serving in les Liqueurs; which consist of almost as many sorts as are contained in the advertisements from the Rich Cordial Warehouse. In a word, every common dinner with us is a feast; and when we have what my lord calls an entertainment, it is an absolute debauch.

But there is no part of this monstrous expence affects me so much as the vast sums ridiculously lavished on a desert. This piece of folly and extravagance could be nothing but the joint product of a Frenchman and a confectioner. After the gratification of the appetite with more substantial fare, this whipt-syllabub raree-shew is served up chiefly to feed the eye; but that the materials of which the desert is composed are as expensive as the several ingredients in the dinner; and I will leave you to your own method of rating the rest, after telling you, that my lord thinks himself an excellent economist, by having reduced the expence of the hothouse to a thousand per annum, which perhaps the admirers of exotic fruits will not think dear, since we have pine-apples in as great plenty as goldenpippins or nonpareils.

One would think that the first requisite in eating was extravagance; and that, in order to have any

thing very good, it must be produced at a time when it is out of season. Therefore one of the principal uses of our hot-house is to invert the order of nature, and to turn winter into summer. We should be ashamed to see pease upon our table while they are to be had at a common market; but we never spare any cost to provide a good crop, by the assistance of our hot-beds, at Christmas. We have no relish for cucumbers during the summer months, when they are no rarity; but we take care to have them forced in November. But my lord mostly prides himself on the improvements that he has made in his mushroom-beds, which he has at length brought to so great perfection, that by the help of horsedung, and throwing artificial sun-beams though a burning-glass, we can raise any quantity of mushrooms, of the right Italian kind, at two hours warning.

From the hot-house we may make a very natural transition to the kitchen; and as in the former every thing must be produced out of season, so every thing in the latter must undergo a strange matamorphosis. The ordinary distinctions of fish, flesh and fowl are quite destroyed; and nothing comes upon table under its proper form and appellation. It is impossible to conceive what vast sums are melted down into sauces! We have a cargo of hams every year from Westphalia, only to extract the Essence of them for our soups. Half a dozen turkies have been killed in one day, merely for the sake of the pinions; I have known a whole pond dragged to furnish a dish of Carps Palates: and ten legs of mutton mangled raw to make out a dish of Pope's Eyes.

The concomitant charges of the cellar, you will imagine are no less extravagant; and, indeed, it is not enough that we abound in the best French and Italian wines (which, by the bye, are purchased

:

on the spot at an extraordinary price) but we must have several other kinds of the highest value, and consequently of most delicious flavour; and though but a taste of each has been sipped round by the company, the same bottles must never be brought a second time upon table, but are secured as perquisites by the butler, who sells them to the merchant, who sells them back again to my lord. Besides these, his lordship has lately been at an immense charge in raising a Pinery, in order to try the experiment of making cyder of pine-apples; which he hopes to do at little more than treble the expence of Champagne. To this article I might also add the charge of his Ice-houses, for although these are stored with an home-commodity, originally of no value; yet I may venture to say, that every drop of water comes as dear to us as the most costly of our wines.

As all our liquors, I have told you, are of foreign growth, and all our dishes distinguished by foreign titles, you will readily conceive that our household is chiefly composed of foreigners. The Maitre d'hotel is a Frenchman; the butler out of livery, and his two under-butlers, are Frenchmen; the clerk of the kitchen is a Frenchman; and Monsieur Fricando, the head-cook, to be sure is a Frenchman. This gentleman never soils his fingers in touching the least bit of any thing; but gives his orders, (like a general) to four subalterns, who are likewise Frenchmen. The baker, the confectioner, the very scullions, and even the fellow that looks after the poultry, are all of them Frenchmen. These, you may be sure, are maintained at very high salaries; and though Monsieur Fricando had the pay of a captain in a marching regiment, my lord was forced to double his wages at the beginning of the war, and allow him the free exercise of his Religion to prevent his leaving the kingdom.