pudding in a bag. There is a direction for frying mushrooms, which
were growing more into favour at the table than in the days when
Castelvetri, whom I cite in my monograph on Gardening, was among us.
Another dainty is an ox-palate pie.

Cooper's Preface is quaint, and surely modest enough. "Though the
cheats," says he, "of some preceding pieces that treated on this
subject (whose Title-pages, like the contents of a weekly Pamphlet,
promised much more than the Books performed) may have provided this
but a cold intertainment at its first coming abroad; yet I know it
will not stay long in the world, before every rational reader will
clear it of all alliance to those false pretenders. Ladies, forgive
my confidence, if I tell you, that I know this piece will prove your
favourite."

Yet Cooper's performance, in spite of its droll, self-complacent vein
in the address to the Reader, is a judicious and useful selection,
and was, in fact, far more serviceable to the middle-class gentry
than some of those which had gone before. It adapted itself to sundry
conditions of men; but it kept in view those whose purses were not
richly lined enough to pay for dainties and "subtleties." It is
pleasant to see that, after the countless centuries which had run
out since Arthur, the bag-pudding and hot-pot maintained their
ground--good, wholesome, country fare.

After the fall of the Monarchy in 1648, the _chef de cuisine_ probably
found his occupation gone, like a greater man before him; and the
world may owe to enforced repose this condescension to the pen by the
deposed minister of a king.