worse or better.

Yet this conflict of desires sometimes produces
wonderful efforts. To riot in far-fetched dishes, or
surfeit with unexhausted variety, and yet practise
the most rigid economy, is surely an art which may
justly draw the eyes of mankind upon them whose
industry or judgment has enabled them to attain it.
To him, indeed, who is content to break open the
chests, or mortgage the manours, of his ancestors,
that he may hire the ministers of excess at the highest
price, gluttony is an easy science; yet we often
hear the votaries of luxury boasting of the elegance
which they owe to the taste of others, relating with
rapture the succession of dishes with which their
cooks and caterers supply them; and expecting
their share of praise with the discoverers of arts and
the civilizers of nations. But to shorten the way to
convivial happiness, by eating without cost, is a
secret hitherto in few hands, but which certainly
deserves the curiosity of those whose principal
enjoyment is their dinner, and who see the sun rise
with no other hope than that they shall fill their
bellies before it sets.

Of them that have within my knowledge attempted
this scheme of happiness, the greater part
have been immediately obliged to desist; and some,
whom their first attempts flattered with success,
were reduced by degrees to a few tables, from which