that those who treat and insult him pay for their
laughter, and that he keeps his money while they
enjoy their jest.

His chief policy consists in selecting some dish
from every course, and recommending it to the company,
with an air so decisive, that no one ventures
to contradict him. By this practice he acquires at a
feast a kind of dictatorial authority; his taste
becomes the standard of pickles and seasoning, and he
is venerated by the professors of epicurism, as the
only man who understands the niceties of cookery.

Whenever a new sauce is imported, or any
innovation made in the culinary system, he procures the
earliest intelligence, and the most authentick
receipt; and, by communicating his knowledge under
proper injunctions of secrecy, gains a right of tasting
his own dish whenever it is prepared, that he
may tell whether his directions have been fully
understood.

By this method of life Gulosulus has so impressed
on his imagination the dignity of feasting, that he
has no other topick of talk, or subject of meditation.
His calendar is a bill of fare; he measures the year
by successive dainties. The only common-places of
his memory are his meals; and if you ask him at what
time an event happened, he considers whether he
heard it after a dinner of turbot or venison. He