THE SEPTUAGENARIAN EPICURE

MY DEAR ELOISE,--Having now arrived at the conclusion of our labors, during which you have in many instances thought me rather severe, and perhaps too _exigeant_ in my remarks, especially about the selection, preparation, and cooking of food in general, which even to the last I must maintain, that for want of judgment and a little care, the greatest part of the nutrition of our aliments is often destroyed, which constitutes a considerable waste, being of no good to any one, but an evil to everybody; and when you consider the monstrous quantity of food our fragile bodies consume in this sublunary sphere during the course of our life, the truth of my observation will be more apparent, and make you agree with me that in every instance people ought really to devote more time, care, and personal attention to their daily subsistence, it being the most expensive department through life of human luxury. I shall, for example, give you a slight and correct idea of it, which I am confident you never before conceived. For this I shall propose to take seventy years of the life of an epicure, beyond which age many of that class of "bon vivants" arrive, and even above eighty, still in the full enjoyment of degustation, &c., (for example, Talleyrand, Cambacérès, Lord Sefton, &c.;) if the first of the said epicures when entering on the tenth spring of his extraordinary career, had been placed on an eminence, say, the top of Primrose hill, and had had exhibited before his infantine eyes the enormous quantity of food his then insignificant person would destroy before he attained his seventy-first year,--first, he would believe it must be a delusion; then, secondly, he would inquire, where the money could come from to purchase so much luxurious extravagance? But here I shall leave the pecuniary expenses on one side, which a man of wealth can easily surmount when required. So now, dearest, for the extraordinary fact: imagine on the top of the above-mentioned hill a rushlight of a boy ju

_Breakfast._--Three quarters of a pint of coffee, four ounces of bread, one ounce of butter, two eggs, or four ounces of meat, or four ounces of fish.

_Lunch._--Two ounces of bread, two ounces of meat, or poultry, or game, two ounces of vegetables, and half a pint of beer or a glass of wine.

_Dinner._--Half a pint of soup, a quarter of a pound of fish, half a pound of meat, a quarter of a pound of poultry, a quarter of a pound of savory dishes or game, two ounces of vegetables, two ounces of bread, two ounces of pastry or roasts, half an ounce of cheese, a quarter of a pound of fruit, one pint of wine, one glass of liqueur, one cup of coffee or tea; at night one glass of spirits and water.

Now that I have given you these important details, perhaps you will give me some little credit for my exaction and severity respecting the attention which ought to be daily paid to the indispensable and useful art of cookery by our middle classes. I shall also observe to you, that those masses of provisions above described in the exposé of sixty years, have been selected, dressed, and served, by scientific hands, every real epicure choosing through life the best cook, and consequently the best of provisions, which, had they have fallen into the hands of inexperienced persons, would very likely have wasted one third, thereby increasing the expenses, and never giving any real satisfaction to the consumer; therefore let us act in a small way as becomes us, as it is for the wealthy according to their incomes; let every housekeeper devote more time to the study of domestic and practical economy; in many instances it will increase their incomes as well as their daily comforts, as I remarked to you that the pleasures of the table being not only the most expensive part of human luxury, but also the soul of sociability, require more attention bestowed upon it than is done at the present day.

Fare you well,