Liebig, in his work on"The Chemistry of Food," says: "Among all the arts known to man, there is none that enjoys a juster appreciation, and the products of which are more universally admired, than that concerned in the preparation of our food. Led by an instinct which has almost reached the dignity of conscious knowledge, and by the sense of taste which protects the health, the experienced cook, with respect to the choice, admixture, and preparation of food, has made acquisitions surpassing all that chemical and physiological science has done in regard to the doctrine or theory of nutrition."

"I do not yet despair," says another writer, " of seeing the day when the culinary science, like others, Will have its qualified professors." "The art of cookery," another observes, " is the analeptic part of the art of physic." Dr. Mandeville says, "Physicians should be good cooks, at least in theory."

Dr. Arbuthnot says - "The choice and measure of the materials of which our body is composed - of what we take daily by pounds, is, at least, of as much importance as what we take seldom and only by grains and spoonfuls. Count Rumford remarks: "In what art or science could improvements be made that would more powerfully contribute to increase the comforts and enjoyments of mankind?"

A quaint writer says truly: "The stomach is every man's master;" and Armstrong attributes to the good cook the useful knowledge:

"How best the fickle fabric to support Of mortal man; in healthful body, how A healthful mind the longest to maintain."

To prevent diseases is surely better than to cure them. The French enjoy a happy equilibrium of spirits more constantly than any other nation; Dr. Kitchiner says, it is because "their elastic stomachs, unimpaired by spirituous liquors, digest vigorously the food they render easily assimilable by cooking it sufficiently; doing half the work of digestion by fire and water, till

"The tender morsels on the palate melt, And all the force of cookery is felt."

The cardinal virtues of cookery are cleanliness, frugality, nourishment, and palatableness.

The term "gourmand" or "epicure," says a distinguished writer on the subject, is not synonymous with " glutton," who eats as long as he can sit, like the great eater of Kent, whom Fuller places among his worthies; telling us" he ate thirty dozen pigeons at one meal; at another, four score rabbits, and eighteen yards of black pudding, London measure:" nor does the term epicure suit a fastidious appetite only excited by dainties, such as the brains of peacocks or parrots, the tongues of thrushes or nightingales, etc. It means one who has good sense and good taste enough to relish food cooked according to scientific principles; so prepared that the palate be not offended, and that it be rendered easy of digestion. Thus the temperate man is the greatest epicure; for the perfection of enjoyment depends on the perfection of the faculties of mind and body.

The philosopher, Descartes, when a cavilling Marquis said: "What, do you philosophers eat dainties?" replied, "Do you think Providence made good things only for fools!" Boswell says, Dr. Johnson had nice discernment in the science of cookery, and talked of good eating with uncommon satisfaction.

Boileau says, the Norman conqueror William, bestowed portions of land on his favorite chief cook. The Doomsday Book records a grant to Robert Argyl-lon, for the service of "making in an earthen pot, in the kitchen of our lord the king, a mess called 'De la groute,'" - a kind of plum-porriclge - on the day of the coronation. This dish was served to king George IV., at his coronation.

The luxury of different ages has furnished many curiosities in cookery. Among the ancients, a porpus and wild boar were highly esteemed, and the swan was a dish of state; the crane was a dainty in William the Conqueror's time; and seals, curlews, herons, bitterns, and the peacock - this last, "the food of lovers and the meat of lords "- were fashionable at baronial entertainments. The peacock was stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, roasted and served whole; after it was dressed, being covered with the skin and feathers, the tail spread, and the beak and comb gilt. Some were covered with leaf-gold. These birds adorned English tables till the beginning of the seventeenth century.

The pie, full of living birds, was a favorite dish, and a common joke at old English feasts. The dwarf, Jeffrey Hudson, was served up in a cold pie about 1630, before King Charles, at the Duke of Buckingham's table. The baron of beef was a favorite of old English hospitality. Don Anthony, of Guevara, chronicler to Charles V., says, he saw at a feast," a horse roasted, a cat in jelly, lyzard in hot broth, and frogges fried, etc."

The Roman sauces described by Coelus Apicius, a celebrated Roman. epicure, who wrote a curious cookery book in Latin, and invented a soup made of the livers of a peculiar fish which sometimes sold at the rate of sixty dollars the pound - would be hardly more palatable to us than the black broth of the Spartans which caused the citizens of Sybaris to wonder no longer why the Spartans were so fearless of death. Yet one of the receipts of Apicius required the death of three or four dozen animals. The Esquimaux eat raw fish, and melted fat is a delicacy among Arctic natives. Many of the northern Indians eat the intestines and blood. Tartars feed on dogs, and some of the natives of Australia, Kew Holland, and other countries, were wont to regale themselves upon ants and worms, while mice were an African delicacy. Norwegians mixed the powdered bark of trees with meal to bake in cakes.

La Chapelle's Nouveau Cuisinier, published in 1748, mentions the cooking of a turkey in the shape of a football or a hedgehog; a shoulder of mutton in that of a beehive; an entree of pigeons in the form of a spider or a frog. Such whimsical harlequinade has now become old-fashioned, though the taste for decoration remains.

By a strange misconception, cookery has in all ages been intrusted to ignorant persons, who practise it without reference to those general principles which connect it with chemistry as much as other arts are allied to that science. Yet in the days of the patriarchs, the province of the cook, it seems, was not a servile one. A princess would not disdain to dress the lamb her lord had killed and brought from the flock. In Homer's time kings and princes killed their own cattle and cooked the flesh.

Perhaps the march of improvement may induce professors of gastronomy to elevate their calling by connecting its practice with the principles of science. The brewers and distillers of the present day are philosophical chemists, understanding the principles on which they act, and their processes are more certain, economical, and manageable than formerly; why may not cooks be philosophers? Why may not equal advantages be derived from the application of science to those arts which relate to the management of solid sustenance?

It has been said that the best books on cookery have been written by medical men.