On your first coming into a family, lose no time in immediately getting into the good graces of your fellow-servants, that you may learn from them the customs of the kitchen, and the various rules and orders of the house; especially take care to be on good terms with the servant who waits at table; you will then hear how your work has pleased in the parlour, and be enabled to rectify any mistake: also request the favour of an interview with your employers, and beg of them to explain to you, as fully as possible, how they like their victuals dressed, whether much or little done, and of what complexion they wish the roasts, of a gold colour, or well browned, and if they like them frothed; of the soups and sauces, do they like them thick or thin, or white or brown, clean or full in the mouth, and what flavours they fancy, especially of spice and herbs; for it is impossible the most accomplished cook can please their palates, till she has first learned their particular taste*: always avoid over-dressing, or overseasoning, as it is a fault that cannot be mended*. It will save you infinite trouble and anxiety if you can prevail on your employers to use the "sauce-box," No. 463, hereinafter described in the chapter of sauces. With the help of this "delicious magazine of taste,' every one in company may flavour their soup and sauce, and adjust the vibrations of their palate, exactly to their own fancy: if the cook give a decided predominant and piquante flavour to a dish, to tickle the tongue of two or three visitors whose taste she knows, perhaps she may thereby make the dinner disgusting to all the other guests. Never undertake more work than you are quite certain you can do to perfection; and if you are ordered to prepare a larger dinner than you think you can send up with ease and neatness, or dress any dish you are not acquainted † with, rather than run the risk of spoiling a single dish, by which, perhaps, you may lose all your credit, request your employers to let you have some help, for it requires no small care and contrivance to have all things done as they should be, and all hot together, and

* "De gustibus non est disputandum." Tastes are as different as faces, and without a most attentive observation of the directions given by her employers, the most experienced cook will never get any credit; It will not go far to pacify the rage of a ravenous gourmand, who likes his mutton chop broiled till its juice is quite dried up, to be told that some of the customers at Dolly's chop-house choose to have them only half done, and that this is the best way of eating them: I believe we all think that is the best way which we relish best, and which agrees best with our stomachs: in this, reason and fashion, all powerful as they are on most occasions, yield to the imperative caprice of the palate.

■ "The Irishman loves usquebaugh; the Scot loves ale, called blue cap;

"The Welshman he loves toasted cheese, and makes his mouth like a mouse trap."

Our Italian neighbours now eat many things we think carrion. Vide Ray's Travels, page 362 and 406. While the Englishman boasts of his beef, the Frenchman dresses his favourite frog and soup, the Tartar feasts on horseflesh, and the Chinaman on dogs; and what at one time, or in one country, is considered as beautiful, fragrant, or savoury, is at another time or place regarded as deformed and disgustful*.

* Assafoetida was called, by the ancients, "food for the Gods." The Persians, Indians, and other eastern people, now eat it in sauces, and call it expressly by that name: while the Germans call it "Devils' Dung." - See Pomet on Drugs, 4to. London, 1744.

* If your roasts and bolls are a little under-done, the stew-pan or the gridiron can soon repair the mistake of the spit or the pot.

+ And such is the endless variety of culinary preparations, it would be as vain and fruitless a search as that for the philosopher's stone, to expect to find a cook who was equally perfect in all the operations of the spit, the stewpan, and the rolling-pin.

"A feast must be without a fault;

And, if 'tis not all right, 'tis naught." But

"Good nature must some failings overlook,

Forgive mischance, not errors of the cook;

As, if no salt is thrown about the dish,

Or nice crisp'd parsley scatter'd on the fish;

Shall we in passion from our dinner fly,

And hopes of pardon to the cook deny,

For things which Mrs. Glasse herself might oversee,

And all mankind commit as well as she?"