The opening of Preface
At the request of several persons of distinction, who have visited the Reform Club,--particularly the ladies, to whom I have always made it a rule never to refuse anything in my power, for indeed it must have been the fair sex who have had the majority in this domestic argument to gain this gastronomical election,--Why do you not write and publish a Cookery-book? was a question continually put to me. For a considerable time this scientific word caused a thrill of horror to pervade my frame, and brought back to my mind that one day, being in a most superb library in the midst of a splendid baronial hall, by chance I met with one of Milton’s allegorical works, the profound ideas of Locke, and several chefs-d’œuvre of one of the noblest champions of literature, Shakspeare; when all at once my attention was attracted by the nineteenth edition of a voluminous work: such an immense success of publication caused me to say, “Oh! you celebrated man, posterity counts every hour of fame upon your regretted ashes!” Opening this work with intense curiosity, to my great disappointment what did I see,--a receipt for Ox-tail Soup!