 or Wisdom from any Man who is capable of
lending us either, we have condescended to take a Hint from these honest
Victuallers, and shall prefix not only a general Bill of Fare to our whole
Entertainment, but shall likewise give the Reader particular Bills to every
Course which is to be served up in this and the ensuing Volumes.
    The Provision then which we have here made is no other than HUMAN NATURE.
Nor do I fear that my sensible Reader, though most luxurious in his Taste, will
start, cavil, or be offended, because I have named but one Article. The
Tortoise, as the Alderman of Bristol, well learned in eating, knows by much
Experience, besides the delicious Calibash and Calipee, contains many different
Kinds of Food; nor can the learned Reader be ignorant, that in Human Nature,
tho' here collected under one general Name, is such prodigious Variety, that a
Cook will have sooner gone through all the several Species of animal and
vegetable Food in the World, than an Author will be able to exhaust so extensive
a Subject.
    An Objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more delicate, that this
Dish is too common and vulgar; for what else is the Subject of all the Romances,
Novels, Plays and Poems, with which the Stalls abound. Many exquisite Viands
might be rejected by the Epicure, if it was a sufficient Cause for his
contemning of them as common and vulgar, that something was to be found in the
most paultry Alleys under the same Name. In reality, true Nature is as difficult
to be met with in Authors, as the Bayonne Ham or Bologna Sausage is to be found
in the Shops.
    But the whole, to continue the same Metaphor, consists in the Cookery of the
Author; for, as Mr. Pope tells us,
 
True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest,
What oft' was thought, but ne'er so well exprest.
 
The same Animal which hath the Honour to have some Part of his Flesh eaten at
the Table of a Duke, may perhaps be degraded in another Part, and some of his
Limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest Stall in Town. Where then lies the
Difference between the Food of the Nobleman and the Porter, if both are at
Dinner on the same Ox or Calf, but in the seasoning, the dressing, the
garnishing, and the setting forth. Hence the one provokes and incites the most
languid Appetite, and the other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and
keenest.
    In like manner, the Excellence of the mental Entertainment consists less in
the
