A. An habitual fault, which all my exhortation: have failed to correct.

F. (alarmed). Name it at once. It is too bad to

torture one so.

A. You eat too fast!

[On this, the friend takes his hat and leaves the room smiling, with a strong suspicion that he has made a convert and gained his purpose.]

PREFACE.

FOR the publication of the work now entrusted to the reader's good will, there was needed on my part no great labour. All I have done was to arrange a collection of materials made long ago. It was a pastime which I had been keeping in store for my

old age.

Whilst considering the pleasures of the table from every point of view, I soon saw that there was something better to be made of the subject than a mere cookery-book, and that there was much to be said upon functions which are not only vital and constant, but exercise a very direct influence upon our health, our happiness, and even our success in life.

As soon as this leading idea was clearly fixed in my mind, all the rest flowed easily from it. I looked about me-I took notes; and often in the midst of

the most sumptuous banquets I should have felt bored but for my amusement as an observer.

To complete the task which I had taken on myself, one must have been physician, chemist, physiologist, and even somewhat of a scholar. Those different subjects, however, I had studied without the slightest intention of becoming an author, being urged on by a praiseworthy curiosity, by the fear of being left behind the age, and by the wish to be able to converse on equal terms with men of science and learning, in whose company I have always taken a special pleasure.*

More particularly, I am an amateur doctor. It is quite a passion with me; and amongst the finest days of my life I reckon that on which I entered with the professors, and by their door, into the lecture-room where the prize essay was to be read, and had the pleasure of hearing a murmur of curiosity run through the audience, each student asking his neighbour what mighty professor the stranger might be who was honouring the assembly by his presence.

"Come and dine with me next Thursday," said M. Greffuble to me one day, "and I'll have a party of men of science or men of letters; which do you choose?"

666

66 My choice is made," said I, we shall dine together twice instead of once."

'We did so, sure enough; and the literary dinner was unmistakably more refined and well-ordered.'

There is, however, one other day the memory of which is equally dear; that, namely, on which I presented to the Council of the "Society for the Encouragement of National Industry" my“ irrorator,” an instrument of my invention, which is simply a compression-fountain, adapted for the purpose of perfuming rooms.

I had brought, in my pocket, my machine fully charged. I turned the cock, and there escaped, with a hissing sound, a perfumed vapour, which, rising to the ceiling, fell in tiny drops upon the persons and papers beneath. It was then that, with inexpressible delight, I saw the most learned heads of the capital bend under my "irroration," and I was in ecstacies on observing that the wettest were the happiest.

Occasionally, in thinking of the weighty lucubrations to which the extent of my subject has drawn me, I have had an honest fear lest I might bore the reader; for I myself have sometimes yawned over other people's books.

I have done everything in my power to avoid blame on this score. I have touched but lightly on the subjects likely to be dull; I have scattered anecdotes over the book-some drawn from my personal experience; I have thrown aside a great many singular facts, from a regard to sound criticism. I

have aroused attention by giving a clear and simple account of certain scientific truths which the learned seemed to have reserved for themselves. If, in spite of so many efforts, my readers should still find the science difficult of digestion, my peace of mind will not be in the slightest degree disturbed, because I am sure that the majority will acquit me as to intention.

I might also be charged with letting my pen run on too fast, and becoming somewhat garrulous in my stories. Is it my fault that I am an old man ? Is it my fault that I am like Ulysses, who had seen the manners and cities of many peoples? Am I to blame for giving a little of my biography? In a word, the reader ought to give me credit for making him a present of my "Memoirs as a Public Man," which deserve to be read quite as much as so many others, since for thirty-six years I have had the best opportunity of watching society and the course of events.

Above all things, let no one rank me amongst the compilers. Before being reduced to such straits, my pen would have been thrown aside, and I should have lived quite as happily.

Like Juvenal, I have said:

Semper ego auditor tantum! nunquam ne reponam!

and those able to judge will easily see that, after