And a hundred years later Dr. Johnson’s friend, the Rev. Richard Warner, in his “Personal Recollections,” did not hesitate to expand upon what he thought the origin of mince pies. Warner’s Johnsonian weight in telling his fantasy recalls Goldsmith’s quip about the Doctor’s little fish talking like whales, and also Johnson’s criticism upon his own “too big words and too many of them.” Warner wrote, “In the early ages of our country, when its present widely spread internal trade and retail business were yet in their infancy, and none of the modern facilities were afforded to the cook to supply herself ‘on the spur of the moment,’ ... it was the practice of all prudent housewives, to lay in, at the conclusion of every year (from some contiguous periodical fair), a stock sufficient for the ensuing annual consumption, of ... every sweet composition for the table--such as raisins, currants, citrons, and ‘spices of the best.’ “The ample cupboard ... within the wainscot of the dining parlour itself ... formed the safe depository of these precious stores. “‘When merry Christmas-tide came round’ ... the goodly litter of the cupboard, thus various in kind and aspect, was carefully swept into one common receptacle; the mingled mass enveloped in pastry and enclosed within the duly heated oven, from whence ... perfect in form, colour, odour, flavour and temperament, it smoked, the glory of the hospitable Christmas board, hailed from every quarter by the honourable and imperishable denomination of the Mince-Pye.” In the eighteenth century women themselves, following Hannah Wolley, began cook-book compiling. So great was their success that we find Mrs. Elizabeth Moxon’s “English Housewifry” going into its ninth edition in the London market of 1764. All through history there have been surprises coming to prejudiced minds out of the despised and Nazarene. It was so about this matter of cook-books--small in itself, great in its far-reaching results to the health and development of the human race. Women had been taught the alphabet. But the dogmatism of Dr. Johnson voiced the judgment of many of our forebears: a dominant power is always hard in its estimate of the capacities it controls. “Women can spin very well,” said the great Cham, “but they can not make a good book of cookery.” He was talking to “the swan of Lichfield,” little Anna Seward, when he said this, and also to a London publisher. The book they were speaking of had been put forth by the now famous Mrs. Hannah Glasse, said to be the wife of a London attorney.