One of his applications to Cave for a trifling advance of money is signed _Impransus_ (Dinnerless); and he told Boswell that he could fast two days without inconvenience, and had never been hungry but once. What he meant by hungry is not easy to explain, for his every day manner of eating was that of a half-famished man. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks were riveted to his plate, till he had satisfied his appetite; which was indulged with such in-* tenseness, that the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. Until he left off drinking fermented liquors altogether, he acted on the maxim "claret for boys, port for men, brandy for heroes." He preferred the strongest because he said it did its work (_i.e._ intoxicate) the soonest. He used to pour capillaire into his port wine, and melted butter into his chocolate. His favourite dishes are accurately enumerated by Peter Pindar: MADAME PIOZZI _(loquitur)._ "Dear Doctor Johnson loved a leg of pork, And hearty on it would his grinders work: He lik'd to eat it so much over done, That _one_ might shake the flesh from off the bone. A veal pye too, with sugar crammed and plums, Was wondrous grateful to the Doctor's gums. Though us'd from morn to night on fruit to stuff, He vow'd his belly never had enough." Mr. Thackeray relates in his "Irish Sketches" that on his asking for currant jelly for his venison at a public dinner, the waiter replied, "It's all gone, your honour, but there's some capital lobster sauce left." This would have suited Johnson equally well, or better: he was so fond of lobster sauce that he would call for the sauce-boat and pour the whole of its remaining contents over his plum pudding. A clergyman who once travelled with him relates, "The coach halted as usual for dinner, which seemed to be a deeply interesting business to Johnson, who vehemently attacked a dish of stewed carp, using his fingers only in feeding himself." At the dinner when he passed his celebrated sentence on the leg of mutton--"That it was as bad as bad could be: ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed"--the ladies, his fellow-passengers, observed his loss or equanimity with wonder. Two of Mrs. Thrale's marginal notes on Boswell refer to her illustrious friend's mode of eating. On his reported remark, that "a dog will take a small bit of meat as readily as a large, when both are before him," she adds, "which Johnson would never have done." When Boswell, describing the dinner with Wilkes at Davies', says, "No man eat more heartily than Johnson, or loved better what was nice and delicate," she strikes in with--"What was gustful rather: what was strong that he could taste it, what was tender that he could chew it."