In emulation of the poet Lamartine, Savarin divided his subject into 'Meditations', of which the seventh is consecrated to the 'Theory of Frying', and the twenty-first to 'Corpulence'. In the familiar aphorism, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are", he strikes his key-note; man's true superiority lies in his palate! "The pleasure of eating we have in common with the animals; the pleasure of the table is peculiar to the human species." Gastronomy he proclaims the chief of all sciences: "It rules life in its entirety; for the tears of the new-born infant summon the breast of its nurse, and the dying man still receives with some pleasure the final potion, which, alas, he is not destined to digest." Occasionally he affects an epic strain, invoking Gasteria, "the tenth muse, who presides over the pleasures of taste." "It is the fairest of the Muses who inspires me: I will be clearer than an oracle, and my precepts will traverse the centuries." Beneath his pen, soup, "the first consolation of the needy stomach," assumes fresh dignity; and even the humble fowl becomes to the cook "what the canvas is to the painter, or the cap of Fortunatus to the charlatan." But like the worthy epicure that he was, Savarin reserved his highest flights of eloquence for such rare and toothsome viands as the _Poularde fine de Bresse_, the pheasant, "an enigma of which the key-word is known only to the adepts," a _sauté_ of truffles, "the diamonds of the kitchen," or, best of all, truffled turkeys, "whose reputation and price are ever on the increase! Benign stars, whose apparition renders the gourmands of every category sparkling, radiant, and quivering!" But the true charm of the book lies in Savarin's endless fund of piquant anecdotes, reminiscences of bygone feasts, over which the reader's mouth waters. Who can read without a covetous pang his account of 'The Day at Home with the Bernadins,' or of his entertainment of the Dubois brothers, of the _Rue du Bac_, "a bonbon which I have put into the reader's mouth to recompense him for his kindness in having read me with pleasure"? 'Physiologic du Goût' was not published until 1825, and then anonymously, presumably because he thought its tone inconsistent with his dignity as magistrate. It would almost seem that he had a presentiment of impending death, for in the midst of his brightest 'Variétés' he has incongruously inserted a dolorous little poem, the burden of each verse being "Je vais mourir." The 'Physiologic du Goût' is now accessible to English readers in the versions of R.E. Anderson (London, 1877), and in a later one published in New York; but there is a subtle flavor to the original which defies translation. FROM THE 'PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE' THE PRIVATIONS