Under Queen Anne, who had Lister, one of the editors of the _Apicius_, for her pet physician, and who “achieved the highest honour of gastronomy by giving her name to a pudding,” cookery did not suffer from any lack of encouragement; but soon after the accession of the House of Brunswick a fashion was introduced which somewhat threatened to retard the progress of cookery. “The last branch of our fashion,” says Horace Walpole, “into which the close observation of nature has been introduced, is our desserts.” Jellies, biscuits, sugar-plums, and creams have long since given way to harlequins, gondoliers, Turks, Chinese, and shepherdesses of Saxon China. But these, unconnected, and only seeming to wander among groves of curled paper and silk flowers, were soon discovered to be too insipid and unmeaning. By degrees, meadows of cattle, of the same brittle materials, spread themselves over the table; cottages rose in sugar, and temples in barley-sugar; pigmy Neptunes in cars of cockle-shells triumphed over oceans of looking-glass, or seas of silver-tissue.... The Intendant of Gascony, on the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, amidst many other magnificent festivities, treated the noblesse of the province with a dinner and a dessert, the latter of which concluded with a representation, by wax figures moved by clock-work, of the whole labour of the Dauphiness, and the happy birth of an heir to the monarchy.”[34] George I. was fond of good living, and was indiscreet, it is said, in what he ate. His too free indulgence in sturgeon and other strong food, and his custom of partaking of hearty suppers at late hours of the night, counteracted the exertions made by nature in his behalf. On the 3rd of June 1727 the King left Greenwich for Holland, and on reaching Delden, and taking supper with the Count de Twittel, he indulged too freely in melons, an act of imprudence to which was ascribed the disorder that caused his death. A characteristic anecdote is told of George II., to the effect that the House of Commons having gratified him on some point in which the interests of Hanover were concerned, he sent for his German cook, and said to him: “Get me a very good supper, get me all the varieties;” and he added, “I don’t mind expense.”[35] The mention of his German cook reminds us of the poor opinion he had of our own cooks, insisting that “no English cooks knew how to roast.” George III. lived like an ascetic, for fear of corpulence and gout; and light diet was one of the grand fundamentals in his idea of health. In “A Sketch of their Majesties’ Domestic Life at Kew during the Summer Season” of 1775, in the _Annual Register_, it is said: “His Majesty feeds chiefly on vegetables, and drinks but little wine. The Queen is what many private gentlewomen would call whimsically abstemious; for, at a table covered with dainties, she prefers the plainest and simplest dish, and seldom eats of more than two things at a meal.”