Go on! and thrive! Demurest of odd fellows! Bottling up dulness in an ancient binn! Still live! still prose!--continue still to tell us Old truths! no strangers, though we take them in! TO W. KITCHENER, M.D., AUTHOR OF “THE COOK’S ORACLE,” “OBSERVATIONS ON VOCAL MUSIC,” “THE ART OF INVIGORATING AND PROLONGING LIFE,” “PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON TELESCOPES, OPERA-GLASSES, AND SPECTACLES,” “THE HOUSEKEEPER’S LEDGER,” AND “THE PLEASURE OF MAKING A WILL.” “I rule the roast, as Milton says!”--CALEB QUOTEM. Hail! multifarious man! Thou Wondrous, Admirable Kitchen Crichton! Born to enlighten The laws of Optics, Peptics, Music, Cooking-- Master of the Piano--and the Pan-- As busy with the kitchen as the skies! Now looking At some rich stew through Galileo’s eyes,-- Or boiling eggs--timed to a metronome-- As much at home In spectacles as in mere isinglass-- In the art of frying brown--as a digression On music and poetical expression,-- Whereas, how few, of all our cooks, alas! Could tell Calliope from “Callipee!” How few there be Could cleave the lowest for the highest stories, (Observatories,) And turn, like thee, Diana’s calculator, However _cook’s_ synonymous with _Kater_![5] Alas! still let me say, How few could lay The carving knife beside the tuning fork, Like the proverbial _Jack_ ready for any work! Oh, to behold thy features in thy book! Thy proper head and shoulders in a plate, How it would look! With one raised eye watching the dial’s date, And one upon the roast, gently cast down-- Thy chops--done nicely brown-- The garnish’d brow--with “a few leaves of bay”-- The hair--“done Wiggy’s way!” And still one studious finger near thy brains, As if thou wert just come From editing of some New soup--or hashing Dibdin’s cold remains! Or, Orpheus-like,--fresh from thy dying strains Of music,--Epping luxuries of sound, As Milton says, “in many a bout Of linkëd sweetness long drawn out,” While all thy tame stuff’d leopards listen’d round!