"I never enter in my kitchen, I! But sit apart, and in the cool, direct, Observant of what passes,--scullions toil. ... I guide the mighty whole, Explore the causes, prophesy the dish. 'Tis thus I speak: 'Leave, leave that ponderous ham; Keep up the fire, and lively play the flame Beneath those lobster patties;' 'Patient here, Fix't as a statue, skim, incessant skim.' 'Steep well this small _glociscus_ in its sauce, And boil that sea-dog in a cullender.' 'This eel requires more salt and marjoram;' 'Roast well that piece of kid on either side Equal;' 'That sweetbread boil not over much.' 'Tis thus, my friend, I make the concert play. * * * * * And then no useless dish my table crowds. Harmonious ranged, and consonantly just, As in a concert instruments resound, My ordered dishes in their courses chime." The ideal cook is depicted with equal picturesqueness in a lengthy tribute by Dionysius wherein he thus sums up his qualifications,-- "Know on thyself thy genius must depend. All books of cookery, all helps of art, All critic learning, all commenting notes, Are vain, if void of genius thou wouldst cook!" Cratinus, in his play of the "Giants," extols the merits of Sicilian cookery: "Consider now how sweet the earth doth smell, How fragrantly the smoke ascends to heaven: There lives, I fancy, here within this cave, Some perfume-seller, or Sicilian cook." And Hegesander, in his "Brothers," presents an _archimagirus_, proud as Lucifer, who sings his own praises in the following grandiloquent strain: "When I am call'd to serve a funeral supper, The mourners just return'd, silent and sad, Clothed in funereal habits--I but raise The cover of my pot, and every face Assumes a smile, the tears are wash'd away. Charm'd with the grateful flavour, they believe They are invited to a wedding-feast. * * * * * Let me but have the necessary means, A kitchen amply stored, and you shall see That like enchantment I will spread around A charm as powerful as the siren's voice. * * * * * You know not yet The worth of him you speak to--look on those Whom you see seated round, not one of them But would his fortune risk to make me his." Philemon, in turn, the witty Athenian bard, represents a cook as pluming himself upon his cunning, and saying: "Those who are dead already, when they've smelled One of my dishes, come to life again." Anthippus, too, presents a graduate of the range who was no less proficient in the resources of his art, and who devised his dishes according to the age of those who were to partake of them,--