History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Page 3
Chapter i.
The introduction to the work, or bill of fare to the feast.
An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives aprivate or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a publicordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money. In theformer case, it is well known that the entertainer provides what farehe pleases; and though this should be very indifferent, and utterlydisagreeable to the taste of his company, they must not find anyfault; nay, on the contrary, good breeding forces them outwardly toapprove and to commend whatever is set before them. Now the contraryof this happens to the master of an ordinary. Men who pay for whatthey eat will insist on gratifying their palates, however nice andwhimsical these may prove; and if everything is not agreeable to theirtaste, will challenge a right to censure, to abuse, and to d--n theirdinner without controul.
To prevent, therefore, giving offence to their customers by any suchdisappointment, it hath been usual with the honest and well-meaninghost to provide a bill of fare which all persons may peruse at theirfirst entrance into the house; and having thence acquainted themselveswith the entertainment which they may expect, may either stay andregale with what is provided for them, or may depart to some otherordinary better accommodated to their taste.
As we do not disdain to borrow wit or wisdom from any man who iscapable of lending us either, we have condescended to take a hint fromthese honest victuallers, and shall prefix not only a general bill offare to our whole entertainment, but shall likewise give the readerparticular bills to every course which is to be served up in this andthe ensuing volumes.
The provision, then, which we have here made is no other than _HumanNature_. Nor do I fear that my sensible reader, though most luxuriousin his taste, will start, cavil, or be offended, because I have namedbut one article. The tortoise--as the alderman of Bristol, welllearned in eating, knows by much experience--besides the deliciouscalipash and calipee, contains many different kinds of food; nor canthe learned reader be ignorant, that in human nature, though herecollected under one general name, is such prodigious variety, that acook will have sooner gone through all the several species of animaland vegetable food in the world, than an author will be able toexhaust so extensive a subject.
An objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more delicate, thatthis dish is too common and vulgar; for what else is the subject ofall the romances, novels, plays, and poems, with which the stallsabound? Many exquisite viands might be rejected by the epicure, if itwas a sufficient cause for his contemning of them as common andvulgar, that something was to be found in the most paltry alleys underthe same name. In reality, true nature is as difficult to be met within authors, as the Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage, is to be found inthe shops.
But the whole, to continue the same metaphor, consists in the cookeryof the author; for, as Mr Pope tells us--
"True wit is nature to advantage drest; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest."
The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesheaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part,and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall intown. Where, then, lies the difference between the food of thenobleman and the porter, if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf,but in the seasoning, the dressing, the garnishing, and the settingforth? Hence the one provokes and incites the most languid appetite,and the other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and keenest.
In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consistsless in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.How pleased, therefore, will the reader be to find that we have, inthe following work, adhered closely to one of the highest principlesof the best cook which the present age, or perhaps that ofHeliogabalus, hath produced. This great man, as is well known to alllovers of polite eating, begins at first by setting plain thingsbefore his hungry guests, rising afterwards by degrees as theirstomachs may be supposed to decrease, to the very quintessence ofsauce and spices. In like manner, we shall represent human nature atfirst to the keen appetite of our reader, in that more plain andsimple manner in which it is found in the country, and shall hereafterhash and ragoo it with all the high French and Italian seasoning ofaffectation and vice which courts and cities afford. By these means,we doubt not but our reader may be rendered desirous to read on forever, as the great person just above-mentioned is supposed to havemade some persons eat.
Having premised thus much, we will now detain those who like our billof fare no longer from their diet, and shall proceed directly to serveup the first course of our history for their entertainment.