MRS. GLASSE AND HER HARE
“Every individual, who is not perfectly imbecile and void of understanding, is an epicure in his way; the epicures in boiling potatoes are innumerable. The perfection of all enjoyments depends on the perfection of the faculties of the mind and body; the temperate man is the greatest epicure, and the only true voluptuary.”
Dr. Kitchiner.
Old myths die hard. Nevertheless, as we grow older and wiser and saner and duller, we drop the illusions of our youth, and one by one our cherished beliefs fall from us, argued away by force of circumstance, lack of substantiation, or sheer proof to the contrary.
In this last category we must perforce reckon the excellent Mrs. Hannah Glasse and her immortal saying, “First catch your hare, then cook it.” Alas and alack, Mrs. Glasse never existed—“there never was no sich person”—and, moreover, the cookery book bearing her name, in none of its many editions, contains the oft-quoted words.
The actual facts, although, indeed, these are open to a certain amount of dubiety, appear to be as follows. In Boswell’s “Johnson” there are several references to one Edward Dilly, who with his brother Charles carried on a flourishing book-shop in the Poultry. Dr. Johnson often dined with these estimable men, and at their table met most of the wits and scholars of the day. The great lexicographer referred to the brothers as his “worthy friends.” It is on record that Edward Dilly, in the presence of Boswell, Mayo, Miss Seward, and the Duke of Bedford’s tutor, the Rev. Mr. Beresford, said to Dr. Johnson, “Mrs. Glasse’s ‘Cookery,’ which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade knows this.”
Now this Dr. John Hill (not Aaron Hill, as assumed by Mr. Waller) was a rather interesting personality. He was a brilliant man in many directions, who misused his talents, and devoted his energies to so many various professions that it is not surprising to learn that he succeeded permanently in none. It is known of him that he was at different times apothecary, actor, pamphleteer, journalist, novelist, dramatist, herbalist, naturalist, and quack-doctor. He took a degree at St. Andrews, and his nickname was “Dr. Atall.” He married the sister of the then Lord Ranelagh, and by some manner of means got himself decorated with the Swedish order of the Polar Star, on the strength of which he paraded himself as Sir John Hill. No one, however, appears to have taken him at his own appraisement, for he was the general butt of wits, epigrammatists, and lampoonists. His death was attributed to the use of his own gout remedy, and these lines to him still survive:—
For physic and farces
His equal there scarce is;
His farces are physic,