Then to the plough (the commonwealth),
Next to your flails, your fans, your vats;
Then to the maids with wheaten hats;
To the rough sickle, and the crook'd scythe,
Drink, frolic boys, till all be blythe...."
The era of Queen Anne, a noted gourmande, who achieved the feminine distinction of acquiring the gout, was marked by the appearance of a work on "Royal Cookery, or the Complete Court Book" (1710), by Patrick Lamb, Esq., chef to her Majesty, who had previously served Charles II, James II, and William and Mary. Pope's description in the "Dunciad" would indicate that cookery was in a flourishing state under the last of the Stuarts:
"On some a priest succinct in amice white
Attends; all flesh is nothing in his sight!
Beeves, at his touch, at once to jelly turn,
And the huge boar is shrunk into an urn;