Quare itaque fremuerunt Auctores?
Why do therefore the Enemies of good Eating, the Starve-gutted Authors of Grub-street, employ their impotent Pens against Pudding and Pudding-headed, aliàs Honest Men? Why do they inveigh against Dumpling-Eating which is the Life and Soul of Good-fellowship, and Dumpling-Eaters who are the Ornaments of Civil Society.
But, alas! their Malice is their own Punishment. The Hireling Author of a late scandalous Libel, intituled, The Dumpling-Eaters Downfall, may, if he has any Eyes, now see his Error, in attacking so Numerous, so August a Body of People: His Books remain Unsold, Unread, Unregarded; while this Treatise of
Mine shall be Bought by all who love Pudding or Dumpling; to my Bookseller’s great Joy, and my no small Consolation. How shall I Triumph, and how will that Mercenary Scribbler be Mortify’d, when I have sold more Editions of my Books, than he has Copies of his! I therefore exhort all People, Gentle and Simple, Men, Women and Children, to Buy, to Read, to Extol these Labours of Mine, for the Honour of Dumpling-Eating. Let them not fear to defend every Article; for I will bear them Harmless: I have Arguments good store, and can easily Confute, either Logically, Theologically, or Metaphysically, all those who dare Oppose me.
Let not Englishmen therefore be asham’d of the Name of Pudding-Eaters; but, on the contrary, let it be their Glory. For let Foreigners cry out ne’er so much against Good Eating, they come easily into it when they have been a little while in our Land of Canaan; and there are very few Foreigners among as who have not learn’d to make as great a Hole in a good Pudding or Sirloin of Beef as the best Englishman of us all.
Why shou’d we then be Laught out of Pudding and Dumpling? or why
Ridicul’d out of Good Living? Plots and Politics may hurt us, but Pudding cannot. Let us therefore adhere to Pudding, and keep our selves out of Harm’s Way; according to the Golden Rule laid down by a celebrated Dumpling-Eater now defunct;
Be of your Patron’s Mind, whate’er he says:
Sleep very much; Think little, and Talk less:
Mind neither Good nor Bad, nor Right nor Wrong;