The head of man is like a pudding. And whence have all rhymes, poems, plots, and inventions sprang, but from that same pudding? What is poetry, but a pudding of words? The physicians, tho' they cry out so much against cooks and cookery, yet are but cooks themselves; with this difference only, the cooks' pudding lengthens life, the physicians' shortens it. So that we live and die by pudding. For what is a clyster, but a bag-pudding? a pill, but a dumpling? or a bolus, but a tansy, tho' not altogether so toothsome? In a word: physic is only a puddingizing or cookery of drugs. The law is but a cookery of quibbles and contentions,[64] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * is but a pudding of * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Some swallow everything whole and unmix'd; so that it may rather be call'd a heap than a pudding. Others are so squeamish, the greatest mastership in cookery is requir'd to make the pudding palatable. The suet which others gape and swallow by gobs, must for these puny stomachs be minced to atoms; the plums must be pick'd with the utmost care, and every ingredient proportion'd to the greatest nicety, or it will never go down.
The universe itself is but a pudding of elements. Empires, kingdoms, states and republics, are but puddings of people differently made up. The celestial and terrestrial orbs are decipher'd to us by a pair of globes or mathematical puddings.
The success of war and fate of monarchies are entirely dependent on puddings and dumplings. For what else are cannonballs but military puddings? or bullets, but dumplings; with this difference only, they do not sit so well on the stomach as a good marrow pudding or bread pudding.
In short, there is nothing valuable in art or nature, but what, more or less, has an allusion to pudding or dumpling. Why, then, should they be held in disesteem? Why should dumpling-eating be ridiculed, or dumpling-eaters derided? Is it not pleasant and profitable? Is it not ancient and honourable? Kings, princes, and potentates have in all ages been lovers of pudding. Is it not, therefore, of royal authority? Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and deacons, have, time out of mind, been great pudding-eaters. Is it not, therefore, a holy and religious institution? Philosophers, poets, and learned men in all faculties, judges, privy councillors, and members of both houses, have, by their great regard to pudding, given a sanction to it that nothing can efface. Is it not, therefore, ancient, honourable, and commendable?
Quare itaque fremuerunt Auctores?
Why do, therefore, the enemies of good eating, the starveling authors of Grub Street, employ their impotent pens against pudding and pudding-headed, alias 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 mortified, 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 ashamed 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 us 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 should we then be laughed 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 ourselves 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: