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Nor do they always the same pleasure give. Archestratus has written on this art, And is by many people highly thought of, As having given us a useful treatise; But still there's much of which he's ignorant, And all his rules are really good for nothing, So do not mind or yield to all the rules Which he has laid down most authoritatively, For a more empty lot of maxims you Will hardly find. For when you write a book On cookery, it will not do to say, "As I was just now saying;" for this art Has no fix'd guide but opportunity, And must itself its only mistress be. But if your skill be ne'er so great, and yet You let the opportunity escape, Your art is lost, and might as well be none. B. O man, you're wise. But as for this man who You just now said was coming here to try His hand at delicate banquets, say, does he    Forget to come? A. If I but make you now One forced meat ball, I can in that small thing Give you a specimen of all my skill. And I will serve you up a meal which shall Be redolent of the Athenian breezes.

Dost fear that I shall fail to lull your soul With dishes of sufficient luxury?

70. And to all this Æmilianus makes answer—

My friend, you've made a speech quite long enough In praising your fav'rite art of cookery;—

as Hegesippus says in his Brethren. Do you then—

Give us now something new to see beyond Your predecessor's art, or plague us not; But show me what you've got, and tell its name.

And he rejoins—

You look down on me, since I am a cook.

But perhaps—

What I have made by practising my art—

according to the comic poet Demetrius, who, in his play entitled The Areopagite, has spoken as follows—

What I have made by practising my art Is more than any actor e'er has gain'd,— This smoky art of mine is quite a kingdom. I was a caper-pickler with Seleucus, And at the court of the Sicilian king,