'Tis not the food, but the content,
That makes the table's merriment.

'Tis not the food, but the content,
That makes the table's merriment.

Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the
wall-newt and the water; that in the read more

Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the
wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the
foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets, swallows the old rat
and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the standing pool;
who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock-punished and
imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to
his body,
Horse to ride, and weapon to wear,
But mice and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.

Some men are born to feast, and not to fight;
Whose sluggish minds, e'en in fair honor's field,
read more

Some men are born to feast, and not to fight;
Whose sluggish minds, e'en in fair honor's field,
Still on their dinner turn--
Let such pot-boiling varlets stay at home,
And wield a flesh-hook rather than a sword.

Yet shall you have to rectify your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better salad
Ushering the read more

Yet shall you have to rectify your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better salad
Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,
Limons, and wine for sauce: to these a coney
Is not to be despaired of for our money;
And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
The sky not falling, think we may have larks.

We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
read more

We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
He may live without books,--what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope,--what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love,--what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?

He hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious
epicure--and for such a tomb might be read more

He hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious
epicure--and for such a tomb might be content to die.

I fear it is too choleric a meat.
How say you to a fat tripe finely broiled?

I fear it is too choleric a meat.
How say you to a fat tripe finely broiled?

A very man--not one of nature's clods--
With human failings, whether saint or sinner:
Endowed perhaps with read more

A very man--not one of nature's clods--
With human failings, whether saint or sinner:
Endowed perhaps with genius from the gods
But apt to take his temper from his dinner.

He rolls it under his tongue as a sweet morsel.

He rolls it under his tongue as a sweet morsel.