" His preface is a heartrending cry of regret for the good
old times before usurping Parliaments banished splendidly extravagant
gentlemen across the seas, "those golden days of Peace and Hospitality,
when you enjoy'd your own, so as to entertain and relieve others ... those
golden days wherein were practised the Triumphs and Trophies of Cookery,
then was Hospitality esteemed and Neighbourhood preserved, the Poor
cherished and God honoured; then was Religion less talk't on and more
practis't, then was Atheism and Schisme less in Fashion, and then did men
strive to be good rather than to seem so." High-souled were the _chefs_ of
the seventeenth century!
The 1669 edition of _The Closet Opened_ is evidently the first. The
interleaved example mentioned in the Catalogue of the Digby Library is of
the same date. Whoever prepared it for the press and wrote the egregious
preface "To the Reader"--Hartman, or as I think, another--gave it the
title; but it was a borrowed one. Some years earlier, in 1655, had appeared
_The Queen's Closet Opened, Incomparable Secrets which were presented unto
the Queen by the most Experienced Persons of the Times, many wherof were
had in Esteem when she pleased to descend to Private Recreation_.
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