Gluttony, it has been written—and with wisdom—deserves nothing but praise and encouragement. For two reasons. "Physically, it is the result and proof of the digestive organs being perfect. Morally, it shows implicit resignation to the commands of nature, who, in ordering man to eat that he may live, gives him appetite to invite, flavour to encourage, and pleasure to reward." But there is a third reason, too often overlooked even by the professional glutton: love of good eating is an incentive to thought, a stimulus to the imagination. The man of the most active mind and liveliest fancy is he who eats well and conscientiously considers each dish as it is set before him.

The test seldom fails. Run through the list of poets and painters of your acquaintance; do not they who eat best write the finest verse and paint the strongest pictures? Those who pretend indifference and live on unspeakable messes are betrayed in the foolish affectation and tedious eccentricity of their work; those who feel indifference are already beyond hope and had better far be selling tape across counters or adding up figures in loathsome ledgers. Memory, borrowing from her store-house of treasures, lingers with tender appreciation and regret upon one unrivalled breakfast, exquisitely cooked, exquisitely served, and exquisitely eaten, when lilacs were sweet and horse-chestnuts blossoming in the boulevards and avenues of Paris. And he upon whose table the banquet was spread is an artist who towers head and shoulders above the pigmies of his generation. It were rash, indeed, to maintain that because he eats daintily therefore he paints like the master he is; but who, on the other hand, would dare aver that because he paints supremely well therefore is he the prince of gourmets? Here cause and effect are not to be defined by cold logic, not to be labelled by barren philosophy. One thing alone is certain; if love of good eating will not create genius it can but develop it. Consequently, it would be impossible to think too much of what you are eating to-day and purpose to eat to-morrow. It is your duty above all things to see that your food is in harmony with place and season. The question now is, what beast or bird is fitting holocaust for the first warm months of spring? Beef is too heating, too substantial; mutton too monotonous, veal too prosaic. Lamb hath charm, but a charm that by constant usage may be speedily exhausted. Does not mint sauce, pall at times? Place, then, your trust in the poultry-yard that your pleasure may be long in the spring.

To begin with, poultry pleases because of its idyllic and pastoral associations. The plucked birds, from shop windows, flaunting their nakedness in the face of the world, recall the old red-roofed farmhouse among the elms, and the pretty farmer's daughter in neat, fresh gingham, scattering grain in the midst of her feathered favourites; they suggest the first cool light of dawn and the irrepressible cock crowing the glad approach of day; in a word, they are reminders of the country's simple joys—unendurable at the time, dear and sacred when remembered in town.

The gentle little spring chicken is sweet and adorable above all its kindred poultry. It is innocent and guileless as Bellini's angels, dream-like and strange as Botticelli's. It is the very concentration of spring; as your teeth meet in its tender, yielding flesh, you think, whether you will or no, of violets and primroses, and hedgerows white with may; you feel the balmy breath of the south wind; the world is scented for you with lilac and narcissus; and, for the time being, life is a perfect poem. But—why is there always a but?—your cook has it in her power to ruin the rhythm, to make of melodious lyric the most discordant prose. No less depends upon the being who cooks the chicken than upon the hen who laid the egg. If hitherto you have offended through heedlessness, see now that you approach the subject with a determination to profit.

Of all ways of cooking a spring chicken, frying is first to be commended; and of all ways of frying the American is most sympathetic. Fried chicken! To write the word is to be carried back to the sunny South; to see, in the mind's eye, the old, black, fat, smiling mammie, in gorgeous bandana turban, and the little black piccaninnies bringing in relays of hot muffins. Oh, the happy days of the long ago! It is easy to give the recipe, but what can it avail unless the mammie goes with it? Another admirable device is in broiling. One fashion is to divide your chicken down the back and flatten it, seeing, as you have a heart within you, that no bones be broken. Set it lovingly on a trivet placed for the purpose in a baking-tin into which water, to the depth of an inch, has been poured. Cover your tin; bake the sweet offering for ten minutes or so; take it from the oven; touch it delicately with the purest of pure olive oil, and for another ten minutes broil it over a good brisk fire. And if in the result you do not taste heaven, hasten to the hermit's cell in the desert, and, for the remainder of your days, grow thin on lentils and dates.

Or, if you would broil your chicken after the fashion of infallible Mrs Glasse, slit it as before, season it with pepper and salt, lay it on a clear fire at a great distance, broil first the inside, then the out, cover it with delicate bread-crumbs, and let it be of a fine brown, but not burnt. And keep this note carefully in your mind: "You may make just what sauce you fancy."

To roast a spring chicken will do no harm, but let it not be overdone. Twenty minutes suffice for the ceremony. Bacon, in thinnest of thin slices, gracefully rolled, is not unworthy to be served with it. In boiling, something of its virginal flavour may be sacrificed, but still there is compensating gain; it may be eaten with white mushroom sauce, made of mushrooms and cream, and seasoned with nutmeg and mace. Here is a poem, sweeter far than all songs of immortal choirs or the weak pipings of our minor singers.

As the chicken outgrows the childish state, you may go to Monte Carlo in search of one hint at least, for its disposal. There you will learn to cut it into quarters, to stew it in wine and shallots, to add, at the psychological moment, tomatoes in slices, and to serve a dish that baffles description. Or you may journey to Spain, and find that country's kitchen slandered when you eat poulet au ris À l' Espagnole, chicken cooked in a marmite with rice, artichokes, green and red chillies, and salad oil, and served, where the artist dwells, in the blessed marmite itself—in unimaginative London, even, you may buy one, green or brown, whichever you will, at a delightful shop in Shaftsbury-avenue. Again, you may wander to Holland—it is a short journey, and not disagreeable by way of Harwich—and be ready to swear that no fashion can surpass the Dutch of boiling chickens with rice or vermicelli, spicing them with pepper and cloves, and, at table, substituting for sauce sugar and cinnamon. But to omit these last two garnishments will not mean a mortal sin upon your conscience. In more festive mood hasten at once to France, and there you will be no less certain that the way of ways is to begin to broil your chicken, already quartered, but, when half done, to put it in a stew-pan with gravy, and white wine, salt and pepper, fried veal balls, onions, and shallots, and, according to season, gooseberries or grapes. Do you not grow hungry as you read? But wait: this is not all. As the beautiful mixture is stewing—on a charcoal fire if possible—thicken the liquor with yolks of eggs and the juice of lemon, and for ever after bless Mrs Glasse for having initiated you into these noble and ennobling mysteries.

Braise your chicken, fricassee it, make it into mince, croquettes, krameskies; eat it cold; convert it into galantine; bury it in aspic; do what you will with it, so long as you do it well, it can bring you but happiness and peace.