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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
Opportunity of this interval in my Narrative , to do some justice , however inadequate it maybe , to the talents of a distinguished individual , who , for the extent and versatility of his abilities , both iii the tangible merits of practice and the abstruser depths of theoretic speculation ; the fiery ardour of his roused spirit and the gentle urbanity and humour of his quiescent manners , has for ever laid the survivors of the ship ' s company of the Libertad under obligations of the most indelible nature . The
General ' s cook was a ne plus ultra in the finest sense of the term . A better cook , or a more impudent dog , never lived . He might have been Emperor of Morocco if he had not been a cook ; but fate willed it otherwise , and a most accomplished
potentate was lost to a province that the world at large might be benefitted by his fricassees . He ate , drank , and boasted enough for any four men , pick them where you will ; but as he cooked better than any body else in the universe—let no one be offended . He had been a soldier some years before , and
would talk extemporaneously of the battles he had seen , till all his admiring hearers applauded him for their extreme delight , earnestly entreating that he would " roar again . " With this , however , he seldom complied , contenting himself with giving a great thump upon his broad fat breast while he struck one foot upon the deck , saying , " All hoo ! la France ! " He was a
philosopher too , like the generality of his countrymen , and after he had finished his second bottle , used to argue several questions connected with free-will and necessity , in a very able kind of way . But cooking was his forte . He was also , as may be supposed , a sensualist , and would take much pleasure in decrying the fair frailties of Engleterre , whom he called des ignorantes ,
jn > comparison with the painted licentiates of scientific Paris , complimenting the latter with the titles of des anges ! illuminati ! cognoscenti ! while he surveyed himself from top to toe most complacently . But with all his vain boasting of successes and conquest , he was a very unlikely fellow ; for though the weathergrew hotter and hotter , the horrid monster would rub his naked feet all
over with butter , and slide them into his boots for the day ! As to cooking , however , no man was his equal . His external appearance may be easily imagined from the above internal qualities . He was a large man of small bone ; very fat and continuous ifrom face to foot , with a red , bloated cheek , and an air and carriage between the drum-major and the nabob . When he stood still in philosophic abstraction , he was not unlike a
porpoise set upright on its tan with the jowl rouged . There was as much expression in his stomach as in his countenance , both allowing his high , pursy grossness , and measureless vain glory . But what else could be expected from a fellow who wore Hessiaq . boots in the West Indies ?
Untitled Article
; $ t Mexican Sketches .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1837, page 24, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1827/page/26/
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