--ROMEO AND JULIET.

_Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast._
--COMEDY OF ERRORS, iii. I.

_A little quail, or some such light thing, when I
come home at night._

--CHARLES DICKENS.

_Now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit._
--SWIFT.

INTRODUCTION.

=Chafing-dishes Past and Present.=

Well, he was an ingenious man that first found out
eating and drinking.--_Swift._

How fire was discovered, when it was first applied to the needs of human
beings, the origin and early use of cooking and heating utensils,--all
are concealed from us in the mists that surround the life of prehistoric
man. But at the dawn of history, even before the beginning of our era,
crude appliances for cooking were in use; and, without doubt, one of the
earliest of these was an utensil corresponding in some particulars, at
least, to the chafing-dish of to-day.

The chafing-dish is a portable utensil used upon the table, either for
cooking food or for keeping food hot after it has been cooked by other
means. In ancient times, the fuel of the chafing-dish was either live
coals or olive oil; to-day we use either electricity, gas, alcohol or
colonial spirits.

The first chafing-dishes of which historic mention is made consisted of
a pan heated over a pot of burning oil, the pan resting upon a frame
which held the pot of oil. It was with such an utensil, perhaps, that
the Israelitish women cooked the locusts of Egypt and Palestine, for
these were eaten as a common food by the people of the biblical lands
and age.

Mommsen, in his history of Rome, while speaking of the extravagance of
the times, as shown in the table furnishings, probably refers to the
chafing-dish when he says: "A well-wrought bronze cooking-machine came
to cost more than an estate." The idea that this might be the utensil
referred to is strengthened by the fact that many chafing-dishes have
been found in the ruins of Pompeii. These were made of bronze, and
highly ornamented. Evidently, olive oil was the fuel used in these
dishes.

Coming down to more modern times, Madame de Stael had a dish of very
unique pattern, and, when driven by the command of Napoleon from her
beloved Paris, she carried her chafing-dish wit