© 2008 Electronic Enlightenment
Humanities Division
University of Oxford
Distributed by
Oxford University Press
31st May, 1803
Bread is not only the staff of life, but, to me, the greatest of all luxuries, passing turtle and venison. Having given up wine, and my countenance, instead of the less cheerful, being all the cheerfuller for it, have I not a right to have the best, if I can get it? always meaning honestly, of course. Perhaps, my dear Doctor, your doctorship could help me. What I mean by the best bread is, the sort of bread they make at farm-houses, such as they used to make at Browning Hill, for example.
A friend of mine, who bought an estate about five or six years ago, somewhere on the borders of Bagshot Heath, not far from Blackwater, I believe, but has since parted with it, used to have a loaf or two sent him now and then from a servant or tenant there, and two or three times made me a present of one: it was exactly of the right sort, — just like Browning Hill bread, which certainly had no alum in it, nor so much salt as the London bread, nor was quite so much fermented, I believe; and when it happened to be a little sweetish, from the flour being grown, I liked it all the better. Among your doctorship's protegés about the country, might not some bread-baking good soul peradventure be found, who, for a moderate profit, would be glad, or at least content, to make a loaf or two extra, and send them to me about once in three weeks? I don't care how stale it is; but longer than that I think it will hardly keep without being mouldy. About three-fourths of a pound, or one pound a-day, would be sufficient.
Here endeth the dissertation on bread from your ever grateful and affectionate coz.
(From The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 7, ed. J. R. Dinwiddy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.)