A table richly spread in regal mode and continuing the species. They are fit blessings to be contemplated at a distance with a becoming gratitude; but the moment of appetite (the judicious reader will apprehend me) is, perhaps, the least fit season for that exercise. The Quakers, who go about The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these their business of every description with more cates would go down without the recom- calmness than we, have more title to the use mendatory preface of a benediction. They of these benedictory prefaces. I have always are like to be short graces where the devil admired their silent grace, and the more plays the host. I am afraid the poet wants because I have observed their applications his usual decorum in this place. Was he to the meat and drink following to be less thinking of the old Roman luxury, or of a passionate and sensual than ours. They are gaudy day at Cambridge? This was a tempta- | neither gluttons nor wine-bibbers as a people. tion fitter for a Heliogabalus. The whole They eat, as a horse bolts his chopped hay, banquet is too civic and culinary, and the with indifference, calmness, and cleanly ciraccompaniments altogether a profanation of cumstances. They neither grease nor slop that deep, abstracted holy scene. The mighty themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend and tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. conjures up, is out of proportion to the simple wants and plain hunger of the guest. He that disturbed him in his dreams, from his dreams might have been taught better. To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of God, what sort of feasts presented themselves?-He dreamed indeed, As appetite is wont to dream, Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. But what meats ?- Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, He saw the prophet also how he fled Under a juniper; then how awaked I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indifferent to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh were not made to be received with dispassionate services. I hate a man who swallows it, affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who professes to like minced veal. There is a physiognomical character in the tastes for food. C-holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. I am not certain but he is right. With the decay of my first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for those innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost their gust with me. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire gentle thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under culinary disappointments, as to come home at the dinner hour, for instance, expecting some savoury mess, and to find one quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter ill melted-that commonest of kitchen failures-puts me beside my tenor.-The author of the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal noises over a favourite food. Was this the music quite proper to be preceded by the grace? or would the pious man have Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; done better to postpone his devotions to a but practically I own that (before meat season when the blessing might be contemespecially) they seem to involve something plated with less perturbation? I quarrel awkward and unseasonable. Our appetites, with no man's tastes, nor would set my thin of one or another kind, are excellent spurs face against those excellent things, in their to our reason, which might otherwise but way, jollity and feasting. But as these feebly set about the great ends of preserving exercises, however laudable, have little in He found his supper on the coals prepared, Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than he made answer that it was not a custom known in his church: in which courteous evasion the other acquiescing for good manners' sake, or in compliance with a weak brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was waived altogether. With what spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of his religion, playing into each other's hands the compliment of performing or omitting a sacrifice,—the hungry God meantime, doubtful of his incense, with expectant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and (as between two stools) going away in the end without his supper. them of grace or gracefulness, a man should this meal also. His reverend brother did be sure, before he ventures so to grace them, not at first quite apprehend him, but upon that while he is pretending his devotions an explanation, with little less importance otherwhere, he is not secretly kissing his hand to some great fish-his Dagon-with a special consecration of no ark but the fat tureen before him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to the banquets of angels and children; to the roots and severer repasts of the Chartreuse; to the slender, but not slenderly acknowledged, refection of the poor and humble man: but at the heaped-up boards of the pampered and the luxurious they become of dissonant mood, less timed and tuned to the occasion, methinks, than the noise of those better befitting organs would be which children hear tales of, at Hog's Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in the study of them, or too disordered in our application to them, or engross too great a portion of those good things (which should be common) to our share, to be able with any grace to say grace. To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion, is to add hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is what makes the performance of this duty so cold and spiritless a service at most tables. In houses where the grace is as indispensable as the napkin, who has not seen that never-settled question arise, as to who shall say it? while the good man of the house and the visitor clergyman, or some other guest belike of next authority, from years or gravity, shall be bandying about the office between them as a matter of compliment, each of them not unwilling to shift the awkward burthen of an equivocal duty from his own shoulders ? I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune to introduce to each other for the first time that evening. Before the first cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he chose to say anything. It seems it is the custom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer before A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence; a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C. V. L, when importuned for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is there no clergyman here," - significantly adding, "Thank G-." Nor do I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to preface our bald bread-and-cheesesuppers with a preamble, connecting with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful and overwhelming to the imagination which religion has to offer. Non tunc illis erat locus. I remember we were put to it to reconcile the phrase "good creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the fare set before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low and animal sense,— till some one recalled a legend, which told how, in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers were wont to have smoking joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till some pious benefactor, commiserating the decencies, rather than the palates, of the children, commuted our flesh for garments, and gave us-horresco referens-trousers instead of mutton. DREAM CHILDREN; A REVERIE. attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer-here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted-the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she—and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holydays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost rubbed out CHILDREN love to listen to stories about when she came to die, her funeral was their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene-so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country-of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts; till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that would be foolish indeed." And then I told how, sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me-and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then,and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yewtrees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at-or in lying about upon the fresh grass with all the fine garden smells around me--or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth-or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings, I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L-, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any outand yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundariesand how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy-for he was a good bit older than me—many a mile when I could not walk for pain;--and how in after life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, │ and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when the doctor took off his limb.-Here the children fell a crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W-n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial, meant in maidens-when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name "and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side-but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS. IN A LETTER TO B. F. ESQ., AT SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES. MY DEAR F.-When I think how welcome | is natural and friendly. But at this present the sight of a letter from the world where reading-your Now-he may possibly be in you were born must be to you in that the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in strange one to which you have been trans- reason ought to abate something of your planted, I feel some compunctious visitings transport (i. e. at hearing he was well, &c.), at my long silence. But, indeed, it is no or at least considerably to modify it. I am easy effort to set about a correspondence at going to the play this evening, to have a our distance. The weary world of waters laugh with Munden. You have no theatre, between us oppresses the imagination. It is I think you told me, in your land of d-d difficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine realities. You naturally lick your lips, and should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, presumption to expect that one's thoughts and you will correct the hateful emotion. should live so far. It is like writing for pos- Why it is Sunday morning with you, and terity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand Rowe's superscriptions, "Alcander to Stre- solecism of two presents, is in a degree phon in the shades." Cowley's Post-Angel common to all postage. But if I sent you is no more than would be expedient in such word to Bath or Devizes, that I was exan intercourse. One drops a packet at Lom-pecting the aforesaid treat this evening, bard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself at one end and the man at the other; it would be some balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet, for aught I know, you may be some parasangs nigher that primitive ideaPlato's man-than we in England here have the honour to reckon ourselves. though at the moment you received the intelligence my full feast of fun would be over, yet there would be for a day or two after, as you would well know, a smack, a relish left upon my mental palate, which would give rational encouragement for you to foster a portion, at least, of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my intention to produce. But ten months hence, your envy or your sympathy would be as useless as a passion spent upon the dead. Not only does truth, in these long intervals, un-essence herself, but (what is harder) one cannot venture a crude fiction, for the fear that it Epistolary matter usually compriseth three may ripen into a truth upon the voyage. topics; news, sentiment, and puns. In the What a wild improbable banter I put upon latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or you, some three years since, of Will subjects serious in themselves, but treated Weatherall having married a servant-maid! after my fashion, non-seriously.-And first, I remember gravely consulting you how we for news. In them the most desirable cir- were to receive her-for Will's wife was in cumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be no case to be rejected; and your no less true. But what security can I have that serious replication in the matter; how tenwhat I now send you for truth shall not, derly you advised an abstemious introduction before you get it, unaccountably turn into a of literary topics before the lady, with a lie? For instance, our mutual friend P. is at caution not to be too forward in bringing on this present writing-my Now-in good the carpet matters more within the sphere of health, and enjoys a fair share of worldly her intelligence; your deliberate judgment, reputation. You are glad to hear it. This or rather wise suspension of sentence, how |