e. It seemed to be quite out of the question that the duke should
take any trouble with his guests whatever. Mr Athill consequently
dropped the word he was speaking, and uttered a prayer--if it was a
prayer--that they might all have grateful hearts for that which God
was about to give them.

If it was a prayer! As far as my own experience goes, such utterances
are seldom prayers, seldom can be prayers. And if not prayers, what
then? To me it is unintelligible that the full tide of glibbest
chatter can be stopped at a moment in the midst of profuse good
living, and the Giver thanked becomingly in words of heartfelt
praise. Setting aside for the moment what one daily hears and sees,
may not one declare that a change so sudden is not within the compass
of the human mind? But then, to such reasoning one cannot but add
what one does hear and see; one cannot but judge of the ceremony by
the manner in which one sees it performed--uttered, that is--and
listened to. Clergymen there are--one meets them now and then--who
endeavour to give to the dinner-table grace some of the solemnity of
a church ritual, and what is the effect? Much the same as though one
were to be interrupted for a minute in the midst of one of our church
liturgies to hear a drinking-song.

And it will be argued, that a man need be less thankful because, at
the moment of receiving, he utters no thanksgiving? or will it be
thought that a man is made thankful because what is called a grace is
uttered after dinner? It can hardly be imagined that any one will so
argue, or so think.

Dinner-graces are, probably, the last remaining relic of certain
daily services [1] which the Church in olden days enjoined: nones,
complines, and vespers were others. Of the nones and complines we
have happily got quit; and it might be well if we could get rid of
the dinner-graces also. Let any man ask himself whether, on his own
part, they are acts of prayer and thanksgiving--and if not that, what
then?

[Footnote 1: It is, I know, alleged that graces are said
before dinner, because our Saviour uttered a blessing before
his last supper. I cannot say that the idea of such analogy
is pleasing to me.]

When the large party entered the dining-room one or two gentlemen
might be seen to come in from some other door and set themselves at
the table near to the duke's chair. These were guests of his own, who
were staying in the house, his particular friends, the men with