rable advice," said Guloseton, toying with a filet mignon de
poulet. "Do you remember an example in the Bailly of Suffren, who, being
in India, was waited upon by a deputation of natives while he was at
dinner. 'Tell them,' said he, 'that the Christian religion peremptorily
forbids every Christian, while at table, to occupy himself with any
earthly subject, except the function of eating.' The deputation retired
in the profoundest respect at the exceeding devotion of the French
general."

"Well," said I, after we had chuckled gravely and quietly, with the care
of our digestion before us, for a few minutes--"well, however good the
invention was, the idea is not entirely new, for the Greeks esteemed
eating and drinking plentifully, a sort of offering to the gods; and
Aristotle explains the very word, THoinai, or feasts, by an etymological
exposition, 'that it was thought a duty to the gods to be drunk;' no
bad idea of our classical patterns of antiquity. Polypheme, too, in
the Cyclops of Euripides, no doubt a very sound theologian, says, his
stomach is his only deity; and Xenophon tells us, that as the Athenians
exceeded all other people in the number of their gods, so they exceeded
them also in the number of their feasts. May I send your lordship an
ortolan?"

"Pelham, my boy," said Guloseton, whose eyes began to roll and twinkle
with a brilliancy suited to the various liquids which ministered to
their rejoicing orbs; "I love you for your classics. Polypheme was a
wise fellow, a very wise fellow, and it was a terrible shame in Ulysses
to put out his eye. No wonder that the ingenious savage made a deity
of his stomach; to what known and visible source, on this earth, was he
indebted for a keener enjoyment--a more rapturous and a more constant
delight? No wonder he honoured it with his gratitude, and supplied it
with his peace-offerings;--let us imitate so great an example:--let us
make our digestive receptacles a temple, to which we will consecrate the
choicest goods we possess;--let us conceive no pecuniary sacrifice too
great, which procures for our altar an acceptable gift;--let us deem it
an impiety to hesitate, if a sauce seems extravagant, or an ortolan
too dear; and let our last act in this sublunary existence, be a solemn
festival in honour of our unceasing benefactor."

"Amen to your creed," said I: "edibilatory Epicurism holds the key to
all morality: for do we not see now how sinful it is to yield to an
obsce