he is himself the kindliest of human
creatures. Should infirmities over-take him--he is yet in green and
vigorous senility--make allowances for them, remembering that "ye
yourselves are old." So may the Winged Horse, your ancient badge
and cognisance, still flourish! so may future Hookers and Seldens
illustrate your church and chambers! so may the sparrows, in default
of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about your walks! so may
the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery maid, who, by leave, airs her
playful charge in your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing
curtsy as ye pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion! so may the
younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with
the same superstitious veneration, with which the child Elia gazed on
the Old Worthies that solemnized the parade before ye!

[Footnote 1: From a copy of verses entitled The Garden.]

GRACE BEFORE MEAT

The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the
early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, when dinners
were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a
common blessing; when a belly-full was a windfall, and looked like
a special providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which,
after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's
flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of
the modern grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the
blessing of food--the act of eating--should have had a particular
expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied
and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon
the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of
existence.

I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in
the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out
upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting,
or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual
repasts--a grace before Milton--a grace before Shakspeare--a
devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy
Queen?--but, the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the
solitary ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my observations to
the experience which I have had of the grace, properly so called;
commending my new scheme for extension to a niche in the grand
philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part