and Afric coast.

The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without
the recommendatory preface of a benediction. They are like to be short
graces where the devil plays the host.--I am afraid the poet wants his
usual decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman luxury,
or of a gaudy day at Cambridge? This was a temptation fitter for a
Heliogabalus. The whole banquet is too civic and culinary, and the
accompaniments altogether a profanation of that deep, abstracted, holy
scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend 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,
And saw the ravens with their horny beaks
Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn;
Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought:
He saw the prophet also how he fled
Into the desert, and how there he slept
Under a juniper; then how awaked
He found his supper on the coals prepared,
And by the angel was bid rise and eat,
And ate the second time after repose,
The strength whereof sufficed him forty days:
Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook,
Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse.

Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temperate dreams of
the divine Hungerer. To which of these two visionary banquets, think
you, would the introduction of what is called the grace have been most
fitting and pertinent?

Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; but practically I own that
(before meat especially) they seem to involve something awkward and
unseasonable. Our appetites, of one or another kind, are excellent
spurs to our reason, which might otherwise but feebly set about the
great ends of preserving 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 their business, of every description, with more calmness
than we, have more title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I
have always a