

 THE SWEET BLADE-BONE. 



WHEN Charles the Second wished to buy up Andrew Marvell, he 

 sent to the patriot, Lord Danby, the treasurer, with an earnest of the 

 purchase-money. His lordship was the bearer of a thousand guineas, 

 and, having found Marvell at his lodging, a second floor in a court in 

 the Strand, the golden offer was made. Hereupon, we are told, 

 Marvell turned to his servant : " What had I for dinner yesterday ? " 

 tf A shoulder of mutton, sir." " And what do you allow me to-day ?" 

 " Part of it hashed." " And to-morrow, my Lord Danby," said 

 Marvell, " I shall have the sweet blade-bone broiled." His lordship 

 descended the staircase with the thousand guineas, and Andrew 

 Marvell remained unbought. 



We are about to preach a sermon on this " sweet blade-bone." The 

 joints of saints the osseous relics of St. Ursula and her virgins are 

 as nothing to it : they have been the toys of craft, the instruments of 

 moral tyranny ; but in our " blade-bone," there is engraven a lesson of 

 eternal right it is a sacred thing in the temple of human truth. It 

 is a bone which, in the hand of the moral Sampsons, may slay its tens 

 of thousand of Philistines, lodged, fed, and clothed at the price of 

 their free souls. 



How much active iniquity, how much moral degradation hath a 

 contempt of the "sweet blade-bone" brought upon many of the really 

 highest of the earth ! Look at Fulgentius : he might have spent an 

 honoured life in the advocacy of truth and goodness ; but, then, he 

 could not stomach a sweet blade-bone. He was for his six courses 

 and his choicest wine ; what could the blade-bone offer pitted against 

 these? It is true, for a time, he declaimed on its excellence; but 

 then no thousand guineas had been offered to purchase dinners and 

 suppers " in the Apollo." Like a certain monk, who was wont to 

 make his meals off nets, until he became cardinal, when he suddenly 

 found a stomach for the costliest fish Fulgentius writ eulogies on 

 the blade-bone, until the price of richer viands was tendered him ; 

 when the honest shoulder of a sheep became a beggar's dish the 

 sweet blade-bone a musty mouthful for a pauper. He turned his 

 back on mutton for the rest of his days, and lived and died a well-fed 

 lackey to the wolves that bought him. 



Now, we are desirous of being the founders of a literary order 

 an order that shall embrace in its chapter the really elect and noble 

 of the earth. Emperors,, kings, queens, and popes have established 

 their several orders for the especial reward of such who may have 

 pimped, robbed, or murdered or, indeed, united the three trades 

 for the glory of them they served; we do not see why, in these days of 

 discriminating justice, the hitherto ignoble army of men, whose battle- 

 field is paper whose weapons are quills whose blood is ink should 

 not have their distinguishing mark of chivalrous service. To this 

 end, we beg to propose that " The Order of the Sweet Blade-bone " 

 be forthwith established for the reward of all present, and for the en- 

 couragement of all future, Andrew Marvells, whether located in 



