29 



up any excuse ; I don't con^Jider my subject matter a trifle ; T take 

 a serious view of it. I agree with Lord Lytton in what he says 

 about the Dinner Hour : — 



O hour of all hours, the most bless'd upon earth, 

 Blessed hour of our dinners ! 



The land of his birth : 

 The face of his first love : the bills that he owes ; 

 The twaddle of friends, and the venom of foes ; 

 The sermon he heard when to church he last went ; 

 The money he borrow'd, the money he spent ; — 

 All of these things a man, I believe, may forget, , 



And not be the worse for forgetting ; but yet. 

 Never, never, oh never ! earth's luckiest sinner 

 Hath unpunish'd forgotten the hour of his dinner ! 

 Indigestion, that conscience of every bad stomach. 

 Shall relentlessly gnaw and pursue him with some ache 

 Or some pain ; and trouble, remorseless, his best ease, 

 As the Furies once troubled the sleep of Orestes. 



We may live without poetry, music, and art ; 



We may live without conscience, and live without heart ; 



We may live without friends ; we may live without books ; 



But civilized man cannot live without cooks. 



He may live without books — what is knowledge but grieving? 



He may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving ? 



He may live without love — what is passion but pining ? 



But where is the man that can live without dining ? 



LticiU, Part I., Canto H., xxiii. xxiv. 



Note. —Any one who reads the above paper, and Mr. Coote's paper in the 

 Archceoioi^ia, will see how much I am indebted to that gentleman. I have to 

 thank him for giving me, in the kindest manner, leave to make use of his paper, 

 and I wish to make public how much I am indebted to that eminent scholar. 

 I have to thaiik Dr. Oakley (late Dean of Carlisle,) for lending me Atheimus 

 from the Dean and Chapter Library; Apkhis I got from the University Library, 

 Cambridge ; and Pegge's Forr?i of Cury from the Library, Society of Antiquaries 

 of London. 



