with kindliest change--
* * * * *
"She _tempers dulcet creams_....
.... _then strews the ground
With rose and odours._"

It may be observed, in passing, that the poets, though they have more to
say about wine than solid food, because the former more directly
stimulates the intellect and the feelings, do not flinch from the
subject of eating and drinking. There is infinite zest in the above
passage from Milton, and even more in the famous description of a dainty
supper, given by Keats in his "Eve of Saint Agnes." Could Queen Mab
herself desire to sit down to anything nicer, both as to its
appointments and serving, and as to its quality, than the collation
served by Porphyro in the lady's bedroom while she slept?--

"There by the bedside, where the faded moon
Made a dim silver twilight, soft he set
A table, and, half-anguish'd, threw thereor
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet.
* * * * *
"While he, from forth the closet, brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
With jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon."

But Tennyson has ventured beyond dates, and quinces, and syrups, which
may be thought easy to be brought in by a poet. In his idyl of "Audley
Court" he gives a most appetizing description of a pasty at a pic-nic:--

"There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound;
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
And, half cut down, a pasty costly made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret, lay
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and injellied."

We gladly quote passages like these, to show how eating and drinking may
be surrounded with poetical associations, and how man, using his
privilege to turn any and every repast into a "feast of reason," with a
warm and plentiful "flow of soul," may really count it as not the least
of his legitimate prides, that he is "a dining animal."

1882. It has been said, indeed, that great men, in general, are great
diners. This, however, can scarcely be true of any great men but men of
action; and, in that case, it would simply imply that persons of
vigorous constitution, who work hard, eat heartily; for, of course, a
life of act