n._ Still more recently it was
my misfortune, with a tolerable appetite, to be condemned to Lenten
fare, like Sancho Panza, by my physician, to a diet, in fact, lower
than any prescribed by the Poor-Law Commissioners, all animal food,
from a bullock to a rabbit, being strictly interdicted, as well as
all fluids stronger than that which lays dust, washes pinafores, and
waters polyanthus. But the feast of reason and the flow of soul were
still mine!

Denied beef, I had Bulwer and Cowper; forbidden mutton, there was
Lamb; and in lieu of pork, the great Bacon, or Hogg. Then as to
beverage; it was hard, doubtless, for a Christian to set his face,
like a Turk, against the juice of the grape. But, eschewing wine,
I had still my Butler; and in the absence of liquor, all the Choice
Spirits from Tom Browne to Tom Moore. Thus though confined physically
to the drink that drowns kittens, I quaffed mentally, not merely the
best of our own home-made, but the rich, racy, sparkling growths of
France and Italy, of Germany and Spain; the champagne of Moliere, the
Monte Pulciano of Boccaccio, the hock of Schiller, and the sherry of
Cervantes. Depressed bodily by the fluid that damps everything, I got
intellectually elevated with Milton, a little merry with Swift, or
rather jolly with Rabelais, whose Pantagruel, by the way, is equal to
the best gruel with rum in it.

So far can Literature palliate, or compensate, for gastronomical
privations. But there are other evils, great and small, in this world,
which try the stomach less than the head, the heart, and the temper;
bowls that will not roll right, well-laid schemes that will 'gang
aglee', and ill winds that blow with the pertinacity of the monsoon.
Of these Providence has allotted me a full share, but still,
paradoxical as it may sound, my _burthen_ has been greatly lightened
by a _load of books_. The manner of this will be best understood by a
_feline_ illustration. Everybody has heard of the two Kilkenny cats,
who devoured each other; but it is not so generally known, that they
left behind them an orphan kitten, which, true to its breed, began to
eat itself up, till it was diverted from the operation by a mouse. Now
the human mind, under vexation, is like that kitten, for it is apt to
_prey upon itself_, unless drawn off by a new object, and none better
for the purpose than a book. For example, one of Defoe's; for who,
in reading his thrilling _History of the Great Plague_, would not