tered the room in an amusing state of excitement, and trembling with emotion, addressed his host in broken and almost tearful accents.

"My dear Mr. Benton, could not you have dinner postponed for a little while until I recover my composure? You see how excessively I am excited: I cannot appear at the table with any propriety."

"Do not concern yourself about that, my dear sir," said Mr. Benton. "The company consists of your own particular friends, and I am sure that they will excuse any disorder in your manner."

6

"Oh!" replied the other, "it is not for them that I care; it is for myself. How can I enjoy my dinner in such a state of embarrassment? How can I come with agitated nerves and an excited mind to a task which above all others requires the conscience pure, the easy mind,'-a reason undisturbed by passion, senses cool, critical and keen in nice detection,-a body and a spirit perfectly at rest, like the stone beneath the Ægis of wisdom? Could'nt you put off your dinner till to-morrow? I am sure these gentlemen would as leave come to-morrow."

"My dear friend," said Benton, laughing heartily, while Rolle stood the picture of humorous perplexity, "you shall dine with me both to-day and to-morrow; and to secure you the degree of coolness necessary to the free and full exercise of your unrivalled powers of analysis, you shall be brought here to-morrow, like a salmon, in an ice-basket. Meanwhile, as a dinner is not like a debate, a matter which may be adjourned, I hope that if you sit down in that corner and unbutton your wrist-bands, and suffer me to fan you gently you may at length be recovered into a tolerable condition for dining. But what has been the cause of this terrible disturbance? Have you been waylaid? Have you been fired at? Have you been robbed ?"

"Worse, worse!" replied the other. "Sit down and I will tell you about it: but do not look so strongly at me, for it excites me more; look naturally. The event which has so much discomposed me, is this: I was coming here when I met, two corners off, a servant-boy, with two

magnificent rock-fishes-a rarity in these times, more golden than gold. They were fishes like those described in Athenæus, ἀθανάτοισι θέοισι φυῆν καὶ είδος δίμοιαι, “in shape and nature like the immortal gods.' The wretch, to whose care some malignant demon had entrusted these spoils of Neptune, instead of carrying them with cautious solemnity, as the charge demanded, went swinging them both in one hand, with utter carelessness and bruising them by striking them against one another. Instantly I perceived this barbarous and atrocious conduct, I rushed across the street, and seizing the boy, demanded to know by what infatuation he was possessed to treat those fishes in such a manner. He replied, insolently, that the fishes were his master's, and that if the latter knew how he carried them he would have no objection. Knowing well that a man may, like a corporeal hereditament, lie in livery, I told him that I should go with him to his master and see whether he allowed such animals to be destroyed in that manner, and that if he did not resent it, I should punish him myself for such a public outrage. Hereupon the boy fled, leaving me alone with the precious prizes: upon examining them I found one of them utterly ruined by the bruises it had got. Hinc illæ lachrymæ: and judge thou if there be not cause. The other, I thank God, is safe."

"And where is it?" cried Benton, with some curiosity.

"In my hat in the entry,” replied Rolle, in a whisper. "Come and dine with me alone to-morrow at ten, and we will eat it."

This conversation, which gave me a glimpse of that most curious of all characters, a sentimental gourmand, was interrupted by the entrance of a gentleman of Herculean proportions, oddly habited in a scarlet huntingjacket, loose pantaloons, and a coloured neckcloth loosely tied about his neck. His face had a fine, frank, but firm expression; and his large keen eye denoted high intelligence. His manners were natural and unrestrainedthe behaviour of a man who lived, not against, but above, the usage of the world; and was directed to such conduct by his strong love of perfect freedom, and supported

in it by the calm consciousness of powers and a reputation which would protect him against remark. Such a style of address adopted by a man of fresh and rich intellect and tempered by native delicacy and refined taste, renders intercourse delightful. It is a high relief to escape from the wearisome mistrust and the unworthy egotism of artificial manners, and from the confinement of small talk which good breeding imposes, because all may not be capable of large talk: you have the keen pleasure of freely coping a generous intellect, together with the gentle gratification of being, as habitual vanity suggests, in one respect above your companion. There was an odd mixture of rudeness and refinement in the character of Mr. Wilkins: he was at once a scholar and a boxer, a poet and a good fellow.

After the entrance of two or three other persons dinner was announced.

"What is the reason," said Mr. Wilkins, as the tureens were taken off, "that we always find soup served before our meats? Vermicelli is at best a tasteless affair, and only takes away that appetite which should be reserved for worthier viands."

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Sir," replied Mr. Benton, "you have hit upon the very reason. Soup is provided for the purpose of removing that keen animal appetite whose violence disturbs the mind in the nice perception of the harmony of tastes. Criticism is feeling; and it is too delicate to distinguish finely when the senses are craving the strong physical gratification which nature and habit have made necessary to them. There are two distinct pleasures in eating: the first consists in simply appeasing the appetite,—the second in calmly exercising the sense of taste. The latter is the natural delight springing from the action of one of the physical sources of enjoyment; the former is the independent pleasure caused by supplying or removing a painful want, on the general principle

That every want which stimulates the breast
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.

You are a snuff-taker, Mr. Wilkins, and you know that every pinch of snuff gives you two distinct delights,

that of pleasing the smell, and that of gratifying an animal want which custom has created. You as a sportsman also know how inconsistent is the exercise of taste with strong appetite; for at the end of a day's hunt you find cold beef as agreeable as terrapins, and perhaps more so; because the more delicate pleasure is absorbed in the stronger, and what most gratifies the latter is most acceptable. As but one of these pleasures is worthy of a sentient being, we provide soups to extinguish the other; that is, we destroy hunger to create taste.”

"That is reasonable enough," said Rolle; "but surely no man of sense ever allows himself to get hungry. From the first moment that I could reflect justly on the 'end and aim' of human existence, I do not think that I have ever been hungry."

"It is curious, by the way, to observe," continued Benton, "that the wise ancients had the same custom. Their supper, which corresponds to our dinner, was preceded by an ante-cænum, which consisted chiefly of wine thickened with honey. The commentators say that this was to quicken the appetite; but honeyed wine must certainly have had an opposite effect."

"The succession of dishes," said Rolle, "is a subject worthy of the most profound consideration. I regard the architecture of an entertainment as one of the highest of the fine arts. When, at the close of a well-cooked and well-arranged dinner,-such a dinner as Mr. Benton would choose to give, and I would choose to eat,review the whole, it rises upon my mind like a symphony of Beethoven's,‚—a succession of elements harmoniously combined and exquisitely diversified. The beaux arts, by-the-by, are vastly more numerous than is commonly suspected. Dancing is unquestionably one of them and. eating is another. The latter is a science, which, as Sieyes said of politics, je crois avoir achevée: I have brought it to perfection. But there is another of the senses to which there is no corresponding fine art; for while the hearing has music, and the sight has architecture, the objects which address the smell have never been reduced to a system. I have been engaged in investigating the matter æsthetically, and have nearly succeeded in constructing

a gamut of odours, and I hope friends an overture of flowers. discussion till dinner is over."

soon to present to my But let us postpone this

"The notion of Mr. Rolle is true," said Wilkins. "The great principle of the universe, moral and physical, is relation; and the sole business of the mind, the only thing about which it can possibly employ itself,-the primary point at which its operation begins, and the terminating bound at which it stops,-the first step it takes from the domains of the sensible, and the last progress it achieves in the regions of the intellectual,-is the perception of relation. The soul, says Plato, is a harmony; and by the soul he means that mass of organised thought and feeling which belongs to, and is our moral existence; and by harmony he means just relation; these hoarded perceptions of just relation throughout all things, make the soul. There is a mental and a physical perception of relations; that is, a perception by the mind and by the The former gives rise to sciences and the latter to fine arts. The fine arts therefore may be defined the evolution of harmony in the objects of the senses. Metaphysically they are but one; physically they are indefinite in number. Wherever there is a harmony in sound, motion, size, form, smell, taste or touch, there, there is room for a fine art. This notion which I but obscurely hint at now, gives rise to a new metaphysical system. I am a materialist, and regard thinking as one of the fine arts. I shall some day or other publish a quarto volume on the subject, with an appendix of maps."

senses.

"I hope," said Dr. Gauden, "the chapter on the æsthetics of eating will be illustrated by plates."

"It is curious to observe," continued Wilkins, "how often poets and others, writing not from a priori reasoning, but from the natural instinct of impression, have alluded to harmony in matters of form. The word music which they employ denotes mere harmony; and both of these words have been restricted to or derived from matters of sound, probably because the mind being greatly under the tyranny of vision, deemed the relation of what was perceived by another sense, more abstract and unmaterial than the perceptions of the sight, and so gave to