A Curious Fact.

The present Lord Kenyon (the Peer who writes letters,     For which the waste-paper folks much are his debtors)     Hath one little oddity well worth reciting,     Which puzzleth observers even more than his writing.     Whenever Lord Kenyon doth chance to behold     A cold Apple-pie--mind, the pie must be cold--     His Lordship looks solemn (few people know why),     And he makes a low bow to the said apple-pie.     This idolatrous act in so "vital" a Peer,     Is by most serious Protestants thought rather queer--     Pie-worship, they hold, coming under the head     (Vide Crustium, chap, iv.) of the Worship of Bread.     Some think 'tis a tribute, as author he owes     For the service that pie-crust hath done to his prose;--     The only good things in his pages, they swear,     Being those that the pastry-cook sometimes put there.     Others say, 'tis a homage, thro' piecrust conveyed,     To our Glorious Deliverer's much-honored shade;     As that Protestant Hero (or Saint, if you please)     Was as fond of cold pie as he was of green pease,[1]     And 'tis solely in loyal remembrance of that,     My Lord Kenyon to apple-pie takes off his hat.     While others account for this kind salutation;"--     By what Tony Lumpkin calls "concatenation;"     A certain good-will that, from sympathy's ties,     'Twixt old Apple-women and Orange-men lies.     But 'tis needless to add, these are all vague surmises,     For thus, we're assured, the whole matter arises:     Lord Kenyon's respected old father (like many     Respected old fathers) was fond of a penny;     And loved so to save,[2] that--there's not the least question--     His death was brought on by a bad indigestion,     From cold apple-pie-crust his Lordship would stuff in     At breakfast to save the expense of hot muffin.     Hence it is, and hence only, that cold apple-pies     Are beheld by his Heir with such reverent eyes--     Just as honest King Stephen his beaver might doff     To the fishes that carried his kind uncle off--     And while filial piety urges so many on,         'Tis pure apple-pie-ety moves my Lord Kenyon.