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.
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