8780. VENISON, Philosophy and.—
You
have sent me a noble animal, legitimated by
superior force as a monarch of the forest; and
he has incurred the death which his brother
legitimates have so much more merited; like
them, in death, he becomes food for a nobler
race, he for man, they for worms that will revel
on them; but he dies innocent, and with death
all his fears and pains are at an end; they die
loaded with maledictions, and Iiable to a sentence
and sufferings which we will leave to the
justice of heaven to award. In plain English,
we shall heartily feast on him, and thank you
heartily as the giver of the feast.—
To John Fry.
Ford ed., x, 284.
(M.
1823)
