Ti. Have you any more to be seen then?

Eu. You shall see what the Back-side affords us by and by.  Here’s an indifferent large Garden parted:  The one a Kitchen Garden, that is my Wife’s and the Family’s; the other is a Physick Garden, containing the choicest physical Herbs.  At the left Hand there is an open Meadow, that is only a green Plot enclos’d with a quick-set Hedge.  There sometimes I take the Air, and divert myself with good Company.  Upon the right Hand there’s an Orchard, where, when you have Leisure, you shall see a great Variety of foreign Trees, that I have brought by Degrees to endure this Climate.

Ti. O wonderful! the King himself has not such a Seat.

Eu. At the End of the upper Walk there’s an Aviary, which I’ll shew you after Dinner, and there you’ll see various Forms, and hear various Tongues, and their Humours are as various.  Among some of them there is an Agreeableness and mutual Love, and among others an irreconcilable Aversion:  And then they are so tame and familiar, that when I’m at Supper, they’ll come flying in at the Window to me, even to the Table, and take the Meat out of my Hands.  If at any Time I am upon the Draw-Bridge you see there, talking, perhaps with a Friend, they’ll some of them sit hearkening, others of them will perch upon my Shoulders or Arms, without any Sort of Fear, for they find that no Body hurts them.  At the further End of the Orchard I have my Bees, which is a Sight worth seeing.  But I must not show you any more now, that I may have something to entertain you with by and by.  I’ll shew you the rest after Dinner.

Boy. Sir, my Mistress and Maid say that the Dinner will be spoil’d.

Eu. Bid her have a little Patience, and we’ll come presently.  My friends, let us wash, that we may come to the Table with clean Hands as well as Hearts.  The very Pagans us’d a Kind of Reverence in this Case; how much more then should Christians do it; if it were but in Imitation of that sacred Solemnity of our Saviour with his Disciples at his last Supper:  And thence comes the Custom of washing of Hands, that if any Thing of Hatred, Ill-Will, or any Pollution should remain in the Mind of any one, he might purge it out, before he sits down at the Table.  For it is my Opinion, that the Food is the wholesomer for the Body, if taken with a purified Mind.

Ti. We believe that it is a certain Truth.

Eu.  Christ himself gave us this Example, that we should sit down to the Table with a Hymn; and I take it from this, that we frequently read in the Evangelists, that he bless’d or gave Thanks to his Father before he broke Bread, and that he concluded with giving of Thanks:  And if you please, I’ll say you a Grace that St. Chrysostom commends to the Skies in one of his Homilies, which he himself interpreted.

Ti. We desire you would.

Eu. Blessed be thou, O God, who has fed me from my Youth up, and providest Food for all Flesh:  Fill thou our Hearts with Joy and Gladness, that partaking plentifully of thy Bounty, we may abound to every good Work, through Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom, to thee and the Holy Ghost, be Glory, Honour, and Power, World without End. Amen.