’Tis known to man, ’tis known to woman,
’Tis known to all the world in common,
How politics and party strife
Vex public, even private, life;
But, till some days ago, at least
They never worried brutal beast.
I wish you could have seen the creature,
A tame domestic boar by nature,
Gone wild as boar that ever grunted,
By Baron Hoggerhausen hunted.
His back was up, and on its ledge
The bristles rose like quickset hedge;
His eye was fierce and red as coal,
Like furnace, shining through a hole,
And restless turn’d for mischief seeking;
His very hide with rage was reeking;
And oft he gnash’d his crooked tusks,
Chewing his tongue instead of husks,
Till all his jaw was white and yesty,
Showing him savage, fierce, and resty.
And what had caused this mighty vapour?
A dirty fragment of a paper,
That in his rambles he had found,
Lying neglected on the ground;
A relic of the Morning Post,
Two tattered columns at the most,
But which our irritated swine
(Derived from Learned Toby’s line)
Digested easy as his meals,
Like any quidnunc Cit at Peel’s.
He read, and mused, and pored and read,
His shoulders shrugg’d, and shook his head;
Now at a line he gave a grunt,
Now at a phrase took sudden stunt,
And snorting turn’d his back upon it,
But always came again to con it;
In short he petted up his passion,
After a very human fashion,
When Temper’s worried with a bone
She’ll neither like nor let alone.
At last his fury reach’d the pitch
Of that most irritating itch,
When mind and will, in fever’d faction,
Prompt blood and body into action;
No matter what, so bone and muscle
May vent the frenzy in a bustle;
But whether by a fight or dance
Is left to impulse and to chance.
So stood the Boar, in furious mood
Made up for any thing but good;
He gave his tail a tighter twist,
As men in anger clench the fist,
And threw fresh sparkles in his eye
From the volcano in his fry—
Ready to raze the parish pound,
To pull the pigsty to the ground,
To lay Squire Giles, his master, level,
Ready, indeed, to play the devil.
So, stirr’d by raving demagogues,
I’ve seen men rush, like rabid dogs,
Stark staring from the Pig and Whistle,
And like his Boarship, in a bristle,
Resolved unanimous on rumpus
From any quarter of the compass;
But whether to duck Aldgate Pump,
(For wits in madness never jump)
To liberate the beasts from Cross’s;
Or hiss at all the Wigs in Ross’s;
On Waithman’s column hang a weeper;
Or tar and feather the old sweeper;
Or break the panes of landlord scurvy,
And turn the King’s Head topsy-turvy;
Rebuild, or pull down, London Wall;
Or take his cross from old Saint Paul;
Or burn those wooden Highland fellows,
The snuff-men’s idols, ‘neath the gallows!
None fix’d or cared—but all were loyal
To one design—a battle royal.
Thus stood the Boar, athirst for blood,
Trampling the Morning Post to mud,
With tusks prepared to run a muck;—
And sorrow for the mortal’s luck
That came across him Whig or Tory,
It would have been a tragic story—
But fortune interposing now,
Brought Bessy into play—a Sow;—
A fat, sleek, philosophic beast
That never fretted in the least,
Whether her grains were sour or sweet,
For grains are grains, and she could eat.
Absorb’d in two great schemes capacious,
The farrow and the farinaceous,
If cares she had, they could not stay,
She drank, and wash’d them all away.
In fact this philosophic sow
Was very like a German frow;
In brief—as wit should be and fun,—
If sows turn Quakers, she was one;
Clad from the duckpond, thick and slab,
In bran-new muddy suit of drab.
To still the storm of such a lubber,
She came like oil—at least like blubber—
Her pigtail of as passive shape
As ever droop’d o’er powder’d nape;
Her snout, scarce turning up—her deep
Small eyes half settled into sleep;
Her ample ears, dependent, meek,
Like fig-leaves shading either cheek;
Whilst, from the corner of her jaw,
A sprout of cabbage, green and raw,
Protruded,—as the Dove, so stanch
For Peace, supports an olive branch,—
Her very grunt, so low and mild,
Like the soft snoring of a child,
Inquiring into his disquiets,
Served like the Riot Act, at riots,—
He laid his restive bristles flatter,
And took to arguefy the matter.
“O Bess, O Bess, here’s heavy news!
They mean to ‘mancipate the Jews!
Just as they turn’d the blacks to whites,
They want to give them equal rights,
And, in the twinkling of a steeple,
Make Hebrews quite like other people.
Here, read—but I forget your fetters,
You’ve studied litters more than letters.”
“Well,” quoth the Sow, “and no great miss,
I’m sure my ignorance is bliss;
Contentedly I bite and sup,
And never let my flare flare-up;
Whilst you get wild and fuming hot—
What matters Jews be Jews or not?
Whether they go with beards like Moses,
Or barbers take them by the noses,
Whether they live, permitted dwellers,
In Cheapside shops, or Rag Fair cellars,
Or climb their way to civic perches,
Or go to synagogues or churches?”
“Churches!—ay, there the question grapples,
No, Bess, the Jews will go to Chappell’s!”
“To chapel—well—what’s that to you?
A Berkshire Boar, and not a Jew?
We pigs,—remember the remark
Of our old drover Samuel Slark,
When trying, but he tried in vain,
To coax me into Sermon Lane,
Or Paternoster’s pious Row,—
But still I stood and grunted No!
Of Lane of Creed an equal scorner,
Till bolting off, at Amen Corner,
He cried, provoked at my evasion,
‘Pigs, blow ’em! ar’n’t of no persuasion!’”
“The more’s the pity, Bess—the more—”
Said, with sardonic grin, the Boar;
“If Pigs were Methodists and Bunyans,
They’d make a sin of sage and onions;
The curse of endless flames endorse
On every boat of apple-sauce;
Give brine to Satan, and assess
Blackpuddings with bloodguiltiness;
Yea, call down heavenly fire and smoke
To burn all Epping into coke!”
“Ay,” cried the Sow, extremely placid,
In utter contrast to his acid,
“Ay, that would be a Sect indeed!
And every swine would like the creed,
The sausage-making curse and all;
And should some brother have a call,
To thump a cushion to that measure,
I would sit under him with pleasure;
Nay, put down half my private fortune
T’ endow a chapel at Hog’s Norton.—
But what has this to do, my deary,
With their new Hebrew whigmaleery?”
“Sow that you are! this Bill, if current,
Would be as good as our death-warrant;—
And, with its legislative friskings,
Loose twelve new tribes upon our griskins!
Unjew the Jews, what follows then?
Why, they’ll eat pork like other men,
And you shall see a Rabbi dish up
A chine as freely as a Bishop!
Thousands of years have pass’d, and pork
Was never stuck on Hebrew fork;
But now, suppose that relish rare
Fresh added to their bill of fare,
Fry, harslet, pettitoes, and chine,
Leg, choppers, bacon, ham, and loin,
And then, beyond all goose or duckling”—
“Yes, yes—a little tender suckling!
It must be held the aptest savour
To make the eager mouth to slaver!
Merely to look on such a gruntling,
A plump, white, sleek and sappy runtling,
It makes one—ah! remembrance bitter!
It made me eat my own dear litter!”
“Think, then, with this new waken’d fury,
How we should fare if tried by Jewry!
A pest upon the meddling Whigs!
There’ll be a pretty run on pigs!
This very morn a Hebrew brother
With three hats stuck on one another,
And o’er his arm a bag, or poke,
A thing pigs never find a joke,
Stopp’d—rip the fellow!—though he knew
I’ve neither coat to sell nor shoe,
And cock’d his nose—right at me, lovey!
Just like a pointer at a covey!
To set our only friends agin us!
That neither care to fat nor thin us!
To boil, to broil, to roast, or fry us,
But act like real Christians by us!—
A murrain on all legislators!
Thin wash, sour grains, and rotten ’taters!
A bulldog at their ears and tails!
The curse of empty troughs and pails
Famish their flanks as thin as weasels!
May all their children have the measles;
Or in the straw untimely smother,
Or make a dinner for the mother!
A cartwhip for all law inventors!
And rubbing-posts stuck full of tenters!
Yokes, rusty rings, and gates, to hitch in
And parish pounds to pine the flitch in,
Cold, and high winds, the Devil send ’em—
And then may Sam the Sticker end ’em!”
’Twas strange to hear him how he swore!
A Boar will curse, though like a boar,
While Bess, like Pity, at his side
Her swine-subduing voice supplied!
She bade him such a rage discard;
That anger is a foe to lard;
’Tis bad for sugar to get wet,
And quite as bad for fat to fret;
“Besides,”—she argued thus at last—
“The Bill you fume at has not pass’d,
For why, the Commons and the Peers
Have come together by the ears:
Or rather, as we pigs repose,
One’s tail beside the other’s nose,
And thus, of course, take adverse views
Whether of Gentiles or of Jews.
Who knows? They say the Lords’ ill-will
Has thrown out many a wholesome Bill,
And p’rhaps some Peer to Pigs propitious
May swamp a measure so Jew-dish-us!”
The Boar was conquer’d: at a glance,
He saw there really was a chance—
That as the Hebrew nose is hooked,
The Bill was equally as crooked;
And might outlast, thank party embers,
A dozen tribes of Christian members;—
So down he settled in the mud,
With smoother back, and cooler blood,
As mild, as quiet, a Blue Boar,
As any over tavern-door.