Part 19

Of the habits of this pig we can find no written record, though in the journals of the Scottish or Wesleyan Missionaries there may be some notices of it. We do not know whence the Society procured the second specimen, but it shows that Africa's wild animals, like its chain of internal Caspian seas, and its mountain-ranges and rivers, are becoming gradually known. Old Bosman, who was chief factor for the Dutch on the Gold Coast 150 years ago, refers to the swine near Fort St George d'Elmina being not nearly so wild as those of Europe, and adds, "I have several times eaten of them here, and found them very delicious and very tender meat, the fat being extraordinarily fine."[201] He evidently refers to some other species.

Travellers in South Africa have made us familiar with the habits, and specimens in the Zoological Gardens, in a pannage close to that of the "painted pig," show us the form and ugliness, of the bush pig and flat pig (_Choiropotamus Africanus_) of that southern land, with their long heads, long legs, upturned tails, and horrid tusks. They have a strange habit of kneeling on their fore-legs. In South Africa they abound; and the natives--our excellent friend, the Rev. Henry Methuen, tells us--often bring their jaws for barter. They are of a dingy, dirty gray; the boar is two feet and a half high, and his tusks sometimes measure "eleven inches and a half each from the jawbone," are five inches and a half in circumference at the base, and are thirteen inches apart at their extremities.

No animal is more formidably armed; and his rapidity and lightness of movement make him a very marked object to the African Nimrod, who, midst "clumps of bush"--be they Proteacæ, heaths, or Diosmeæ--not unfrequently comes on a herd of wild pigs "headed by a noble boar," with tail erect. We could enter largely on the history of this active species, and quote many a stirring anecdote of travellers' rencontres with this fearless animal. The lion skulks away from him, but the rhinoceros--at least one species--the buffalo, with his formidable front of horn and bone, and the bush pig, with his dreaded tusks, show but little fear; and it is well for the huntsman that he has a sure eye, a steady hand, and a double-barrelled gun, and not a few Caffir followers to help him, should his eye be dim, his hand waver, or his gun "flash in the pan." Dogs avail but little; a deadly gash lays open their ribs, and a side-thrust of a wild boar will cut into the most muscular leg, and for ever destroy its tendons. We have done with pigs, and would only recommend a visit--a frequent visit--to that paradise of animals, the Zoological Gardens, where, a fortnight ago, we saw wild boars from Hesse Darmstadt; wild boars from Egypt; bush pigs from Africa; peccaries from South America; and two painted pigs from West Africa; all "_de grege porci_," and in excellent health: to say nothing of two hippopotamuses; four "seraphic" giraffes; antelopes (we did not number them); brush turkeys from Australia; an apteryx from New Zealand; the curious white sheathbills from the South Seas; the refulgent metallic green and purple-tinted monaul, or Impeyan pheasant, strutting with outspread, light-coloured tail, just as he courts his plain hen-mate on the Indian mountains; a family of the funny pelicans--cleanliness, ugliness, and contentment in one happy combination; a band of flamingoes; eagles and vultures; the harpy--that Picton of the birds--looking defiance as he stands, with upraised crest, flashing eye, and clenched talons, over his food; the wily otter; the amiable seal, which carries us to the seas and rocks of much-loved Shetland, with their long, winding voes, their bird-frequented cliffs, and outlying skerries; the Indian thrush, which reminds one of a "mavis" at home; the parrot-house, with its fine contrasts of colour and its discordant noises; Penny's Esquimaux dog--poor fellow, a prisoner, unlike to what he was when, with our dear friends Dr Sutherland and Captain Stewart, this very dog breasted the blast before a sledge in the Wellington Channel.[202] Look at that wondrous sloth, organised for a life in a Brazilian forest--those two restless Polar bears; and though last, not least, those wonders of the great deep, "the sea-anemones," the exquisite red and white "feathery" tentacles of the long cylindrical-twisted serpulæ, and marvellously-transparent streaked shrimps, all leg, and feeler, and eye, and "nose"--in the salt-water tanks in the Vivarium.--_A. White, in "Excelsior."_

S. BISSET AND HIS LEARNED PIG.

S. Bisset, formerly referred to, when at Belfast bought a black sucking pig, and after several experiments succeeded in training a creature, so obstinate and perverse by nature, to become most tractable and docile. In August 1783, he took his learned pig to Dublin for exhibition. "It was not only under full command, but appeared as pliant and good-natured as a spaniel. He had taught it to spell the names of any one in the company, to tell the hour, minute, and second, to make his obeisance to the company, and he occasioned many a laugh by his pointing out the married and the unmarried. Some one in authority forced him to leave Dublin, and he died broken-hearted shortly after at Chester, on his way to London, where forty and more years before he had first been induced to train animals."[203]

QUIXOTE BOWLES FOND OF PIGS.

Southey records of Quixote Bowles that he "had a great love for pigs; he thought them the happiest of all God's creatures, and would walk twenty miles to see one that was remarkably fat. This love extended to bacon; he was an epicure in it; and whenever he went out to dinner, took a piece of his own curing in his pocket, and requested the cook to dress it."[204]

ON JEKYLL NEARLY THROWN DOWN BY A VERY SMALL PIG.

"As Jekyll walk'd out in his gown and his wig, He happen'd to tread on a very small pig; 'Pig of science,' he said, 'or else I'm mistaken, For surely thou art an _abridgment of Bacon_.'"[205]

GOOD ENOUGH FOR A PIG.

An Irish peasant being asked why he permitted his pig to take up its quarters with his family, made an answer abounding with satirical _naïveté_. "Why not? Doesn't the place afford every convenience that _a pig can require_?"[206]

Mrs Fry, in 1827, visited Ireland on one of her Christian and philanthropic tours. In a letter to her children from Armagh she says--"Pigs abound; I think they have rather a more elegant appearance than ours, their hair often rather curled. Perhaps naturalists may attribute this to their intimate association with their betters!"[207]

THE COUNTRYMAN'S CRITICISM ON THE PIGS IN GAINSBOROUGH'S PICTURE OF THE GIRL AND PIGS.

Thomas Gainsborough, the great English painter, exhibited, in 1782, among pictures of noblemen, gentlemen, and ladies, his well-known "Girl and Pigs."[208]

Wolcot, better known as "Peter Pindar," in his first "Ode to the Royal Academicians," refers to this picture.

"And now, O Muse, with song so big, Turn round to Gainsborough's Girl and Pig, Or Pig and Girl, I rather should have said; The pig in white, I must allow, Is really a well painted sow, I wish to say the same thing of the maid."

"The expression and truth of nature in the Girl and Pigs," remarks Northcote, "were never surpassed. Sir Joshua Reynolds was struck with it, though he thought Gainsborough ought to have made her a beauty." Reynolds, indeed, became the purchaser of the painting at one hundred guineas, Gainsborough asking but sixty. During its exhibition, it is said to have attracted the attention of a countryman, who remarked--"They be deadly like pigs, but nobody ever saw pigs feeding together but what one on 'em had a foot in the trough."

HOOK AND THE LITTER OF PIGS.

Once a gentleman, who had the marvellous gift of shaping a great many things out of orange-peel, was displaying his abilities at a dinner-party before Theodore Hook and Mr Thomas Hill, and succeeded in counterfeiting a pig. Mr Hill tried the same feat; and after destroying and strewing the table with the peel of a dozen oranges, gave it up, with the exclamation, "Hang the pig! I _can't_ make him." "Nay, Hill," exclaimed Hook, glancing at the mess on the table, "you have done more; instead of one pig, you have made a _litter_."[209]

Hook, we may add, was an original wit. He did not, like most professed wits, study his sayings before, and arrange with his seeming opponent for an imaginary war of words. He was an _impromptu_ wit.

JESTS ABOUT SWINE.

Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's bailiff, having been ordered by his lady to procure a sow of a particular description, came one day into the dining-room when full of company, proclaiming with a burst of joy he could not suppress--"I have been at Royston Fair, my lady, and I have got a sow exactly of _your ladyship's_ size."[210]

* * * * *

John was thought to be very stupid. He was sent to a mill one day, and the miller said--"John, some people say you are a fool! Now, tell me, what you do know, and what you don't know."--"Well," replied John, "I know millers' hogs are fat!"--"Yes, that's well, John; now, what don't you know?"--"I don't know _whose corn_ fats 'em."[211]

PIGS AND SILVER SPOON.

The Earl of P---- kept a number of swine at his seat in Wiltshire, and crossing the yard one day, he was surprised to see the pigs gathered round one trough, and making a great noise. Curiosity prompted him to see what was the cause, and on looking into the trough he perceived a large silver spoon. A servant-maid came out, and began to abuse the pigs for crying so. "Well they may," said his lordship, "when they have got but one _silver spoon_ among them all."

* * * * *

We have heard of one nobleman in Strathearn, who, when a young man, used to be thus addressed by his mother--"William! how are the children _and your pigs_?"[212]

SYDNEY SMITH ON BEAUTIFUL PIGS.

DEFINITION OF BEAUTY BY A UTILITARIAN.

"Go to the Duke of Bedford's piggery at Woburn, and you will see a breed of pigs with legs so short, that their stomachs trail upon the ground; a breed of animals entombed in their own fat, overwhelmed with prosperity, success, and farina. No animal could possibly be so disgusting, if it were not useful; but a breeder who has accurately attended to the small quantity of food it requires to swell this pig out to such extraordinary dimensions,--the extraordinary genius it displays for obesity,--and the laudable propensity of the flesh to desert the cheap regions of the body, and to agglomerate on those parts which are worth ninepence a pound,--such an observer of its utility does not scruple to call these otherwise hideous quadrupeds a beautiful race of pigs!"[213]

JOSEPH STURGE, WHEN A BOY, AND THE PIGS.

When Joseph Sturge, that good Quaker, was in his sixth year, his biographer, Henry Richard,[214] records that he was on a visit to a friend of his mother's at Frenchay, near Bristol. Sauntering about one day, he came near the house of an eccentric man, a Quaker, who was much annoyed by the depredations of his neighbour's pigs. Half in jest, and half in earnest, he told the lad to drive the pigs into a pond close by. Joseph, nothing loath, set to work with a will, delighted with the fun. The woman, to whom the pigs belonged, came out presently, broom in hand, flourishing it over the young sinner's head. The tempter was standing by, and sought to cover his share of the transaction by shaking his head and saying--"Ah,

'Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.'

The child looked up at him indignantly, and said, 'Thee bee'st Satan then, for thee told'st me to do it.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[194] "Letters from Sarawak," p. 104. 1854.

[195] "Divides the hoof, and is cloven-footed, yet cheweth not the cud" (Lev. ii. 7).

[196] Boner's "Chamois Hunting in the Mountains of Bavaria," p. 97.

[197] "Travels" (Home and Colonial Library), p. 147.

[198] "Travels in Syria and the Holy Land," p. 9.

[199] Symbolæ Physicæ.

[200] _Potamochoerus penicellatus._ [Greek: Potamos], a river; [Greek: choiros], a pig; _penicellatus_, pencilled. It is said to be the _Sus porcus_ of Linnæus.

[201] "A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, written originally in Dutch." London, 1705, p. 247.

[202] See Dr Sutherland's interesting account in his "Journal of a Voyage in Baffin Bay and Barrow's Straits in the years 1850, 1851;" a truly excellent work on the Arctic regions, by one who is now Surveyor of Natal.

[203] See Biography in G. H. Wilson's _Eccentric Mirror_, i., No. 3, p. 30.

[204] "Common-Place Book," iv. p. 514.

[205] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 107.

[206] _Ibid._, p. 337.

[207] "Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry," vol. ii. p. 30. 1847.

[208] "Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.," by the late George William Fulcher, edited by his Son, p. 122. 1856.

[209] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 328.

[210] _Ibid._, p. 2.

[211] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 31. The latter of these jests is attributed by Dean Ramsay to a half-witted Ayrshire man, who said he "kenned a miller had aye a gey fat sow."--_Reminiscences_, p. 197.

[212] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 269. This worthy nobleman was and is much attached to his home-farm. He is well known in Perthshire.

[213] "Wit and Wisdom of Rev. Sydney Smith," third edition, p. 253. From a lecture at Royal Institution.

[214] "Memoirs of Joseph Sturge," by Henry Richard.

HORSE.

The noblest animal employed by man, and consequently the subject of many volumes of anecdote,--a study for the painter and sculptor, from the days of the Greek and Assyrian artists to the present day. Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Head have given graphic descriptions of the catching of the wild horse, which swarms on the Pampas of South America.

How pathetic to see the led horse following the bier of a soldier! It was, perhaps, the most affecting incident in the long array of the funeral of the great Duke.

In the Museum at Brussels, Dr Patrick Neill observed, in 1817, "the stuffed skin of the horse belonging to one of the Alberts, who governed the Low Countries in the time of the Spaniards. It was shot under him in the field, and the holes made in the thorax by the musket bullets are still very evident."[215]

Poor Copenhagen, the Duke's charger at Waterloo, was buried. Many would have liked his skin or skeleton. The Duke resisted all attempts to give his old friend up for such a purpose. We hope no resurrectionist succeeded in getting up his bones, years after his burial at Strathfieldsaye.

BELL-ROCK HORSE.

The Bell-Rock Lighthouse, built on a dangerous range of rocks twelve miles south by east from Arbroath, was begun by Robert Stevenson on the 17th August 1807, and finished in October 1810. Mr Jervise[216] records that "one horse, the property of James Craw, a labourer in Arbroath, is believed to have drawn the entire materials of the building. The animal latterly became a _pensioner_ of the Lighthouse Commissioners, and was sent by them to graze on the Island of Inchkeith, where it died of old age in 1813. Dr John Barclay, the celebrated anatomist, had its bones collected and arranged in his museum, which he bequeathed at his death to the Royal College of Surgeons, and in their museum at Edinburgh the skeleton of the _Bell-Rock horse_ may yet be seen."

BURKE AND THE HORSE.

An anecdote of the humanity of the great Edmund Burke in the year 1762 has been preserved.[217] "An Irishman, of the name of Johnson, was astonishing the town by his horsemanship. All London crowded to see his feats of agility and his highly-trained steeds. Dr Johnson and Boswell talked of this man's wonderful ability, and the Doctor thought that he fully deserved encouragement on philosophical grounds. He proved what human perseverance could do. One who saw him riding on three horses at once, or dancing upon a wire, might hope, that with the same application in the profession of his choice, he should attain the same success. Burke, always ready to encourage his countrymen, and curious in all the ramifications of ingenuity, went frequently to the circus. The favourite performance of the evening was that of a handsome black horse, which, at the sound of Johnson's whip, would leave the stable, stand with much docility at his side, then gallop about the ring, and on hearing the crack of the lash again return obediently to its master. On one unfortunate occasion, the signal was disregarded. The horse-rider flew into a rage, and by a blow between the ears, struck the noble animal to the earth. The spectators thought the horse was dying, but they had little time to reflect on the sight before they were surprised at seeing a gentleman jump into the ring, rush up to Johnson, and with his eyes flashing, and every muscle in the face quivering with emotion, shout out, 'You scoundrel! I have a mind to knock you down.' And Johnson would certainly have been laid sprawling in the sawdust beside his panting steed, had not the friends of the gentleman interposed, and prevented him inflicting such summary chastisement. This incident was long remembered. When the relater of it, many years afterwards, heard Burke declaiming, on the floor of the House of Commons, against injustice and oppression, his mind naturally reverted to the time when he saw the same hatred of all cruelty displayed by the same individual as he stood over the prostrate body of the poor black horse, prepared to punish the miscreant who had felled it to the ground."

DAVID GARRICK AND HIS HORSE.

In 1778 Sir Joshua Reynolds visited Dr Warton at Winchester College. Here he was particularly noticed by George III. and his queen, who were then making a tour through the summer encampments. The father of Lord Palmerston, and David Garrick, the great actor, with others, visited Warton at the same time.

Mr Northcote[218] relates that a whimsical accident occurred to Garrick at one of the reviews, which Sir Joshua afterwards recounted with great humour.

"At one of those field-days in the vicinity, Garrick found it necessary to dismount, when his horse escaped from his hold and ran off; throwing himself immediately into his professional attitude, he cried out, as if on Bosworth field, 'A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!'"

This exclamation, and the accompanying attitude, excited great amazement amongst the surrounding spectators, who knew him not; but it could not escape his majesty's quick apprehension, for, it being within his hearing, he immediately said, "Those must be the tones of Garrick! see if he is not on the ground." The theatrical and dismounted monarch was immediately brought to his majesty, who not only condoled with him most good humouredly on his misfortune, but flatteringly added, that his delivery of Shakspeare could never pass undiscovered.

This anecdote of Garrick at Winchester is told in the Rev. John Wool's "Life of Warton." Mr Taylor says--"One can't help suspecting Roscius took care to make his speech when he knew the king was within earshot--a little bit of that 'artifice' of his which has left such an impression in the theatre, that the phrase, 'As deep as Garrick,' is still current stage slang."[219]

BERNARD GILPIN'S HORSES STOLEN AND RECOVERED.[220]

The biographer of the saintly Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the northern counties of England in the days of Edward VI., and Queens Mary and Elizabeth, relates that, by the carelessness of his servant, his horses were one day stolen. The news was quickly propagated, and every one expressed the highest indignation. The thief was rejoicing over his prize, when, by the report of the country, he found whose horses he had taken. Terrified at what he had done, he instantly came trembling back, confessed the fact, returned the horses, and declared he believed the devil would have seized him directly had he carried them off, knowing them to have been Mr Gilpin's. The biographer gives an instance of his benevolent temper. "One day returning home, he saw in a field several people crowding together; and judging that something more than ordinary had happened, he rode up to them, and found that one of the horses in a team had suddenly dropped down, which they were endeavouring to raise; but in vain, for the horse was dead. The owner of it seeming much dejected with his misfortune, and declaring how grievous a loss it was to him, Mr Gilpin bade him not be disheartened; "I'll let you have, honest man, that horse of mine," and pointed to his servant's. "Ah! master," replied the countryman, "my pocket will not reach such a beast as that." "Come, come," says Mr Gilpin, "take him, take him; and when I demand my money, then thou shalt pay me."[221]

No wonder that the horses of the apostolic rector of Houghton-le-Spring were safe, even in those horse-stealing times, and in that Border county.

THE HERALD AND GEORGE III.'S HORSE.

One day, when Sir Isaac Heard was in company with George III., it was announced that his majesty's horse was ready for hunting. "Sir Isaac," said the king, "are you a judge of horses?"--"In my younger days, please your majesty, I was a great deal among them," was the reply.--"What do you think of this, then?" said the king, who was by this time preparing to mount his favourite; and, without waiting for an answer, added, "We call him _Perfection_."--"A most appropriate name," replied the courtly herald, bowing as his majesty reached the saddle, "for he _bears_ the best of characters."[222]

ROWLAND HILL AND HIS HORSE AT DUNBAR.