Sed quo plus candoris habent tibi colla SECUNDO, The correspondent adds this, his own, translation: "Whilst thoughtless, all too near, I gaz'd on thee, Would you an equal pledge but deign to leave. Many quite purpose-stay'd by left-hand croaks (Of raven, rook, and crow, the same is told,) Foreboding nought but harm from hollow blasted oaks." The following are given in the "Sexagenarian," and in Barker's "Literary Anecdotes." If Nature and Fortune had placed me with you I might marry you, were I my third, it is true, My first is the lot that is destin'd by fate, [Parson.] [Woman.] My first, though your house, nay your life, he defends, You ungratefully name like the wretch you despise; My second, I speak it with grief, comprehends All the brave, and the good, and the learn'd, and the wise. Of my third I have little or nothing to say Except that it tolls the departure of day. [Curfew.] The child of a peasant, Rose thought it no shame When her father grew rich, and a farmer became, CHARADES. Then she married a merchant, who brought her to town: To this eminent station preferr'd, Of my first and my second unmindful she's And gives all her time to my third. My first is the nymph I adore, The sum of her charms is my second, I was going to call it my third, But I counted a million and more, grown, [Spinnet.] 401 There are a few riddles, also, given as Porson's, by Beloe, in his "Sexagenarian ;" but whether rightly attributed to him or not, it is not worth while to inquire. They are such as any one might make with a very little trouble. Catechism for the use of the Swinish Multitude. Of this composition some extracts are given by Beloe in the "Sexagenarian,"* and have been reprinted in the Facetic Cantabrigienses. Porson never denied that he was the author of it; he allowed Maltby to make a transcript from a copy in his own hand. It was printed with Porson's knowledge, and Carlile of Fleet Street republished it. The origin of it was the term "Swinish Multitude," applied by Burke to the common people, in his "Reflections on the French Revolution." The art with which Porson has introduced the common sayings about pigs is highly worthy of notice. Q. What is your name? A. Hog or Swine. Q. Did God make you a Hog? A. No. God made me man in his own image; the Right Honourable SUBLIME BEAUTIFUL made me a Swine. Q. How did he make you a Swine? A. By muttering obscure and uncouth spells. He is a dealer in the black art. * Vol. ii. p. 322. CATECHISM FOR THE SWINISH MULTITUDE. Q. Who feeds you? A. Our drivers, the only real men in this COUNTRY. Q. How many hogs are you in all? A. Seven or eight millions. A. Two or three hundred thousand. 403 A. Generally with husks, swill, draff, malt, grains, and now and then with a little barley-meal and a few potatoes; and, when they have too much buttermilk themselves, they give us some. Q. What are your occupations? A. To be yoked to the plough; to do all hard work; for which purpose we still, as you see, retain enough of our original form, speech, and reason to carry our drivers on our shoulders, or to draw them in carriages. Q. Are your drivers independent of each other? A. No; our immediate drivers are driven by a smaller number, and that number by a still smaller, and so on, till at last you come to the Chief Hog Driver. Q. Has your Chief Driver any marks of his office? A. A brass helmet on his head, and an iron poker in his hand. Q. By what title does he wear his helmet? A. In contempt of the choice of the hogs. Q. Do the drivers wear badges of distinction? A. Many; some have particular frocks and slops; others garter below the knee; some have a red rag across their jackets; and some carry sticks and poles. Q. How do they look in their trappings? A. Like a sow on a side-saddle. Q. What is the use of that iron ring in your snout? A. To hinder us from rooting in our drivers' gardens. Q. What is the use of that wooden yoke on your neck? A. To keep us from breaking through our drivers' fences; but both ring and yoke are principally intended to diminish our strength and spirits, and to prevent our resistance, if at any time we fancy we have too little victuals or too much whipping. Q. What is the use of those whips and cudgels that some of your drivers bear? A. To beat us when we grunt too loud for the slumbers of the Upper Driver. Q. Do your drivers ever meet to transact business? A. Yes; formerly their meetings continued only three weeks, but of late they have been prolonged to seven. Q. What do they do at these meetings? A. They sell us. Q. You seem to me too lean to be very profitable. A. The greatest profit to our drivers lies in our work; besides, most of them agree, at the meeting, that we enjoy an unexampled degree of fatness, plumpness, and sleekness; and that methods should be taken rather to starve than to pamper us, lest we should grow fat and kick. Q. Where do they meet? A. In a rotten house. The nominal president is the Chief Hog Driver, otherwise called Father of the Hogs; but the true president, otherwise the Step-father of the hogs, is the governor of the sub-meeting. Everything is done by the latter, and attributed to the former. The latter raises the price of pork at his pleasure. Q. Truly the gentleman seems to have brought his hogs to a fine market. But you mentioned the sub-meeting? A. Yes; there is also an upper-meeting. Q. Are the members of it skilful in pork? A. They are born (or created) skilful in all branches of butchery. Q. Of whom consists the sub-meeting? A. Of middle drivers chosen by us, and sent on behalf of the poor herd of swine; to take care that they be not starved to death, but only kept as lean as possible; to see that no undue cruelty is used, but only that they be whipped within an inch of their lives. Q. Do you choose and send agents that can make no better terms for you than these? A. We did not choose and send them. |