Part 47

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!"

JOSEPH STURGE, WHEN A BOY, AND THE PIGS.

When Joseph Sturge, that good Quaker, was in his sixth year, his biographer, Henry Richard, 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:

"Letters from Sarawak," p. 104. 1854.

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

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

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

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

Symbolæ Physicæ.

Potamochoerus penicellatus. [Greek: Potamos], a river; [Greek: choiros], a pig; penicellatus, pencilled. It is said to be the Sus porcus of Linnæus.

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

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.

See Biography in G. H. Wilson's Eccentric Mirror, i., No. 3, p. 30.

"Common-Place Book," iv. p. 514.

Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 107.

Ibid., p. 337.

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

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

Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 328.

Ibid., p. 2.

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.

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

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

"Memoirs of Joseph Sturge," by Henry Richard.