JACOB! I do not like to see thy nose
Turn'd up in scornful curve at yonder Pig.
It would be well, my friend, if we, like him,
Were perfect in our kind!.. And why despise
The sow-born grunter?.. He is obstinate,
Thou answerest; ugly, and the filthiest beast
That banquets upon offal. . . . Now I pray you
Hear the Pig's Counsel.
We must not, Jacob, be deceived by words;
We must not take them as unheeding hands
Receive base money at the current worth.
But with a just suspicion try their sound,
And in the even balance weigh them well.
See now to what this obstinacy comes ·
A poor, mistreated, democratic beast,
He knows that his unmerciful drivers seek
Their profit, and not his. He hath not learnt
That Pigs were made for Man,.. born to be brawn'd
And baconized: that he must please to give
Just what his gracious masters please to take;
Perhaps his tusks, the weapons Nature gave
For self-defence, the general privilege;
Perhaps,.. hark Jacob! dost thou hear that horn? Woe to the young posterity of Pork!
The Pig is ugly. Jacob, look at him!
Those eyes have taught the Lover flattery.
His face,.. nay Jacob, Jacob! were it fair
To judge a Lady in her dishabille?
Fancy it drest, and with saltpetre rouged.
Behold his tail, my friend; with curls like that
The wanton hop marries her stately spouse:
So crisp in beauty Amoretta's hair
Rings round her lover's soul the chains of love.
And what is beauty, but the aptitude
Of parts harmonious? Give thy fancy scope,
And thou wilt find that no imagined change
Can beautify this beast. Place at his end
The starry glories of the Peacock's pride,
Give him the Swan's white breast; for his horn-hoofs
Shape such a foot and ankle as the waves
Crowded in eager rivalry to kiss
When Venus from the enamour'd sea arose ;..
Jacob, thou canst but make a monster of him!
All alteration man could think, would mar
His Pig-perfection.
The last charge, . . he lives
A dirty life. Here I could shelter him
With noble and right-reverend precedents,
And show by sanction of authority
That 't is a very honourable thing
To thrive by dirty ways. But let me rest
On better ground the unanswerable defence
The Pig is a philosopher, who knows
No prejudice. Dirt?.. Jacob, what is dirt?
If matter,.. why the delicate dish that tempts
An o'ergorged Epicure to the last morsel
That stuffs him to the throat-gates, is no more.
If matter be not, but as Sages say,
Spirit is all, and all things visible
Are one, the infinitely modified,
Think, Jacob, what that Pig is, and the mire
Wherein he stands knee-deep!
Pleads with me, and has won thee to a smile
That speaks conviction. O'er yon blossom'd field
Of beans it came, and thoughts of bacon rise.
Westbury, 1799.
RECOMMENDED TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE SLAVE-TRADE.
RARE music! I would rather hear cat-courtship
Under my bed-room window in the night,
Than this scraped catgut's screak. Rare dancing too!
Alas, poor Bruin! How he foots the pole
And waddles round it with unwieldly steps,
Swaying from side to side! . . The dancing-master
Hath had as profitless a pupil in him
As when he would have tortured my poor toes
To minuet grace, and made them move like clockwork
In musical obedience. Bruin! Bruin !
Thou art but a clumsy biped!.. And the mob
With noisy merriment mock his heavy pace,
And laugh to see him led by the nose!.. themselves
Led by the nose, embruted, and in the eye
Of Reason from their Nature's purposes
Now could I sonnetize thy piteous plight,
And prove how much my sympathetic heart
Even for the miseries of a beast can feel,
In fourteen lines of sensibility.
But we are told all things were made for Man;
And I'll be sworn there's not a fellow here
Who would not swear 't were hanging blasphemy
To doubt that truth. Therefore as thou wert born,
Bruin! for Man, and Man makes nothing of thee
In any other way, most logically
It follows, thou wert born to make him sport;
That that great snout of thine was form'd on purpose
To hold a ring; and that thy fat was given thee
For an approved pomatum !
Were heresy. And politicians say,
(Wise men who in the scale of reason give
No foolish feelings weight,) that thou art here
Far happier than thy brother Bears who roam
O'er trackless snow for food; that being born
Inferior to thy leader, unto him
Rightly belongs dominion; that the compact
Was made between ye, when thy clumsy feet
First fell into the snare, and he gave up
His right to kill, conditioning thy life
Should thenceforth be his property ;.. besides,
'Tis wholesome for thy morals to be brought
From savage climes into a civilized state,
Into the decencies of Christendom.....
Bear! Bear! it passes in the Parliament
For excellent logic this! What if we say
How barbarously Man abuses power?
Talk of thy baiting, it will be replied,
Thy welfare is thy owner's interest,
But were thou baited it would injure thee,
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