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
_naivete_. "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, Hi