Anecdotes of the Learned Pig

Talking of Granger – “The dog is a Whig: I do not like much to ſee a Whig in any dreſs; but I hate to ſee a Whig in a parſon’s gown.” —Ibid. p. 312.

13

Our author daſhes away from thing to thing with very little method or order. He might, however, have touched on the occupation of a ſchoolmaſter, ſo honourable for a pig; in proof of which, we could have furniſhed him with the following document:

“At Edial, near Litchfield, in Staffordſhire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages by Samuel Johnſon.”

ADVERTISEMENT IN THE GENT. MAG. 1736, p. 428.

14

“He ſeemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice againſt Swift; for I once took the liberty to aſk him, if Swift had perſonally offended him; and he told me, he had not.” – Boſwell’s Tour, p. 38.

15

Moſt of what can be told concerning his petty peculiarities was communicated by a female domeſtic of the Earl of Oxford, who knew him, perhaps, after the middle of life. – Johnſon’s Lives of the Poets, 8vo. vol. 4, p. 141.

16

And yet certain it is that no pains was ſpared for this purpoſe; for “my mother (ſaid he) was always telling me that I did not behave myſelf; that I ſhould endeavour to learn behaviour, and ſuch cant.” Indeed his defect in this particular could not be overlooked by his moſt partial admirer; for “I ſuppoſe none (ſays ſhe) who ſaw his odd manner of geſticulation, much blamed or wondered at the good lady’s ſolicitude concerning her ſon’s behaviour.” – Piozzi’s Memoirs of Johnſon, p. 24 and 25.

17

Cant words are uſually begot in a cellar by fun upon folly: but the word bore and boar has another origin; it was begot on a ſofa by Madamoiſelle Ennui upon herſelf, and brought forth into the world in the midſt of the ton. The roar and fury of the river Severn the people of the country call the boar. A female ſaint was reported miraculouſly to have ſhed tears: the fact was denied by a Madrid carpenter who had made the ſaint, “becauſe (ſays he) ſhe is not only compoſed of heart of oak, but if ſhe had been at all diſpoſed to weep, ſhe muſt have wept when I bored an aperture with my largeſt augre in her rump.” And thus teazing and vexation of every kind may be called a bore. A dun is a bore, and a ſermon is a bore, and ſo forth; but the greateſt of all poſſible bores, in whatever ſpelling, is a huſband, a bore at night, a bore in the morning, and, in ſhort, one general univerſal bore. Our author has uſed this faſhionable word with the moſt perfect propriety, in a ſenſe ſatisfying the very letter, as well as ſpirit of the word.

18

When we went into Wales together, and ſpent ſome time at Sir Robert Cotton’s at Llewenney, one day at dinner I meant to pleaſe Mr. Johnſon particularly with a diſh of very young peas. – “Are not they charming?” ſaid I to him, while he was eating them. – “Perhaps (ſaid he) they would be ſo – to a Pig.” – Piozzi, p. 63.

19

This paſſage ſeems inexplicable. We have had reſort to Bozz, but in vain: the ſtaff, indeed, he readily acknowledged; but as to the other aſſociate, or who, or what was meant, neither he nor we were able to diſcover.