The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1883-07-07 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

ROAST PIG.  Emblem of obstinacy and stupidity, anathematised by a no small proportion of the human race, banished from whole kingdoms, its flesh a horror, its very name- a reproach, poor piggy has" added its jot to the happiness of man, a line to the deathless literature of England I" Ils.d it lived only to inspire the gentle Elia's panegyric on the suckling it had , not breathed in vain. "Of all the delicacies in the whole mundas ailibitis," he cries, with rare enthusiasm, "I will maintain this to be the most delicate." And what, let us parenthetically ask, amongst the countless dainties bred in books can equal the felicitous description of its equable twirl before the refreshing warmth, the sweet moralising on the youngster's early dissolution? "Behold him while he is ' doing ;' " it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth than a scorching beat that he is so passive to. Hew equably he twirleth round the string? Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age— he bath wept out his pretty eyes—radiant jellies, shooting stars "See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek be lieth I Wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompanies mo.tarer swinehood ? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, itsloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal, wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation. From these sins he is happily snatched away;  " Sometimes," cried the sturdy Scot, "I eat merely as an amusement or pastime; sometimes for recreation of my animal spirits ; sometimes on the philosophical principle of sustenance; sometimes for the mere sensual, but scarcely sinful, pleasure of eating, or, in common language, gormandising; and occasionally, once a month or so, for all these several purposes united, as at this present blessed moment ; so a Lew flakes, my dear Shepherd, of that Westmoreland ham—lay the knife on it and its own weight will sink it down throng' the soft, sweet sappiness of fat and lean, andistinguishably blended as the colours of the rainbow, and out of sight incomparably more beautiful." Therefore, gentle reader, whatever your individual taste may be, remember that the animal which fired the enthusiasm of Lamb, snatched a grace from Wilson, and prompted the brush of Morlaud, is not to be sneered at. What if Cardinal Zurzendorff denounced it with the wickedest rancour? Was he not glad Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, to fly to a bath of its blood to allay the anguish Death came with timely care." of the gout? If John Thurtell did eat heartily " His memory is oderiferous; no clown, of it just before he murdered Mr Weare, does it curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the not say more for the stubborn depravity of his rank bacon; no coal-heaver holteth him in nature than for the creature's want of benign reeking sausages; he hath a fair sepulchre in influence 7 And when King James the First in. the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure, eluded it in the menu of his celebrated dinner and for such a tomb might be content to for the Devil, was he not paying the gustatory die." acumen of his Satanic Majesty an unconscious Do we not owe also to the maligned monarch compliment? of the sty another essay of gracefullest