“No sooner said than done. The sentence is carried by acclamation. The pig is grappled with, dragged along, tied and bound, slain utterly, through and through. The huge knife, profoundly plunged into that gullet of his, goes to his heart amid horrid shrieks and dinning lamentations, which bear the news of the great deed to friends afar off, and to the very stars in heaven. Blood and soul, in a flood ample as the way made for them, follow the withdrawing blade,—l’ anima purcina, the spirit of pork; the blood into a hogshead, promising black puddings; the soul, either into the passing winds, or, as others think, into the body of some greedy chuff of a millionaire, that vilest and most repulsive of muck-worms.”
Meli’s first volume consists entirely of bucolics; the second of odes, sonnets, and canzonets; the third chiefly of verses in the manner of Berni, of satires, and dithyrambics; the fourth is occupied with a long Bernesque poem, called the Fairy Galanta, seemingly full of national as well as critical matters; the fifth and sixth with another on Don Quixote; and the seventh with elegies and fables. By this the reader may judge of the diversity of his genius, and its tendency to the sprightly; with which, however, a fund of thinking is always mixed up. He was evidently forced to conceal a great deal of deep thought and indignant sympathy in the garb of a jester. He did this, however, so well, expressed so much horror at the French revolution, and showed himself such a friend of all who had anything good in them, that in a country notorious for its arbitrary government, he was in favour with the court and aristocracy; and the circumstance, upon the whole, does them credit. Princes in Sicily are as common as country squires in England; but they have beautiful titles, and it is pleasant to read the list of his subscribers. Among them, here and there, is the name of an Englishman ludicrously set forth. Thus we have Sua Altezza Reale, &c., to wit:—
His Royal Highness Prince Don Leopoldo Borbone—A hundred copies.
His Excellency the Signor Prince della Trabia—Ten copies.
Her Excellency the Signora Princess della Trabia.
The Most Illustrious Signor Marquis Cardillo—A hundred copies.
Mister Becker (probably Baker)—Two copies.
My Lord the Great Chamberlain Don Gasparo Leone.
The Most Illustrious Signor Duke di Campobello.
Don Francesco Orlando.