S. T. Coleridge.
T. Allsop, Esq.
“The letter here alluded to,” says Allsop, “is a most delightful communication from Charles Lamb; which, with the hints thrown out by Manning, as to the probable origin of roast meat, were afterwards interwoven into that paper on Roast Pig, one of the best of Lamb’s productions.”
9 Mch. 1822.
Dear C.,
It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the Pig turned out so well—they are interesting creatures at a certain age. What a pity such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had all some of the crackling—and brain sauce—did you remember to rub it with butter, and gently dredge it a little, just before the crisis? Did the eyes come away kindly with no Œdipean avulsion?—was the crackling the colour of the ripe pomegranate?—had you no damned complement of boiled neck of mutton before it to blunt the edge of delicate desire?—did you flesh maiden teeth in it?
Not that I sent the Pig, or can form the remotest guess what part Owen (our landlord) could play in the business. I never knew him give any thing away in his life—he would not begin with strangers. I suspect the Pig after all was meant for me—but at the unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present, somehow, went round to Highgate.
To confess an honest truth, a Pig is one of those things I could never think of sending away. Teals, widgeons, snipes, barn-door fowls, ducks, geese, your tame villatic things—Welsh mutton—collars of brawn—sturgeon, fresh and pickled—your potted char—Swiss cheeses—French pies—early grapes—muscadines,—I impart as freely to my friends as to myself,—they are but self-extended; but pardon me if I stop somewhere—where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher smack than the sensual rarity; there my friends (or any good man) may command me; but pigs are pigs; and I myself am therein nearest to myself; nay, I should think it an affront, an undervaluing done to Nature, who bestowed such a boon upon me, if, in a churlish mood, I parted with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I ever felt of remorse was when a child—my kind old aunt had strained her pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my way home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man—not a mendicant—but thereabouts; a look-beggar—not a verbal petitionist—and, in the coxcombry of taught charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a little in all the pride of an evangelical peacock, when of a sudden my old aunt’s kindness crossed me—the sum it was to her—the pleasure that she had a right to expect that I, not the old impostor, should take in eating her cake—the damned ingratitude by which, under the colour of a Christian virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, wept, and took it to heart so grievously, that I think I never suffered the like. And I was right; it was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved a lesson to me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, consigned to the dunghill, with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper.
But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a Pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour to act towards it more in the spirit of the donor’s purpose.
Yours (short of Pig) to command in everything,