On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say : - "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. "One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he: "The next, with dirges due in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read for thou canst read — the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, And Melancholy marked him for her own. 5 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Misery all he had, a tear, He gained from Heaven - 'twas all he wished—a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, 10 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, There they alike in trembling hope repose, The bosom of his Father and his God. Cûr'few (fu): in early times in England, a bell rung at eight o'clock in the evening as a signal for lights and fires to be put out. Hăm'lět: village. Ply: work at. Glēbe: turf; sod. An'nals histories; tales. In ĕv'i ta ble: certain; not to be shunned. Frět'těd: carved; ornamented with work in relief. Ûrn: a vessel for keeping the ashes of the dead; any place of burial. John Hǎmp'den (1594-1643): an English patriot and statesman of the Commonwealth period who opposed the despotic measures of Charles I. John Milton (1608-1674): one of the greatest of English poets. Oliver Crom'well (1599-1658): an English statesman and general who became, after the execution of Charles I., Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Çir cum scribed': confined; limited. Măd'ding: affected with madness; raging. Pre'çincts: limits; borders, Swain: countryman; rustic. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig BY CHARLES LAMB Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely 5 hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his "Mundane Mutations," where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Chofang, literally the Cooks Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder 10 brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast. for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing 15 with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, 20 you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of young pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, 25 not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had 5 before experienced. What could it proceed from? - not from the burnt cottage he had smelt that smell before indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble 10 that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his 15 booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so 20 much now; still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole hand25 fuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick 30 as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situa- 5 tion, something like the following dialogue ensued : "You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what 10 - what have you got there, I say?" "O father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats." The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself, that ever he should beget a 15 son that should eat burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the burnt 20 pig, father; only taste-O Lord!" with suchlike barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would. choke. Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put 25 his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether dis- 30 pleasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here |