those hobbydehoys - but a young and tender suckling, under a moon old, guiltless as yet of the sty; with no original speck of the amor immunditiæ, the hereditary failing of the first parent, 140 yet manifest; his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble and a grumble, the mild forerunner, or præludium, of a grunt. 10. He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled, but what a sacrifice of the exterior (45 tegument ! II. 11. There is no flavor comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling, as it is well called the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance, 150 with the adhesive oleaginous-O, call it not fat! but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it, the tender blossoming of fat, fat cropped in the bud, taken in the shoot, in the first innocence, the cream and quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food-the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna―or, rather, 155 fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common substance. 12. Behold him while he is "doing "—it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. 160 How equably he twirleth round the string! Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age! he hath wept out his pretty eyes-radiant jellies—shooting stars. 140. amor immunditiæ, love of filth. | 142, 143. præludium, prelude. LITERARY ANALYSIS.—138. hobbydehoys. In what consists the funny felicity of this term? 139. with no original speck, etc. Explain the allusion. 144. not ignorant. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 31.) 145, 146. exterior tegument. Explain. But would any plainer terms be equally effective for Lamb's purpose? 147-158. There is... substance. The pupil cannot fail to note the exquisite art of this long, broken, but most deftly managed sentence-the piling of epithet on epithet, the delicious exaggeration of terms, the drollery of the mock heroics. 13. See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth! -wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness 165 and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal, wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation. From these sins he is happily snatched away "Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, Death came with timely care." 170 His memory is odoriferous; no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon; no coal-heaver bolteth him in reeking sausages; he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure,* and for such a tomb might be 175 content to die. 14. He is the best of sapors. Pineapple is great. She is, indeed, almost too transcendent—a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause; too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and 180 excoriateth the lips that approach her; she is a pleasure border ing on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish; but she stoppeth at the palate; she meddleth not with the appetite; and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton-chop. 15. Pig-let me speak his praise-is no less provocative of the appetite than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weakling refuseth not his mild juices. 16. Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues 185 190 LITERARY ANALYSIS.-164. his second cradle. What is the figure of speech? -lieth. What is the effect of using the ancient form? 169. sins. Remark on the use of this word. 175. such a tomb, etc. The allusion is to a line of Milton in his sonnet on Shakespeare. See page 177. sapors, delicacies. of this book. 177-185. Observe the skilful construction of paragraph 14: first two short pithy sentences, and then-as if the gusto of his thought carried the author away—an expanded, cumulative sentence.-Point out an example of antithesis in this paragraph. 186-188. Pig... palate. What kind of sentence rhetorically? and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled* without hazard, he is-good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neighbors' fare. 195 17. I am one of those who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. "Presents," I often say, "endear 200 absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn - door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"), capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, “give 205 everything." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavors to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house, slightingly (under the pretext of friendship, or I know not what), a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual palate. It argues an 210 insensibility. 18. I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-215 cake fresh from the oven. In my way to school (it was over London bridge) a gray-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt, at this time of day, that he was a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and, in the vanity of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, I made him a 220 present of the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satis LITERARY ANALYSIS.-194. He... banquets. Explain. 196–211. In paragraph 17 how does the author contrive to convey a notion of his superlative appreciation of pig? 200, 201. Presents... absents. Point out the play upon words. 212-238. Make an abstract from memory of paragraph 18.- Point out touches of delicate irony in this paragraph. faction; but, before I had got to the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good 225 gift away to a stranger that I had never seen before, and who might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in thinking that I—I myself, and not another-would eat her nice cake. And what should 1 say to her the next time I saw her? How naughty I was to 230 part with her pretty present! And the odor of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure and the curi osity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last. And I blamed 235 my impertinent spirit of almsgiving and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness; and, above all, I wished never to see the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old gray impostor. 19. Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender victims. We read of pigs whipped to death with 240 something of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we con demn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might impart a gusto. 245 20. I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much 250 learning and pleasantry on both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavor of a pig who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremam) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive LITERARY ANALYSIS.—239. nice. Meaning here? 244. Intenerating, rendering tender.—dulcifying, rendering sweet. instances of Lamb's fondness for rare or obsolete words. 246. refining a violet. Query as to this expression. These are 249-256. I remember... decision. Observe the drollery of this imitation of the kind of questions argued by the medieval schoolmen. in the animal, is man the animal to death ?" justified in using that method of putting 255 I forget the decision. 21. His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few breadcrumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep 260 them in shallots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are; but consider, he is a weakling-a flower. LITERARY ANALYSIS. — 256. I forget the decision. Would it have been good art to remember it? 257-263. In the last paragraph point out an example of alliteration. Of metaphor. |