Pyg

by Russell Potter

  (148) Mr Maurice Morgann. Maurice Morgann (1725–1802) was a government administrator and literary scholar, in the latter field of which he was renowned for his ingenious ‘Essay on the character of Falstaff’. He once had the opportunity of entertaining Johnson for a day or two at Wickham, when its lord was absent, of which two anecdotes are related by Boswell:

  The first is not a little to the credit of Johnson’s candour. Mr Morgann and he had a dispute pretty late at night, in which Johnson would not give up, though he had the wrong side, and in short, both kept the field. Next morning, when they met in the breakfasting-room, Dr Johnson accosted Mr Morgann thus: ‘Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute last night—. You were in the right.’

  The second was as follows: Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that Derrick had merit as a writer. Mr Morgann argued with him directly, in vain. At length he had recourse to this device: ‘Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether you do reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?’ Johnson at once felt himself roused; and answered, ‘Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.’

  TOBY apparently encountered Mr Morgann at the same place (Wickham) where these debates were said to have taken place.

  (150) ‘absque labore, nihil’: nothing without labour.

  (151) Mr Lockyer. Has not been identified. There were numerous public houses and inns of this period also known as the ‘White Hart’.

  (152) Sir Joseph Banks. Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS (13 February 1743–19 June 1820), was an English naturalist, botanist and eminent patron of the natural sciences. The son of a successful doctor, he attended Oxford, where he excelled in natural science; in 1764 he came into his inheritance and used his own money to fund expeditions to Newfoundland and Labrador. On his return, he accompanied Captain James Cook on his first great voyage from 1768 to 1771. His energy and expense in obtaining biological specimens was unparalleled, and in 1778 he was elected President of the Royal Society, an office which he retained until his death thirty-two years later. Throughout this time, he lent his support to voyages of exploration to every corner of the world, and as a result his name has been given to places all about the globe, among them Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic, Cape Banks in Australia, and Banks Peninsula on the South Island of New Zealand.

  (154) Mr John Sheldon’s ANATOMICAL MUSEUM. This was John Sheldon, Anatomist and Surgeon (1752–1808), whose museum was, at the time of this narrative, located in Tottenham Court Road, London. According to an 1899 account, ‘Sheldon was desirous of devoting himself to scientific investigation and to teaching rather than to practice. He, however, became surgeon to the Medical Asylum in Welbeck Street, and in 1786 was appointed surgeon to the Westminster Hospital. Sheldon succeeded William Hunter as lecturer on Anatomy to the Royal Academy in 1782, and was the author of an important work on the lymphatics. His style was lucid, and his published writings stamp him as probably having been an excellent teacher.’

  (159) Dr William Cullen. Dr William Cullen, FRS, FRSE, FRCPE (1710–89), was perhaps the most distinguished among TOBY’S circle of friends and supporters, and the only one to have contributed directly to his Memoirs, by the addition of his personal endorsement. Cullen was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, into a professional family; educated at the University of Glasgow, he served as an apothecary’s apprentice and a ship’s surgeon before arriving at the University of Edinburgh in 1734. After completing his studies, in addition to his usual medical duties, he pursued a strong interest in chemistry; in 1747 he was awarded a lectureship in chemistry, the first in Britain; in 1751 he ascended to a professorship in the Practice of Medicine. He was instrumental in obtaining a Royal Charter for the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and laid the cornerstone of the new College of Surgeons building. To his warm and generous character, there are innumerable testimonies; one mark of his humility and dedication to his work may also be seen in the fact that, although elected to the Royal Society in London, he never managed to find the time to visit and sign the official register. Indeed, his appearance and decisive ruling in the case of TOBY’S trial were apparently the cause of his first and only visit to London.

  (164) Mr Lingham, THE ACADEMY ROOM, LYCEUM. According to The Harmonicon (1830),

  This place of amusement, previously to its having become a fixed and permanent theatre, as it at length appears to be, has, perhaps, had as many tenants, and undergone as many transmutations, as any place of the kind in the kingdom. When the Society of Artists was incorporated in the year 1765, James Payne, Esq., an eminent architect, purchased this part of the ground belonging to Exeter House, on which he built an elegant fabric, as a Lyceum, or Academy and Exhibition-room, to anticipate the Royal establishments then in contemplation; and several exhibitions afterwards took place . . . in the 1780s, the premises, which were large, and certainly eligible for the purpose, were converted to their present use, under the auspices of their then landlord, the late Mr Lingham, a breeches-maker, of the Strand, by whom they had been recently purchased. Admission, 2s. 6d. and 1s.

  (166) Charles Dibdin. Charles Dibdin (c. 4 March 1745–25 July 1814) was a British musician, dramatist, actor and songwriter. The son of a parish clerk, he was intended by his parents for the Church, and so was sent to Winchester. However, his love of music diverted his thoughts from the clerical profession, and he went to London at the age of fifteen, where he became a singing actor at Covent Garden. In 1762 his first work, a pastoral operetta entitled The Shepherd’s Artifice, for which he had written both words and music, was produced at this theatre. Other works followed, which firmly established his reputation, but despite his success, his love of the high life led him to fall deep into debt, to escape which he was obliged to flee to France for several years. In 1782 he became joint manager of the Royal Circus, which post he held when he served on TOBY’S jury, but not long after, he lost this position owing to a quarrel with his partner. His later career consisted principally of one-man stage revues enacted at his own theatre, the Sans Souci in Leicester-place; he also obtained a modest income from writing his memoirs.

  (169) QUO USQUE TANDEM: ‘How much longer?’ The first three words of a famous phrase of Cicero’s, from his First Oration; the full sentence reads, ‘Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra’—‘How much longer, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?’

  (171) ‘Sine omnia regula’: literally, ‘without any rules’. This is from Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia, his defence of eloquence in the vernacular.

  (174) Mr William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce (24 August 1759–29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Hull, he began his political career in 1780, when he was elected Member of Parliament for Yorkshire. In 1787, he came into contact with a group of anti-slave-trade activists, among them Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. From that point forth, Wilberforce took on the cause of abolition, heading the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. He also championed causes as diverse as free schools for the poor, missionary work in India, and the creation of a colony in Sierra Leone. Late in his life, he was one of the founders of what became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—which last, it is hard to resist concluding, must have had something to do with his early encounter with TOBY and his less fortunate namesake.

  (178) Mr John Fawkes/Mr Schmidt. Of the details of this man’s life, we know little beyond what TOBY tells us, although it is remarkable to note that an old handbill of his survived to catch the attention of Charles Dickens many years later:

  The earliest account that we have seen of a learned pig is to be found in an old Bartholomew Fair bill, issued by that Emperor of all conjurors, Mr Fawkes, which exhibits the portrait of the swinish pundit holding a paper in his mouth, with the letter Y inscribed upon it. This ‘most amazing pig’ whi
ch had a particularly early tail, was the pattern of docility and sagacity: the ‘Pig of Knowledge, Being the only one ever taught in England’. He was to be visited ‘at a Commodious Room, at the George, West-Smithfield, During the time of the Fair’ and the spectators were required to ‘See and Believe!’ Three-pence was the price of admission to behold ‘This astonishing animal’ perform with cards, money and watches, &c. &c. The bill concluded with a poetical apotheosis to the pig, from which we extract one verse:

  A learned pig in George’s reign,

  To Æsop’s brutes an equal boast;

  Then let mankind again combine,

  To render friendship still a toast.

  Stella said that Swift could write sublimely upon a broomstick. Who ever, as the Methodists say, better ‘improved’ a pig, except by roasting it! Mr Fawkes had also earlier exhibited a ‘learned goose’ in a room opposite the George Inn, West-Smithfield. (Bentley’s Miscellany, Vol. 9).

  (186) Mr Hughes’s ROYAL CIRCUS; the Automaton Pig; Signor Spinetti. Ricky Jay, in his Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women (1986), recounts that ‘a Mr Hughes, Proprietor of the Royal Circus, had as early as 1785 exhibited an automaton Pig of Knowledge as well as a mechanical monkey who did evolutions on a tight-rope; both were presented by Signor Spinetti’; this is confirmed in Thomas Frost’s Lives of the Conjurors (1876).

  (188) Sieur Garman and his ‘Cochon Savant’. This rival is also noted in Ricky Jay’s Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women (1986) as appearing at Astley’s London establishment.

  (193) Mr Flaxman, Mr William Blake. John Flaxman (6 July 1755–7 December 1826) was an English sculptor and draughtsman. Born in the city of York, he showed an interest in art from an early age; as a child, he was said to carry about with him a quantity of wax so that he could take an impression of every button or seal he encountered. He studied at the Royal Academy and secured a position making models for Wedgwood’s china manufactory. He later travelled throughout Italy for a number of years, returning with a high reputation as a sculptor, which earned him numerous commissions. He became good friends with the young William Blake, and apparently persuaded his aunt and uncle, who operated a bookshop in the Strand just a few doors down from the Lyceum, to print the volume mentioned here—Blake’s first book of poetry—Poetical Sketches, in 1783.

  William Blake (28 November 1757–12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter and printmaker. Trained as an engraver, his artistic and poetic gifts were encouraged by a close circle of friends, among them Flaxman and the Reverend Henry Mathew. From 1787 onwards, Blake self-published small, exquisite editions of his poetry in the form of ‘illuminated books’ engraved on copperplate; although admired by those who knew them, they attracted but slight attention from critics or the public. Blake died in 1827 in poverty and obscurity, and his poems received critical acclaim only long after his death. Today his verse is widely regarded as among the most enduring of the Romantic era, and his paintings have led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him ‘far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced’. Blake’s references to the ‘learned pig’ and the ‘hare beating on a tabor’ in the following verse would seem to corroborate TOBY’s intimations of familiarity:

  Give Pensions to the Learned Pig,

  Or the Hare playing on a Tabor;

  Anglus can never see Perfection

  But in the Journeyman’s Labour.

  (198) Mr John Tipping. The Court leet records of the manor of Manchester: from the year 1552 to the Year 1686, and from the Year 1731 to the Year 1846 lists Mr John Tipping as one of the Constables for Manchester as of 1762, and it is entirely possible that he later served again in this position.

  (199) ‘Tempus fugit, non autem memoria’: ‘Time flies, but not in memory.’

  (201) Mrs Siddons. Sarah Siddons (5 July 1755–8 June 1831) was a British actress, the best-known tragedienne of the eighteenth century. She was the elder sister of John Philip Kemble, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton and Elizabeth Whitlock, and the aunt of Fanny Kemble. She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character Lady Macbeth. The Sarah Siddons Society continues to present the Sarah Siddons Award in Chicago every year to a prominent actress.

  (203) Mr Frazer’s DANCING ESTABLISHMENT, Glasgow. See the description of TOBY’s appearance at this establishment given above under (5) Samuel Nicholson. Mr Frazer appears to have opened his Academy in 1781 (Glasgow Mercury, 11 October 1781). About its proprietor, alas, the present Editor has thrown up his own hands in frustration, there being so little information on him that he can make no other gesture.

  (208) ‘A Pair of Italians’. This story is given in Cassell’s Old and New Edinburgh (1882), Vol. II, in terms so similar to those used by TOBY that it seems very likely that it drew upon TOBY’s narrative for its source. Despite considerable exertions in that direction, the present Editor has been unable to ascertain the identity of these nameless Italians.

  (210) Jamie. Alas, TOBY does not give his friend’s family name, and my exertions in the records of the University from this period have produced far too many candidates, the name or its variants (it was commonly used as a diminutive of ‘James’) being quite common.

  (214) Robert Burns. Robert Burns (25 January 1759–21 July 1796), also known as Rabbie Burns, the Ploughman Poet, and the Bard of Ayrshire, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. During his lifetime, much was made of his humble origins, and there can be little doubt of the shock felt in 1786 when the first volume of his verse appeared; as Chambers’s Cyclopedia noted in 1851, ‘Its influence was immediately felt, and is still operating on the whole imaginative literature of the kingdom.’ The poet found his sudden rise to fame difficult, yet nearly all contemporary accounts testify, as does TOBY here, to his great personal humility and charm.

  (216) The Countess’s Invitation. This anecdote is related by many biographers of Burns, among them John Lockhart (Life of Robert Burns, 1830) and Alan Cunningham (Life of Burns, 1820). The name of the woman who issued the invitation is not given; she is sometimes identified as a ‘Countess’ and elsewhere simply as ‘a certain stately Peeress’.

  (216) Sir James Stirling, Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Cassell’s Old and New Edinburgh (Vol. IV, p. 282) describes him thus: ‘Sir James Stirling, Bart., elected Lord Provost, afterwards Elder of Forneth, had a stormy time when in office. He was the son of a fishmonger at the head of Marlin’s Wynd, where his sign was a wooden Black Bull, now in the Antiquarian Museum. Stirling, after being secretary to Sir Charles Dalling, Governor of Jamaica, became a partner in the bank of Mansfield, Ramsay, and Co. in Cantore’s Close, Luckenbooths, and married the daughter of the head of the firm.’ It may be noted here that, at this time, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh was also the nominal head of the University, it having not yet separated from municipal control.

  (217) Dr Monro. Alexander Monro secundus (22 May 1733–2 October 1817) was the son of the eminent anatomist Alexander Munro, known as primus. He was particularly well known for his Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Nervous System (1783).

  (217) John Home. John Home (22 September 1722–5 September 1808) was a Scottish poet and dramatist. He was born at Leith, near Edinburgh, where his father, Alexander Home, a distant relation of the earls of Home, was town clerk. John was educated at the Leith Grammar School, and at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated MA in 1742. His first play, Agis: a tragedy, founded on Plutarch’s narrative, was finished in 1747. He took it to London, and submitted it to David Garrick for representation at Drury Lane, but it was rejected as unsuitable for the stage. Never the less, a great number of his plays were produced in Edinburgh with success. Home died at Merchiston Bank, near Edinburgh, in his eighty-sixth year. He is buried in South Leith Parish Church. The Works of John Home were collected and published by Henry Mackenzie in 1822.

  Curiously, the poem attributed to him by TOBY does not appear among Home’s published verse, although there is a very similar (but not identical) stanza in Philip Fre
nau’s ‘Address to a Learned Pig’, published in his collected works in 1809:

  Science!—to You, that opens all her store?

  Already have you in your sapient brain

  More than most aldermen—and gumption more

  Than some, who capers cut on Congress’ floor.

  May we not hope, in this improving age

  Of human things—to see on Terra’s stage!

  Hogs take the lead of men, and from their styes

  To honours, riches, office, rise!

  It is the opinion of the present Editor that TOBY’s version is a far better one, and that Mr Freneau—whose verse is sadly deficient in numbers—must have had it in hand, and used it as the source for his far more ‘doggerel’ version.

  (220) Mr Joseph Black. Joseph Black, FRSE FRCS (16 April 1728–6 December 1799), was a Scottish physician, known for his work with James Watt on early steam-driven engines, as well as his experiments with carbon dioxide, which he called ‘fixed air’. He began his studies at Edinburgh in 1750, taking his medical degree in 1755. After a period spent teaching in Glasgow, he returned to Edinburgh in 1766 to take up the post of Professor of Chemistry, which he held until his death. He is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard.

  (221) Mr Walker. John Walker (1731–31 December 1803) was Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh from 1779 to 1803. He was born in Edinburgh, his father the rector of the Canongate School, at which John received an excellent education; he attended the University of Edinburgh from 1746 to 1749 and took a degree in Divinity. Over the next decade, with the encouragement of Dr Cullen, he pursued a variety of chemical experiments, as well as studying natural history, including fieldwork in remote areas of the Highlands and Hebrides. After his appointment at the University, he set about reforming and updating the previous course of study, expanding the course of lectures to an entire year. The high estimate TOBY gives of Professor Walker, along with his willingness to alter or even set aside the system of Linnaeus, is corroborated by numerous other accounts.