liday with them.

[2] "William Minor" was evidently forgetful of the exquisite sonnet,
"Composed Upon Westminster Bridge."

LXVII.

TO COLERIDGE.

_March_ 9, 1822.

Dear C.,--It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the pig turned out
so well, [1]--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 Oedipean avulsion? Was the crackling
the color of the ripe pomegranate? Had you no cursed 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 could play in the business. I never
knew him give anything away in my 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
fowl, ducks, geese,--your tame villatic things,--Welsh mutton collars
of brawn, sturgeon, fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss cheeses,
French pies, early grapes, muscadines, I impart as freely unto 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 therein am 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 [2] 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 she
had a right to expect that I--not the old impostor--