Humbly remind your majesty that the care Of your high office, as man-milliner
To red Bellona, should not be deferred.
All part, in happier plight to meet again.
The Boars in full Assembly.
Grant me your patience, gentlemen and boars,
Ye, by whose patience under public burthens
The glorious constitution of these sties
Subsists, and shall subsist. The lean pig-rates
Grow with the growing populace of swine;
The taxes, that true source of piggishness,
(How can I find a more appropriate term
To include religion, morals, peace, and plenty,
And all that fit Boeotia as a nation
To teach the other nations how to live?)
Increase with piggishness itself; and still
Does the revenue, that great spring of all
The patronage, and pensions, and by-payments,
Which free-born pigs regard with jealous eyes,
Diminish, till at length, by glorious steps,
All the land's produce will be merged in taxes,
And the revenue will amount to—nothing!
The failure of a foreign market for
Sausages, bristles, and blood-puddings,
And such home manufactures, is but partial;
And, that the population of the pigs,
Instead of hog-wash, has been fed on straw
And water, is a fact which is-you know--
That is it is a state necessity,
Temporary, of course. Those impious pigs,
Who, by frequent squeaks, have dared impugn
The settled Swellfoot system, or to make
Irreverent mockery of the genuflexions
Inculcated by the arch-priest, have been whipt
Into a loyal and an orthodox whine.
Things being in this happy state, the Queen
Iona-
A loud cry from the Pigs.
She is innocent, most innocent!
That is the very thing that I was saying,
Gentlemen swine; the Queen Iona being
Most innocent, no doubt, returns to Thebes,
And the lean sows and boars collect about her,
Wishing to make her think that we believe
(I mean those more substantial pigs, who swill
Rich hog-wash, while the others mouth damp straw,)
That she is guilty; thus, the lean-pig faction
Seeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has been
Your immemorial right, and which I will
Maintain you in to the last drop of-
A BOAR (interrupting him.)
Does any one accuse her of?
Makes any positive accusation ;-but
There were hints dropped, and so the privy wizards
Conceived that it became them to advise
His majesty to investigate their truth;—
Not for his own sake; he could be content
To let his wife play any pranks she pleased,
If, by that sufferance, he could please the pigs;
But then he fears the morals of the swine,
The sows especially and what effect
It might produce upon the purity and
Religion of the rising generation
Of sucking pigs, if it could be suspected
That Queen Iona-
Well, go on; we long
To hear what she can possibly have done.
Why, it is hinted, that a certain bull—
Thus much is known :-the milk-white bulls that
Beside Clitumnus and the crystal lakes
Of the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh dews.
Of lotus-grass and blossoming asphodel,
Sleeking their silken hair, and with sweet breath
Loading the morning winds until they faint
With living fragrance, are so beautiful !-
Well, I say nothing: but Europa rode
On such a one from Asia into Crete,
And the enamoured sea grew calm beneath
His gliding beauty. And Pasiphae,
Iona's grandmother,- -but she is innocent!
And that both you and I, and all assert.
Oh! no GREEN BAGS!! Jealousy's eyes are green, Scorpions are green, and water-snakes, and efts, And verdigris, and
In piggish souls can prepossessions reign?
Allow me to remind you, grass is green-
All flesh is grass ;-no bacon but is flesh-
Ye are but bacon. This divining BAG
(Which is not green, but only bacon colour)
Is filled with liquor, which if sprinkled o'er
A woman guilty of-we all know what-
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