Pyg
Authors: Russell Potter
Published in Great Britain in 2011 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published by Canongate in 2011
Copyright © Russell Potter, 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted
The illustration of the learned pig is from William Darton,
A Present for a Little Boy
, 1798, reproduced 1804.
Reprinted by permission of the Toronto Public Library.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 85786 240 2
eISBN: 978 0 85786 248 8
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For Karen Carr
il miglior fabbro
EDITOR’S NOTE
As the editor of this new edition of T
OBY
’
S
autobiography, I should like to make a few brief remarks to those readers who
may, by chance, take up this volume knowing nothing of the circumstances of its origin or first publication. You hold in your hands one of the most remarkable volumes ever to be published –
indeed, the sole known
Memoir
of any creature of other than the Human race. Such a statement may at first seem to stretch the reader’s credulity, but I hasten to assure you that this
narrative requires no suspension of our ordinary notions of reality – only a realisation of how vast, indeed, that reality may be. The accomplishments of T
OBY
, in
regard to his acquisition of Language, and his use of this ability in pursuit of writing a Narrative of his own, are too well documented to admit of any doubt. Many of the luminaries of the
Eighteenth Century, the eminent Dr Johnson himself among them, attest to its veracity. As for the historical particulars, however, I shall leave these to the brief appendix that I have inserted
after the main narrative, where those who are additionally curious may satisfy that most vital of all human impulses.
The text of the present volume is based on that of the first edition of 1809, which preserves what is by far the most authoritative text. Only three complete copies are known, one at the
Bodleian (which was the copyright deposit), one in the library of the University of Edinburgh, and one in the National Library of Ireland in Dublin. Having compared and collated all of them, I can
with assurance state that they are all from the identical impression, and contain no substantive variants besides the inevitable differences in the binding and trimming of the pages. The second
printing of 1810, and all subsequent versions, are deficient not only in the main text, but in the great variety of spurious additions and emendations, more with each printing, which insert all
manner of asides and comic interludes, so utterly different in tone and style from the original that I am quite certain they are the work of other hands (the more so as they continued to be added
to subsequent editions well into the 1840s, by which time the original
Author
had long since expired). This is, therefore, the very first modern printing to contain the true and accurate
account of T
OBY
’
S
career, without any ornaments other than those that he gave it himself.
I have not altered the substance of the text in any way, and I have only modernised the punctuation as much as seemed absolutely necessary to retain the sense; the distinctive use of
Capitalisation (quite common in its day) has been retained. It is to be hoped that this modest volume may earn for T
OBY
a new generation of readers, hitherto unacquainted
with his adventures, who will find in them as curious and absorbing a mirror of
Nature
as did those who first perused these pages more than two centuries ago.
Russell Potter, Ph.D., MA, BA
October 2010
To the Reader
ENDORSEMENT
I,
William Cullen
, MD, Fellow of the Royal Society, member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, do hereby give my Attestation to the Truth of what follows. I
have examined the Author of this Narrative on several occasions, entirely free from any Impediment or Collusion, and can Attest that, Unquestionably, the Narrator of this Tale is,
Anatomically and in every Other Sense, A
P I G
CONTENTS
1
W
hen in Rome, do as the
Romans
. This adage, instilled within human children at a tender age, ensures the extension of a measure of courtesy
and understanding to those whose ways are alien to one’s own, and to that degree it is surely a
Wise
saying. But—and here I speak from painful experience—most who thus
employ it scarce understand it. To demand that
Humans
regard other humans as being like themselves requires little Effort; such sympathy
within
the species is no more than any other
Race of beings expects without a thought. For it is
only
among humans that other humans seem
less
than human; among Pigs (or any other Animal, I am sure), such conceits are utterly
unknown. Indeed, I believe that throughout the Animal Kingdom, even and especially when one creature attacks and kills another, there is greater Courtesy extended, in each knowing the other to be a
living, breathing thing much like itself, than the ordinary Human extends even to his
Friends
.
I myself was born in or about the year 1781 (as near as I have been able to ascertain), on a farm near Salford, a place not far from the great city of Manchester; so close to it, in fact, that I
have since been told it has nearly become a
Suburb
of that Town. In my own day, its Character was entirely
Rural,
with a criss-cross of hedgerows and pastures such as would be found
in the most remote corner of the country. The whole Region was once known as the Hundred of Salford, which was practically a County in its own Right, and might well have become
‘Salfordshire’ had things worked out differently. My own birthplace was adjacent to the ancient manor of Boothes Hall, just to the North of what is now known as
Boothstown
, which
still preserves something of its original character. My farm lay at the end of Lower New Row, though in my day it had no such name but was called, after its only destination, Lloyd Farm Lane. Mr
Francis Lloyd was the owner of this farm and, after the fashion of the local Romans,
my
owner as well.
Mr Francis Lloyd was a Moderate man in every way: he was Moderately successful as a farmer, Moderate in his politics, Moderate in his treatment of his children, and Moderate in his drinking
(which was limited to a Dram before dinner, excepting Sundays). He was not, alas, so Moderate in the treatment of his animals, but that would have been no surprise to his fellow
Romans—animals
was
animals, and one would no more think of extending mercy or kindness to them than one would to a shrub, a stone, or a bit of Tallow. It was not that such creatures
had no feelings—surely they did—but only that their feelings were simply not of account. The Squeal of a Piglet was doubtless the expression of
some
feeling or another, but most
of all it was a Noise, a thing to be filtered out of one’s hearing, much as the creak of a floorboard or the sound of wind in the trees. Mr Francis Lloyd raised Pigs to make money, same as he
raised Barley or Cows—save that, in the case of the Cows, it was their Milk that was wanted rather than their Blood.
With some animals—horses, mostly—it has been the habit of Men to name, and keep some account of, a creature’s Dam and Sire, if only to make a sort of Mathematics of success; a
good Dam might be joined with a famous Sire to make another Champion to win the garland at the next St Leger Stakes. But when it comes to Pigs, men have long felt that there was little sense in
naming them, as their only moment of Note was most commonly their being served for
Supper
, and found more flavourful or delicate than their predecessor—every one of them nameless save
by such Ephemeral sobriquets as
Loin
or
Roast
. In such a realm of infinite and infinitely replaceable Parts, a row of Dinners one after another, the idea of naming any one such meal
appeared as absurd as naming a toenail-clipping, or a Fart. On occasion, when some children from the neighbouring village came to call and wanted to see the pigs, the old Gaffer might call out
cheerily to ‘Grunter’ or ‘Stripe’, but as soon as the moment had passed, the name was as forgotten as the dirt at the bottom of a bucket of pig swill. For who did not grunt,
or had no stripe? We ourselves might as well have called men ‘Two-legs’ or ‘Hair-head’.