Pyg (17 page)

With Mr Sheldon as our Ambassador, we quickly secured the services of Richard Kirwan and William Aiton; Sir Joseph Banks, alas, though he was not entirely unsympathetic to my
Plight
, sent his regrets, as he did not wish to appear a
Partisan
in any issue involving members of the Royal
Society
. This left us still in need of
Three
, whom we
sought through the Length and Breadth of Britain. Erasmus Darwin sent his regrets, explaining that his business in Birmingham required his attention throughout the period in question; James Keir,
for similar reasons, could not afford to be absent from
Staffordshire
. Yet we were delighted to hear, a fortnight later, that William Cullen, the eminent physician, had at Dr Adams’s
urging agreed to be one of our Jury, as had Theophilus Lindsey, the theologian. For the final place, I held out the keenest Hope that Miss Seward would be willing to serve, and I even did her the
Favour—which I have, I must say, to none other—of writing her a personal
Letter
, which I dictated to Sam. The text of this Letter is most deeply engraved in the Book of my
Memory, and unfolded in this Fashion:

After posting it, I lived in constant apprehension as to any
Reply
, such that I asked Mr Sheldon after it nearly every Morning, and several times begged him to call upon
the Society’s offices to check whether or not any word had been Received. I was, as a result, quite reduced to a quivering Bag of Nerves, which were again and again Jangled by the smallest
inconvenience. You can imagine, then, my
Elation
, just over a week later, at receiving a reply in the Affirmative; indeed I have, ever since, carried this Letter close to my Bosom, by means
of having it stitched into the lining of my Waistcoat:

14

B
y then, the appointed date for this contest of Pig versus
Pig
had drawn quite Near, and Sam and I had made the most thorough preparations:
we had practised all our old Routines, gone over all our usual Signals, and even taken time to review my Latin grammar, of which I was justly proud—and certain that no porcine
poseur
could possibly match. We were also anxious to find out who had been chosen for the Jury by our opposition, but our requests for any account of this were Denied, with the word that we would know
them when we saw them. Never the less, we were able, by following such fashionable gossip as anticipated the Event, to determine that there were, by all accounts, no men of Science or Learning
among them. The best-known was Mr John Walter, a former coal-merchant who had taken up a career as a Publisher, and put out something called the
Daily Universal Register
. We were a little
put off that such a man could both judge the contest and Write about it, but Mr Sheldon assured me that his Newspaper was a very small concern, and like to come to nothing, whereas he had already
secured for us a promise to publish his own account in the London
Chronicle
.
¹

We arrived at the Premises early on the chosen Day that we might see the Arrangements of the place, and adapt ourselves to them. Ordinarily employed as a sort of lecture hall, the Lyceum had
been modified slightly for this event, with a low platform erected at its Front for our
Performances
, and two rows of six chairs placed along the right-hand side of the hall, which comprised
the
Jury
’
s
‘box’. We were very nearly the first to arrive, and were greeted with great Warmth by Mr
Lingham
, a portly gentleman of perhaps sixty years of age.
He seemed to take great delight in his rooms becoming the scene of such an
Affair
for (as he showed us in a book of press clippings he kept) the matter of the ‘Learned Pig’ was
very much the Talk of the Town. I was somewhat astonished to Read for the first time what some
Wags
had to say on the Matter: no less a light than
Sheridan
proclaimed me ‘a far
greater object of admiration to the English nation than ever was Sir Isaac
Newton
’ while an anonymous Bard epitomiz’d me thus in
Verse
:

I had to admit, I basked in the glow of these Lines for more than a moment, although it was not quite Accurate to say that I should merely
Speak
, when in fact what I did
was to
Spell
, a talent which the greater part of the ‘English Nation’ at that time, jabber as they might, did not possess.

As we peered over these
Documents
, a number of other parties arrived, including Mr Walter and several other Men whom we took to be his co-jurors. None was known to us, but Mr Lingham was
kind enough to give us their names: they were Joseph Sparkes, of the East India Company, Thomas Farr, a Liverpool merchant, James Sanderson, an Alderman, and Henry Blundell, of the Africa Company.
All these men were similarly dressed, similarly deported and similarly
Wigged
; indeed, I could hardly recall a Farrow of new
Pigs
that looked more alike. For their part, I am sure
none of them had made the acquaintance of any Animal, save as a piece of Merchandise, nor had any Notion of any Sapient beings unlike themselves; they may as well have been Visitors from some other
celestial Sphere, as any more familiar Creatures. The last of their Number shortly arrived, whom we recognised at once, for here was Charles
Dibdin
, the illustrious Actor—but his
presence did not at all cheer us, for we feared that, as a business associate of Mr Astley, he was very likely to vote in favour of the
Pretender
.

Our own jurors had also begun to arrive, and each of them stopt to pay their brief Respects; as might be expected from men whose life was of the Mind, they made a far more Rumpled and irregular
Set
than their Mercantile colleagues. Richard Kirwan was the most Dignified of the Bunch, his head held aloft with the aid of a tight swathe of neckerchiefs; William Aiton, the botanist, was
far more
Loosely
attired in a blue frock and grey waistcoat, wearing a red wig that matched his ruddy countenance. William Cullen then billowed in upon the Sails of his black academic Gown,
his face radiating both Kindness and Acuity, and with him Theophilus Lindsey who, though more reserved, bore the Expression of a man whose Sobriety seemed always about to burst forth into a
Grin
. Of course I was most anxious, and not a little
Shy
, of meeting Miss Seward, and was enormously relieved when she appeared at last. From the moment she entered the room, it
seemed to me as though the world contained but Herself and me, and all the rest were merely a species of Bystander. She wore an enormous dress of violet
Taffeta
, secured about her waist with
a cincture of dark velvet; her Hair, which one could see was all her
Own
, was tied back with a ribbon of like material, and her face quite Glowed with the vivacity of a Woman who knows her
own
Purposes
, and likely those of others as well.

She curtsied lightly before me, and I Bowed as best I could, and by means of Sam and our small cards, we were at least able to make our
Introductions
.

‘Mr Toby, it is an honour finally to Meet you.’

‘Madam, the honour is all mine. I am most glad to see you!’

‘And I you! Have no fear—why, I believe that those Periwigs over there have not the
Least
idea of your true abilities—but you will show them, of that I am
certain.’

‘Your confidence is most Heartening—I shall do my very best to Repay it.’

And then it was time to take the
Stage
. Curiously, although I had been told he was present, my Rival was not yet in evidence; the explanation of this came when, through a
side-door cleverly concealed as a section of the Wall, he and his
Man
entered. It was a strange and Uncanny thing to behold another creature as curiously Removed from Nature as myself, and
yet what first struck my Eye were our enormous differences. If I was large and Pink, he was small and
Black
, with a fine bristle of hair that looked to have been lately
combed
. It was
not an uncomely appearance, and while he, too, had a fancy Waistcoat, his was of a rich
Crimson
, which nicely complemented his dusky complexion. I could not, alas, say as much for his
Master, whose lumpy, corpulent form was ill-squeezed into a ridiculous green Frock coat, his plump head plopped above his Lace neckerchief like a Tomato upon a
Napkin
. Never the less,
despite his unpleasant appearance, he bowed courteously and low (as did my
Sam
), and conducted himself with dignity throughout the Proceedings.

We were first given a series of
Questions
submitted by the Jury, most of them very rudimentary ones that admitted of a brief answer: what was the capital of France, what country lay to
the West of England, how many gills in a Pint, and so forth. Both my rival and I managed all of them without fault, although at one point I came close to accidentally dropping one of my Letters, as
I stumbled upon an irregular Board in the platform. On and on it went, until it became quite clear that such questions would settle no Matter but that of sheer
Endurance
. We were next given
questions that had been written out in block letters upon cards, which I found my counterpart could Read as well as I, though whether through his own Sense or prior training I could not tell. Next,
we were asked to tell the Time displayed upon a Pocket watch, another task we both managed with alacrity. Clearly, these were all as much a part of the other Pig’s
repertoire
as they
were of mine, and none was likely to disclose a shade of difference between us.

As arranged, our next round was conducted in Latin, and involved the declension of nouns of various kinds, along with the conjugation of Verbs. I had expected them to have prepared for the test,
but was amazed to see how quickly my Competitor laid out his A-M-O, A-M-A-S, and A-M-A-T; he fairly leapt to his letters, and although I did my best, I could barely manage to keep pace with him,
and was quite soon Out of
Breath
. Simple sentences were then demanded of us, with the words spoken out loud leaving us the task of spelling them, and again neither my dark
Opponent
nor myself made any missteps. And so the sentences continued one after another, droning along in my Brain like the repeated march of a pair of Boots over the same piece of
Ground
. Finally,
when I felt I could stand it no more, I ran across the stage, knocking over my opponent’s table where his cards stood at the ready, and quickly spelt out from the resulting heap of letters
this question: Q-U-O U-S-Q-U-E T-A-N-D-E-M—which is to say, How much longer?