Pyg (20 page)

My second encounter with a swinish Simulacrum came scarcely a fortnight later, in the form of a handbill pasted upon the hoardings adjacent to the King’s Concert Rooms,
not far from Mr Sheldon’s museum. ‘THE WONDERFUL PIG OF KNOWLEDGE,’ declared the bill, ‘UNDER THE DIRECTION OF SIEUR
GARMAN
, lately arrived from
PARIS
, where
he appeared with enormous Success for more than twenty weeks with his “COCHON SAVANT” at the Amphitheatre
Anglois
.’ The main feature of the bill was a large woodcut
depicting a pig picking out a letter from a heap under the direction of a man in a riding outfit holding a Stick, above which dangled a ribbon on which was inscribed ‘LE MIEUX COCHON SAVANT
DU SIEUR GARMAN’, which, though I had but little acquaintance with French, was clear enough—a boast at
My
expense!

Here I must in frankness admit that it was not Charity but
Envy
I felt upon seeing this boastful claim, and the more so as the pig’s particulars—counting the number of Persons
in attendance, telling the time, even reading the minds of Ladies—were all abstracted from my own Act. That a
Frenchman
should make such claims also pricked my pride, for although I
would hardly have said that I had any especially warm feelings for my Native land, I never the less felt that such claims impinged upon the originality and capability of
Britain
as much as
on my own. And so at first I hurried to speak with Sam, desiring that he assist me in finding some way to Spy out this new Rival, but as before there seemed no way for me to attend such a show
without drawing Notice. I had little appetite for another
Contest
, doubted indeed that the Public would—and yet, try as I might, I could not rid myself of the feeling that I must
somehow answer this Injustice, and reclaim my pre-eminence in the Pantheon of Pigs, such as it was. There seemed nothing for it but a return to the Stage, although both Sam and I were most
Reluctant to revive our past productions.

At just that moment, happily, we received a Letter from Dr Cullen, in which that excellent gentleman invited us to pay him a visit in
Edinburgh
, as he was anxious to acquaint us with
Friends of his there, and perhaps offer some demonstration of my Skill to the sceptical among his
Colleagues.
Sam and I at once considered that, were we to accept this invitation, we could
work our way Northwards by degrees, proclaiming this our
Farewell
tour, and concluding in Edinburgh. Under the consideration that this would be my final set of Appearances, I was delighted
to consent; we could now Answer the Challenge, and offer the World a last opportunity to see the
Original
Sapient Pig. Of course, there could be little doubt that there would be Rivals and
Successors yet to come, but once we were embarked upon the road, they could little trouble us there. ‘He who is tired of London, is tired of
Life
,’ Dr Johnson used to
say—but it seemed to me then that the sooner I could quit that City, the sooner I would be rid (at least) of the more proximate and Numerous of my competitors, and able to find a way through
the world that would truly be my
Own.

As a favour to Mr Lingham, we agreed to open our Tour in the Academy Room at the Lyceum, and there, over the three weeks that followed, we enjoyed an unbroken run of full
houses. Whether it was because the Public accepted my claim that I was, after all, the only true Original Pig of my kind, or because we had repapered every wall and
Hoarding
in London with
our Handbills, or because of the quality of our Act, I could not say, but it was immensely gratifying no matter what its Cause. For this tour, we made a quite deliberate decision to leave behind
all our other
Animal
players; Mr Lockyer had attended to them throughout our stay in the City and had so grown in affection for them that he was loath to part with their company, and so
those among our Cats, our Monkeys, Dogs, Birds and the Hare that yet lived were suffered to remain with him. We planned only to take our Horses, and rebuilt our Wagon along the lines of a
Gypsy’s Caravan, with a capacious interior room divided into accommodations for Sam and myself. Our itinerary was designed to include as many of our previous Venues as possible, including a
stop at Oxford to visit my old College, and a visit to the place of my Birth in Salford (where still, for all that we knew, Sam’s uncle yet kept his farm), and Chester, going from thence up
the coast to Glasgow, and concluding in Edinburgh.

Our Act comprised all of the best features of all we had done before, including reading and writing, a session of Latin verbs, and the ever-popular ‘reading’ of the minds of ladies
in attendance—this time with the written assurance on our bills that ‘Toby never divulges the thoughts of any Lady in the company
but by her permission
.’ Two innovations
were made: the First a game of
Whist
, which was easy for me, as I had played it quite regularly with Sam and others over the years; the Second a tableau, which we dubbed ‘Animal
Magnetism’ after the notions of Franz
Mesmer
, whose ideas were much discussed at the court of Louis XVI and elsewhere—Monsieur
Garman
had such an act, and we thought we
could readily do him one Better. Our version consisted of a pantomime of porcine Distress, in which I seemed to Eat something that caused me great pain, at which Sam would play the Doctor and
attend to me by passing a series of magnets over my prostrate form; this effected a Miraculous cure, and ended with doctor and Patient cavorting about the Stage to the accompaniment of a
Fiddle.

The notices were full of the highest praise, but our real satisfaction came when we had word that Monsieur Garman had announced, with the showman’s usual flair of turning poor returns into
good news, that ‘the incessant demands of the Irish public’ had obliged him to end his show early and embark for Dublin. This news came on the afternoon of our final London show, and I
will not exaggerate if I tell you that it lent considerable extra Verve to that evening’s performance, turning Pacing to Prancing, Bows into Genuflections, and mere Spelling into the most
elegant
Orthography
. We did three curtain calls and an Encore, and retired to a reception at Mr Lindsey’s rooms, which lay only a short walk away. All our London friends were there;
Miss Seward had been so kind as to return for a final Visit, as had Mr Kirwan and Mr Aiton; among the many others who honoured us with their presence were Mr Wilberforce, Sir Joseph Banks, the
painter Mr Benjamin
West
and his wife, and another neighbour, John Flaxman, a sculptor of some repute. Mr Flaxman introduced to me a young Engraver by the name of Mr Blake, and pressed upon
me a volume of the young man’s poetry, which had lately been imprinted by Mr Flaxman’s
Aunt
. This little book I gladly accepted, and in later years I have often reflected on its
being the first in the career of a truly astonishing
Poet
.

At last, we had to say our final ‘adoos’ and retire to make the most of what remained of the night, for we were pledged to commence upon our Tour the next morning. We stayed, of
course, at Mr Sheldon’s, and I should like to note here that gentleman’s enormous and unfailing Kindness to us in every regard, which was essential to our London success, as well as our
future fortunes. It was with a genuine feeling of
Distress
that we parted the next morning, which I would not do until I extracted from him a promise to visit us in Edinburgh at his earliest
possible convenience. Our horses and wagon having been brought round the night before, and every thing placed in readiness, we set out at last upon the road to Oxford by way of Uxbridge. And,
although the buildings, the streets and the dreary tide of humanity were much the same, I could not help but reflect on how much had changed since my arrival in London only a few short months
before. I had tasted
Fame
—of a rare sort—but had also seen ignominy, and found that men of
Science
, ultimately, have the same tastes and desires as other men; their
natures were, it seemed to me, as divided as my
Own
.

For what was I? A freak of nature? But if I were, might not Sir Isaac Newton, or Galileo, or
Shakespeare
be similarly regarded as freaks? One model of existence—the more popular, I
should say—imagines the young as empty vessels, ready to be filled with the Stuff of
Learning
, and entirely creatures of such training; your average human
scholler
was in this
case no more, and no less, a product of his schooling than I. But if, instead, there lay within
some
, but not all, souls a certain indefinable Spark of genius, which required only sufficient
Tinder
to set the world ablaze, then all such men were Freaks, and there was no more point in trying to produce such fellows through mere Learning than there was in lecturing to
Stones
to make them capable. It seemed that Nature, alas, far from being the handmaiden of Genius, was in fact far better adapted to cultivate enormous herds of
Mediocrity
, whether of
human or Porcine race, than she was to nurture Singularities.

It was with these thoughts in my Mind that I watched the great Metropolis of London dwindle into its Suburbs, and fade into its country Environs; the sight seemed to me no more, and no less,
than the diminishment into distance of an enormous
Sty
.

16

O
f our exhibitions in the course of our northward Progress, I will say
little
, for there is—in truth—very little worth saying.
It was, of course, gratifying to find that my Reputation had not been in any way Diminished, either by the passage of Time or by Rival Pigs, for our shows were well attended in every Town, and in
all sorts of Weather. In Oxford, I was gratified to meet with some of my former fellows at Pembroke, as was Sam; we were, however, disheartened to discover that Dr Adams had been buried in
Gloucester, which we could not reach given our existing commitments for our
Tour
. We contented ourselves by making a small donation in his name to the College, as well as to a fund that was
being taken up to place a Memorial in Gloucester
Cathedral
. From there we retraced the steps of our former passage, revisiting our old venues at Banbury, Coventry, Stafford and
Crewe
.
We at last drew near to the valley of the river
Irwell
, in the vicinity of
Salford
, not far from the place of my Birth. On our previous Tours, I had always taken care to avoid the
area, being none too sure as to my Reception there. But now, on this my final tour of Britain, it seemed only just to call upon the place of my
Origin
, if only to reflect on the enormous
distance I had travelled, both physically and spiritually, since my being there.

We took the precaution of having with us in our company a Mr John
Tipping
, one of the Constables of the city of
Manchester
. He was a jovial fellow, who recalled having seen our
show some years previous in Liverpool, and was only too happy to Protect us, should we encounter any threats of
violence
against Pig or
Person
. And yet, though he accompanied us as a
Friend, I could not help but think on that other Constable, who gave Mr Bisset such a thrashing that I fear he never truly recovered; indeed I believe it was a principal cause of his
Death
.
As we came down the old lane that led to Lloyd Farm, I felt a strange sensation indeed, as though the entire Narrative of my Life were running crazily Backward, like a Moving
Panorama
gone
off its Spools. Here, indifferent save by a few fence-posts that were perhaps more Askew than before, or a Hedgerow that had grown in size and wildness, was the very road I had first taken when Mr
Lloyd brought me to
Market
—ah, how that word now Resonated within me. For, having once gone off to be Marketed, I wondered whether such Vending had ever really Ceased, or simply
changed its venue and its Rates. What do I hear for the Learned Pig?