A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG
BY CHARLES LAMB
Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman
BOSTON
D. LOTHROP COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS
Copyright, 1888
BY
D. Lothrop Company.
PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH, BOSTON.
UPON ROAST PIG
Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enoughto read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate theirmeat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do inAbyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by theirgreat Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, wherehe designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally theCooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting,or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentallydiscovered in the manner following: The swineherd, Ho-ti, having goneout in the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect masts forhis hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a greatlubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of hisage commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, whichkindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of theirpoor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage,(a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it),what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs,no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs had been esteemed aluxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of.Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much forthe sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily buildup again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two,at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking whathe should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smokingremnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed hisnostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What couldit proceed from?—not from the burnt cottage—he had smelt that smellbefore—indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind whichhad occured through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand.Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower.A premonitory moistenin