of the most momentous events that the country has experienced, and that transitions of thought and sentiment were the natural and common experience of the times. Much of the literary material left by Dr. Bagby still remains in the hands of the compilers of this volume. Whether or not it will be given to the public in the present form will be for the public to determine. RICHMOND, VA., July 17, 1885. BACON AND GREENS.* "To do 10 be, or not to be, that is the question." "T° To be what? Why, to be a hog. Now, you know, that I have my doubts whether any lady or gentleman in this room would like to be a hog. A slab-sided, sharp-faced, four-legged, cloven-footed thing the abomination of Jews-covered with coarse hair and bristles, and with nothing to do, as a general rule, but to wallow in a mud-puddle in the corner of a worm-fence, and jump up, with a loud grunt, and scare people's horses. That, surely, is not an enviable existence! It must go rather hard to make a living by running one's nose into the ground. I would as soon practise medicine. And yet there are some decided advantages in being a hog. Your gas bills are very moderate; you have no use for a watch-pocket; and, if you are a Southern hog, you are not apt to come under the $20,000 clause in time of rebellion. Furthermore, you are not compelled to wear, at the back or on top of your head, a great swab or dob or gob, and call it a waterfall or chignon. Still, it must be disagreeable to have a pair of ears so long that they are always flapping in your nostrils, and to be regarded by the community as the embodi *Written in 1865. ment of filth and voracity; and to know all the while that the public estimate of your character is both unjust and untrue. I say, untrue; and, in the course of this lecture, I'll prove it. I will show, that so far from deserving the detestation even of Christians, the hog is neither dirty nor greedy, neither stupid nor stolid; but is, in point of fact, the most lovable, and by far the most useful of all animals,―man himself hardly excepted. It is true that the common middle-aged hog, such as you find him on the chestnut ridges of Old Virginia, is rather a repulsive looking creature. But who that has ever studiously contemplated a litter of fresh pigs, as they are gambolling about their mother-dear, has not been forced to own that the sturdy little porker, not the poor runt, with his hind legs draggling, but the bully of the crew, ever ready to fight, plump and fussy, always foremost in the trough,—is, take him all in all, a really lovely little beast. Consider the hog in another aspect, as nature made him. Think of the wild boar of the Black Forest-gaunt and shaggy and savage, defying a hundred hunters, laughing at their spears, rending their strongest hounds, and even their horses, like rats, with his mighty tusks; his eyes flashing fire and his mouth churning foam—the incarnation of fury, and of a courage to be conquered only by death! This, truly, is a noble creature, worthy the place allotted him on the scutcheons and crests of the proudest dukedoms and baronies of the medieval ages. |