the best silver plate out of his father's house, and the best Christmas pasties and wine, and we three laid the feast together."

"And where is that man ?" said Jerry, hardly noticing Mercy as she came from where she was feeding the children.

"When he had laid the feast, Jerry, he went outside." "Is he there now?" said Jerry.

"Perhaps he is."

Jerry said nothing more, but went out.
Dan was there.

"Dan Harroway," said Jerry, "I've spoke words to you as I can't never take back, because they was true." "I don't want you to take 'em back, Jerry Rouse," said Dan. "I know they were true.”

Then, Dan Harroway, though I can't take them words back, I can tell you this, and that is as this yer thing you've done this yer Christmas eve has made me feel that for you I never felt for mortal man afore. You ain't only spread them fine wittles in there, but there's a somethin' you've brought anigh me as I've hungered for without knowin' it this many a year. I don't arst you to come in, I ain't worthy as you should come in; but, Dan Harroway, I should like to shake you by the hand, and I should like the little uns to thank you."

There! I suppose you guess the rest.

Of course Dan did n't go in then, nor let Jerry show him off to the children as the angel in top-boots that had been sent to make these wonderful things out of the CRUST. Of course he did n't sit at the end of the table by Mercy all the time of the feast, and have those bright

top-boots smeared all over afterwards by thankful, dirty little hands. And of course Jerry got turned out by his landlord next day!

They were married, Dan and Mercy, when the blue hyacinths came round again, and you could smell nothing else from Gadshill-in-the-Fields to the church, and Mercy wore them in her hair.

A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG.

BY CHARLES LAMB.

ANKIND, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who, being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor 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 have been esteemed a luxury 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 for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? Not from the burnt cottage, — he had smelt that smell before; indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted-crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding that it was the

pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and, finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued:

"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what? What have you got there, I say ?"

"O father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats."

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his

son,

and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig.

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste-O Lord!" with such-like barba