Pyg (26 page)
Authors: Russell Potter
The first is not a little to the credit of Johnson’s candour. Mr Morgann and he had a dispute pretty late at night, in which Johnson would not give up, though he had
the wrong side, and in short, both kept the field. Next morning, when they met in the breakfasting-room, Dr Johnson accosted Mr Morgann thus: ‘Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute
last night—. You were in the right.’
The second was as follows: Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that Derrick had merit as a writer. Mr Morgann argued with him directly, in
vain. At length he had recourse to this device: ‘Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether you do reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?’ Johnson at once felt himself roused; and answered,
‘Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.’
T
OBY
apparently encountered Mr Morgann at the same place (Wickham) where these debates were said to have taken place.
(150) ‘
absque labore, nihil’
: nothing without labour.
(151) Mr
Lockyer
. Has not been identified. There were numerous public houses and inns of this period also known as the ‘White Hart’.
(152) Sir Joseph
Banks
. Sir Joseph
Banks
, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS (13 February 1743–19 June 1820), was an English naturalist, botanist and eminent patron of
the natural sciences. The son of a successful doctor, he attended Oxford, where he excelled in natural science; in 1764 he came into his inheritance and used his own money to fund expeditions to
Newfoundland and Labrador. On his return, he accompanied Captain James Cook on his first great voyage from 1768 to 1771. His energy and expense in obtaining biological specimens was unparalleled,
and in 1778 he was elected President of the Royal Society, an office which he retained until his death thirty-two years later. Throughout this time, he lent his support to voyages of exploration to
every corner of the world, and as a result his name has been given to places all about the globe, among them Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic, Cape Banks in Australia, and Banks Peninsula on the
South Island of New Zealand.
(154) Mr John
Sheldon
’
s
A
NATOMICAL
M
USEUM
. This was John Sheldon, Anatomist and Surgeon (1752–1808),
whose museum was, at the time of this narrative, located in Tottenham Court Road, London. According to an 1899 account, ‘Sheldon was desirous of devoting himself to scientific investigation
and to teaching rather than to practice. He, however, became surgeon to the Medical Asylum in Welbeck Street, and in 1786 was appointed surgeon to the Westminster Hospital. Sheldon succeeded
William Hunter as lecturer on Anatomy to the Royal Academy in 1782, and was the author of an important work on the lymphatics. His style was lucid, and his published writings stamp him as probably
having been an excellent teacher.’
(159) Dr William
Cullen
. Dr William
Cullen
, FRS, FRSE, FRCPE (1710–89), was perhaps the most distinguished among T
OBY’S
circle of friends and supporters, and the only one to have contributed directly to his
Memoirs
, by the addition of his personal endorsement. Cullen was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, into a
professional family; educated at the University of Glasgow, he served as an apothecary’s apprentice and a ship’s surgeon before arriving at the University of Edinburgh in 1734. After
completing his studies, in addition to his usual medical duties, he pursued a strong interest in chemistry; in 1747 he was awarded a lectureship in chemistry, the first in Britain; in 1751 he
ascended to a professorship in the Practice of Medicine. He was instrumental in obtaining a Royal Charter for the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and laid the cornerstone of the new College of
Surgeons building. To his warm and generous character, there are innumerable testimonies; one mark of his humility and dedication to his work may also be seen in the fact that, although elected to
the Royal Society in London, he never managed to find the time to visit and sign the official register. Indeed, his appearance and decisive ruling in the case of T
OBY’S
trial were apparently the cause of his first and only visit to London.
(164) Mr
Lingham
, T
HE
A
CADEMY
R
OOM
, L
YCEUM
. According to
The
Harmonicon
(1830),
This place of amusement, previously to its having become a fixed and permanent theatre, as it at length appears to be, has, perhaps, had as many tenants, and undergone as
many transmutations, as any place of the kind in the kingdom. When the Society of Artists was incorporated in the year 1765, James Payne, Esq., an eminent architect, purchased this part of
the ground belonging to Exeter House, on which he built an elegant fabric, as a Lyceum, or Academy and Exhibition-room, to anticipate the Royal establishments then in contemplation; and
several exhibitions afterwards took place . . . in the 1780s, the premises, which were large, and certainly eligible for the purpose, were converted to their present use, under the auspices
of their then landlord, the late Mr
Lingham
, a breeches-maker, of the Strand, by whom they had been recently purchased. Admission, 2
s
. 6
d
. and 1
s
.
(166) Charles
Dibdin
. Charles
Dibdin
(
c
. 4 March 1745–25 July 1814) was a British musician, dramatist, actor and songwriter. The son of a parish
clerk, he was intended by his parents for the Church, and so was sent to Winchester. However, his love of music diverted his thoughts from the clerical profession, and he went to London at the age
of fifteen, where he became a singing actor at Covent Garden. In 1762 his first work, a pastoral operetta entitled
The Shepherd’s Artifice
, for which he had written both words and
music, was produced at this theatre. Other works followed, which firmly established his reputation, but despite his success, his love of the high life led him to fall deep into debt, to escape
which he was obliged to flee to France for several years. In 1782 he became joint manager of the Royal Circus, which post he held when he served on T
OBY’S
jury, but
not long after, he lost this position owing to a quarrel with his partner. His later career consisted principally of one-man stage revues enacted at his own theatre, the
Sans Souci
in
Leicester-place; he also obtained a modest income from writing his memoirs.
(169) QUO USQUE TANDEM: ‘How much longer?’ The first three words of a famous phrase of Cicero’s, from his First Oration; the full sentence reads,
‘Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra’
—‘How much longer, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?’
(171) ‘
Sine omnia regula
’: literally, ‘without any rules’. This is from Dante’s
De Vulgari Eloquentia
, his defence of eloquence in
the vernacular.
(174) Mr William
Wilberforce
. William
Wilberforce
(24 August 1759–29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to
abolish the slave trade. A native of Hull, he began his political career in 1780, when he was elected Member of Parliament for Yorkshire. In 1787, he came into contact with a group of
anti-slave-trade activists, among them Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. From that point forth, Wilberforce took on the cause of abolition, heading the parliamentary campaign
against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. He also championed causes as diverse as free schools for the poor, missionary work in India,
and the creation of a colony in Sierra Leone. Late in his life, he was one of the founders of what became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—which last, it is hard to
resist concluding, must have had something to do with his early encounter with T
OBY
and his less fortunate namesake.
(178) Mr John
Fawkes
/Mr
Schmidt
. Of the details of this man’s life, we know little beyond what T
OBY
tells us, although it is
remarkable to note that an old handbill of his survived to catch the attention of Charles Dickens many years later:
The earliest account that we have seen of a learned pig is to be found in an old Bartholomew Fair bill, issued by that Emperor of all conjurors, Mr Fawkes, which exhibits
the portrait of the swinish pundit holding a paper in his mouth, with the letter Y inscribed upon it. This ‘most amazing pig’ which had a particularly early tail, was the pattern
of docility and sagacity: the ‘Pig of Knowledge, Being the only one ever taught in England’. He was to be visited ‘at a Commodious Room, at the George, West-Smithfield,
During the time of the Fair’ and the spectators were required to ‘See and Believe!’ Three-pence was the price of admission to behold ‘This astonishing animal’
perform with cards, money and watches, &c. &c. The bill concluded with a poetical apotheosis to the pig, from which we extract one verse:
A learned pig in George
’
s reign,
To Æsop
’
s brutes an equal boast;
Then let mankind again combine,
To render friendship still a toast.
Stella said that Swift could write sublimely upon a broomstick. Who ever, as the Methodists say, better ‘improved’ a pig, except by roasting it! Mr Fawkes had
also earlier exhibited a ‘learned goose’ in a room opposite the George Inn, West-Smithfield. (Bentley’s
Miscellany
, Vol. 9).
(186) Mr
Hughes
’
s
R
OYAL
C
IRCUS
; the Automaton Pig; Signor
Spinetti
. Ricky Jay, in his
Learned
Pigs and Fireproof Women
(1986), recounts that ‘a Mr Hughes, Proprietor of the Royal Circus, had as early as 1785 exhibited an automaton Pig of Knowledge as well as a mechanical monkey
who did evolutions on a tight-rope; both were presented by Signor Spinetti’; this is confirmed in Thomas Frost’s
Lives of the Conjurors
(1876).
(188) Sieur
Garman
and his ‘Cochon Savant’. This rival is also noted in Ricky Jay’s
Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women
(1986) as appearing at
Astley’s London establishment.
(193) Mr
Flaxman
, Mr William
Blake
. John
Flaxman
(6 July 1755–7 December 1826) was an English sculptor and draughtsman. Born in the city of York, he
showed an interest in art from an early age; as a child, he was said to carry about with him a quantity of wax so that he could take an impression of every button or seal he encountered. He studied
at the Royal Academy and secured a position making models for Wedgwood’s china manufactory. He later travelled throughout Italy for a number of years, returning with a high reputation as a
sculptor, which earned him numerous commissions. He became good friends with the young William Blake, and apparently persuaded his aunt and uncle, who operated a bookshop in the Strand just a few
doors down from the Lyceum, to print the volume mentioned here—Blake’s first book of poetry—
Poetical Sketches
, in 1783.
William
Blake
(28 November 1757–12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter and printmaker. Trained as an engraver, his artistic and poetic gifts were encouraged by a close circle
of friends, among them Flaxman and the Reverend Henry Mathew. From 1787 onwards, Blake self-published small, exquisite editions of his poetry in the form of ‘illuminated books’ engraved
on copperplate; although admired by those who knew them, they attracted but slight attention from critics or the public. Blake died in 1827 in poverty and obscurity, and his poems received critical
acclaim only long after his death. Today his verse is widely regarded as among the most enduring of the Romantic era, and his paintings have led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him
‘far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced’. Blake’s references to the ‘learned pig’ and the ‘hare beating on a tabor’ in the following
verse would seem to corroborate T
OBY
’s intimations of familiarity:
Give Pensions to the Learned Pig,
Or the Hare playing on a Tabor;
Anglus can never see Perfection
But in the Journeyman
’
s Labour.
(198) Mr John
Tipping
.
The Court leet records of the manor of Manchester: from the year 1552 to the Year 1686
,
and from the
Year 1731 to the Year
1846
lists Mr John Tipping as one of the Constables for Manchester as of 1762, and it is entirely possible that he later served again in this position.
(199) ‘
Tempus fugit, non autem memoria
’
:
‘Time flies, but not in memory.’
(201) Mrs
Siddons.
Sarah
Siddons
(5 July 1755–8 June 1831) was a British actress, the best-known tragedienne of the eighteenth century. She was the elder
sister of John Philip Kemble, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton and Elizabeth Whitlock, and the aunt of Fanny Kemble. She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character
Lady Macbeth. The Sarah Siddons Society continues to present the Sarah Siddons Award in Chicago every year to a prominent actress.
(203) Mr
Frazer
’
s
D
ANCING
E
STABLISHMENT
, Glasgow. See the description of T
OBY
’s appearance at this establishment given above under (5) Samuel
Nicholson
. Mr Frazer appears to have opened his Academy in 1781 (
Glasgow Mercury
, 11 October
1781). About its proprietor, alas, the present Editor has thrown up his own hands in
frustration
, there being so little information on him that he can make no other gesture.
