1832.] [ 395 ] 



PIGS ADDRESSED TO THOSE " ABOUT TO LEAVE BUSINESS !" 



MISERABLE are those thrifty traders, who having crammed their bags 

 " e'en to bursting" with gold and bank-paper, shut up shop, and en- 

 deavour gradually to accustom themselves to the sight of green turf, 

 ere they are called upon to sleep under it. Mr. Pettitoes was one of 

 these unhappy beings. He had, in his day, shed oceans of pig's blood, 

 and had grown immensely rich by the sanguinary employment. One 

 day, however, his evil genius whispered, " Pettitoes, sell your business, 

 and go live at your ease in the country." We much doubt whether the 

 suggestion of the genius would have of itself prevailed, had it not been 

 most opportunely backed by the whirling-by of the handsome carriage 

 of Mr. Figdust, late grocer of Oxford-street, but then Cincinnatus of 

 Battersea Rise. Enough : Pettitoes " sold his business :" behold him 

 in the country. 



Pettitoes had a fine family three daughters, born, it would seem, 

 with a mortal hatred of pigs a splendid house, gardens beautifully laid 

 out, graperies, pineries, arable land, peacocks strutting on the lawn, and 

 golden pheasants glittering in the wise preserves. To these delights 

 may be added The Morning Advertiser every day ; and, had he deigned 

 to consult them, the twenty new novels (subscribed for by the young 

 ladies) every week. What greater delight could fall to the fate of a 

 retired pork-butcher, tainted with a touch of the romantic ? And yet, 

 after a time, Mr. Pettitoes lost his customary suavity, became careless 

 of his attire, of gentlemanly cut, and once or twice struck his family 

 with consternation, by handling, in an absent and mysterious manner, 

 his father's ivory-hafted killing-knife, religiously preserved by his 

 pious son. Mrs. Pettitoes and her daughters unanimous for once 

 declared that Mr. P. " was not at ease. What could be the matter 

 with him ?" 



Unreflecting souls they had their new novels, the last new songs of 

 the butterflies, lectures on chemistry, and the Egyptian hieroglyphics, 

 to occupy their minds but not so Mr. Pettitoes : he, indeed, in the 

 eloquent language of his sympathising family, " was not at ease." Could 

 they have entered into his mind, they would have seen how grotesquely 

 were reflected there all the beauties of surrounding nature. To his 

 mental vision, every oak, beech, or elm, seemed to take the shape of 

 a huge " hand" or " leg" of swine's flesh a hedge of hornbeam was 

 but a Brobdignag loin the row of poplars so many gigantic skewers 

 Sylph, the Italian greyhound, had bristles in his back, and the 

 peacocks did not scream, but grunt. Gentle reader, let not this de- 

 scription of our hero's mind appear forced and extravagant. It is the 

 common malady of the retired trader to assimilate the objects of rustic 

 life to the things of his former and happier state. As the sailor beholds 

 " green meadows in the salt seas, and hears the bleeting of the sheep," 

 so does the retired tea-dealer or pawnbroker (we, of course, mean 

 those with whom books are nought) clothe the fields and hedges with 

 hyson and souchong, and see the three balls, glistening like Virgil's 

 golden branch, from every tree. Could they write their confessions, 

 what drolleries would they not give us what hackney-coaches running 

 in the milky way what skylarks singing the twopenny-postmen's 

 bells what Naiads and Hemadryads frisking it in comely whitey-brown 



