94 The Poets Beasts. 



The filthy beasts, that never chew the cud, 



Still grunt, and squeak, and sing their troublous song. 

 And oft they plunge themselves the mire among ; 



But aye the ruthless driver goads them on, 

 And aye of barking dogs the bitter throng 



Makes them renew their unmelodious moan ; 



Nor ever find they rest from their unresting fone." 



Their voice, appearance, gait, food, habit of wallowing, 

 and sleeping, all suggest comparisons with other " vile 

 noises," other " hog-snouted features," or " pigs' small 

 eyes;" other "bestial indolences," other "miry ways." 



Fat men are compared with " the fattest hogs in Epicurus' 

 sty," and crowds with "rampant raging herds of swine;" 

 gormandisers are fit only to " grunt with glutton swine," and 

 indolent folk, as in Parnell — 



" Very silent and sedate. 

 Ever long and ever late, 

 Full of meats and full of wine, 

 Take their temper from the swine." 



Yet as a feature of rural woodland life, where it is a 

 cleanly, cheerful, active animal (as it always is in a natural 

 state), the porker could not be overlooked. So we meet in 

 Clare with — 



" The grunting noise of rambling hogs 

 Where pattering acorns oddly drop, 

 And noisy bark of shepherd dogs 

 The restless routs of sheep to stop." 



In Gay we see them revelling " 'mid a feast of acorns ;" in 

 Montgomery grubbing " for dainty earth-nuts and nutritious 

 roots;" in Johnson "returning home fat with mast." 



A common object of the country is Joanna Baillie's 

 "grumbling sow that in the furrow feeds," nor far off her 

 is Drayton's hog — 



"And in the furrow bye where Ceres is much spilled, 

 - Th' unwieldy larding hog his maw there having filled, 

 Lies wallowing in the mire, thence able scarce to rise." • 



