I02 The Poets Beasts. 



The Moulvies, therefore, met in consultation to settle 

 what joint Mahomet had in mind. And Cowper goes on — 



" Much controversy straight arose : 

 These chose the back, the belly those, 

 By some 'tis confidently said 

 He meant not to forbid the head ; 

 While others at that doctrine rail, 

 And piously prefer the tail. 

 Thus, conscience freed from every clog, 

 Mahomedans eat up the hog." 



There was no intermediate position tenable, for so 

 numerous and bigoted were the admirers of the several 

 good points of a cooked animal that it was impossible to find 

 any one bit of the animal that somebody did not swear was 

 the very best morsel in him. Yet see to what contrary ends 

 the same symmetry of perfection worked with regard to the 

 Jews. Not only did they not eat swine, but, recognising 

 the solidarity and homogeneity of the animal, the very 

 strictest Jews refused even to admit that such an animal 

 existed ! 



They would not rest even at the half-way toleration of 

 Accadian nomenclature, and fetch a compass about it by 

 calling it " the one that wears a ring in his nose," or " it 

 with a tail like a ringlet," or " the bristly thing that grunts." 

 They decreed at once its complete banishment into the 

 limbo of nameless nothings. 



So they spoke of it as *' the other thing," the " you know 

 what I mean," the " what do you call 'ems," the " abomina- 

 tion." They were afraid even to utter the insidious word 

 "pork." To talk of "crackling" was, they knew well, the 

 first step to eating it. So they cut the name out of their 

 language. But what a pitiful illustration of moral weakness ! 

 Not to be able to look a pig in the face without incon- 

 tinently debauching on brawn ! 



But this weakness is in my opinion aggravated by the 



