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| Thomas Rowlandson, 'The Wonderful Pig, 1785 |
Following what was easily the best couple of hours I have ever spent on Twitter, where pig puns could never get old, and we wondered how Hameron and his crew down in Number 10 would deal with all of the embarrassment, I started to wonder if there was any hilarity of this kind in 18th Century political satire. Well it turns out they never went full Black Mirror, but there's still plenty of laughs to be found.
The Learned Pig
The illustration at the top of this post depicts a phenomenon that occurred in London society in the 1780s. Pigs were trained for the purposes of entertainment to pick up cards with their mouths in order to spell words and answer arithmetical problems. The original Learned Pig was trained by a Scottish shoemaker named Samuel Bisset, who ran a travelling novelty show. In fact, according to Jan Bondeson "The Wonderful Pig soon became the leading light in Mr Bisset's troupe. It could kneel, bow, spell out names using cardboard letters, cast up accounts, and point out married and unmarried people in the audience." Naturally, satirists saw an opportunity here, and ran with it.
It became a bit of the in joke to compare a writer or politician to a learned pig, and even the then Prime Minister of Great Britain William Pitt was referred to as "the Wonderful pig", and was depicted in a caricature with the body of a pig. (I'm led to believe that The British Museum may have the image, but unfortunately as I write this the Collection Online search on their website isn't working.)
The 'Swinish Multitude'
The complete reversal of the above, where the masses are characterised as the pigs, is also present in eighteenth century literature. In Edmund Burke's 1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke wrote "along with its natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude." Naturally, the idea that revolutionary supporters were an animalistic and dangerous mob that would destroy any notion of civilised society and education caused some outrage. For many this highlighted how the upper classes were completely out of touch with the issues facing the working class.
Burke's comments generated plenty of commentary and satire. Thomas Spence wrote a poem narrated by an anti-revolutionary simply called 'Burke's Address to the "Swinish Multitude"', which is littered with piggish puns.
YE vile SWINISH Herd, in the Sty of Taxation,
What would ye be after?—diſturbing the Nation?
Give over your grunting—Be off—To your Sty!
Nor dare to look out, if a KING paſſes by:
...
Do you think that a KING is no more than a Man?
Ye Brutiſh, Ye Swiniſh, irrational Clan?
I ſwear by his Office, his Right is divine,
To flog you, and [...]eed you, and treat you like Swine!
...
Then no more about MAN and his RIGHTS,
TOM PAINE, and a Rabble of Liberty Lights:
That you are but our "SWINE," if ye ever forget,
We'll throw you alive to the HORRIBLE PIT!
Get ye down! down! down!—Keep ye down!
(You can read the text in its entirety HERE)
His satire points out that this kind of language is designed to keep the lower classes down and remind them that they are a "lesser" than the men of nobility. And it struck me reading this poem how incredibly relevant it is to recent events. If the pigs are the working masses that are continually put down by an oppressive form of government, then #PigGate seems too perfectly crafted a satire to be true. To those of us who feel we are being continually fucked over by David Cameron and his party, we are that pig.
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