The master of the monster tea-kettle, who had recently been “up the spout,” was tricking out his red-haired, strapping Dulcinea with peacocks' feathers, bits of stained glass, catskins, strips of coloured leather, and teaching her to sing some unintelligible gibberish, for the purpose of extracting from the Bartholomew Fair gulls a penny for the prodigious sight of a real wild Indian. A mermaid was in process of completion; a dog was practising a minuet, to see how his fifth leg fitted him; a learned pig * was going through his lesson in numbers and cards; a cat of extraordinary intelligence was feeding a kitten with starch, to make it stand upright; and a monkey instructing an intellectual goose how to carry a pair of miniature milkpails. * The earliest account that we have seen of a learned pig is in an old Bartholomew Fair hill, issued by Mr. Conjuror 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 curly 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 concludes with the following apotheosis to the pig. “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! In 1732, Mr. Fawkes exhibited a “learned goose” opposite the George Inn, West- Smithfield. A poetical licensed victualler had just painted on his board, which was emblazoned with the sign of the Griffin and Hoop, the following lines in capitals, “I, John Stubbs lyveth hear, Sels goode Brandy, Gin, and Bere, I maid mi borde a leetle whyder, To let you nowe I sels goode Syder:” the lines, like the liquors, being composed by the said John Stubbs! A giant, * well padded out, was adding some inches to his stature by a pair--