hurray for the swinish multitude

For who can tell but the Millennium
May take its rise from my poor Cranium?..


LI has been reading a lot about the English radicals around Tom Paine in the 1790s. Interesting lot of characters, and very a propos for May Day. One of them, Thomas Spence, was a refugee from the North of England, coming to London after being expelled from a Dissenter congregation for publishing a pamphlet proposing that land itself was common – land, like air, could not be bought. A proposition that John Stuart Mill entertained, later, and that made up the bulk of Henry George’s radicalism. In London, Spence continued to emit his radical views through a wonderfully named weekly journal:

“Edmund Burke's reference to "the swinish multitude" provided Spence with a title for his greatest publishing venture. Between 1793 and 1796, he issued a weekly paper called "Pigs' Meat; or, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude," consisting of excerpts from many writings on liberty, attacks on despotism, and frequent verse. These papers were later issued as complete volumes; there were three in all, each with an engraved frontispiece by Spence's son.

The frontispiece for Volume I depicts a well-fed missionary and three graceful Indians. The missionary says: "God has enjoined you to be Christians, to pay rent and tythes, and become a Civilized People." One Indian replies: "If Rent we once consent to pay, Taxes next you'll on us lay, And then our Freedom's poured away;" at which the Indians chorus: "With the Beasts of the Wood We'll ramble for Food, And live in wild deserts and Caves; And live poor as Job, On the Skirts of the Globe, Before we'll consent to be Slaves, My Brave Boys, Before We'll consent to be Slaves!"

The frontispiece for Volume II has two Indians gazing at an unhappy donkey. One Indian says: "Behold the civilized Ass, Two pairs of Panyers on his Back; the First with Rents a heavy mass; With Taxes next his bones do crack." To which the donkey brays in response: "I'm doomed to endless Toil and Care-I was an Ass to bear the first Pair."

Spence apparently grew rather disgusted, at times, with the swinish multitude. While pigs “squeal most seditiously,” Spence found the people much too passive and compliant to live up to the piggish standard. Well, here’s to a May Day of squealing seditiously. Here’s Spence in a more satiric and bitter mood (from Carl Fisher’s essay on Politics and Porcine Representation):

“Ye swinish multitude who prate,

What know ye `bout the matter?'

Misterious are the ways of state,

Of which you should not chatter.

Our church and state, like man and wife,

Together kindly cuddle;

Together share the sweets of life

Together feast and fuddle.

Then hence ye swine nor make a rout,

Forbearance but relaxes;

We'll clap the muzzle on your snout,

Go work, and pay your taxes.”