392 PRÆTERITA-II

pas possible de raconter tout ce qu’il eut à souffrir dans ces trois retraites, tant par les rigueurs qu’il exerça sur lui-même que par la malice du démon, qui mit tout en œuvre pour le tromper par ses artifices, ou pour l’abattre par ses menaces et ses mauvais traitements, qui allèrent quelquefois jusqu’à le laisser pour mort des coups qu’il lui donna. Antoine triompha de tout; et ce fut pour le récompenser de tant de combats et de tant de victoires que Dieu le rendit puissant en œuvres et en paroles pour guérir toutes sortes de maladies spirituelles et corporelles, chasser les démons aussi bien des corps que des âmes, se faire obéir par les bêtes les plus cruelles, par les éléments et les autres créatures les moins soumises à la volonté de l’homme.”*

162. I must not, however, anticipate the course of this eventful history¹ so far as to discuss at present any manner of the resemblance in my fate, or work, or home companionships, to those of St. Anthony of Padua; but may record, as immediately significant, the delight which both my mother and I took in the possession of a really practical pigstye in our Danish farmyard, (the coach-house and stables being to us of no importance in comparison); the success with which my mother directed the nurture, and fattening, of the piglings; the civil and jovial character of the piglings so nurtured, indicated especially by their habit of standing in a row on their hind-legs to look over the fence, whenever my mother came into the yard: and conclusively by the satisfaction with which even our most refined friends would accept a present of pork-or it might be, alas! sometimes of sucking pig-from Denmark Hill.

163. The following example of such acknowledgments, addressed to my father, is farther interesting in its post (or side) script, referring to the civil war in Switzerland, and fixing, therefore, the letter, otherwise without date of

* Dictionnaire des Sciences Ecclésiastiques.² I assumed, of course, in adopting this patron saint, that he would have the same domestic pets as St. Anthony of the Desert.³

¹ [As You Like It, Act ii. sc. 7.]

² [By Richard and Giraud, vol. i. p. 355 in the edition of 1822 (sub “Antoine”).]

³ [See Vol. XXVII. p. 328 n.]

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