subs. phr. (old).—Roasted pigs were formerly among the chief attractions of Bartholomew Fair, West Smithfield, London: they were sold piping hot, in booths and on stalls, and ostentatiously displayed, to excite the appetite of passengers; pregnant women were supposed to long violently for roast-pig. Hence a BARTHOLOMEW-PIG became a common subject of allusion: the Puritan railed against it. The fair was founded in 1133 and abolished in 1854.

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  1598.  SHAKESPEARE, 2 Henry IV., ii. 4. Thou whoreson little tidy BARTHOLOMEW-BOAR-PIG.

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  1614.  B. JONS., Bart. Fair, i., 6. For the very calling it a BARTHOLOMEW-PIG, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry.

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  1654.  GAYTON, Festivious Notes on … Don Quixote, 57. Like BARTHOLOMEW Fair PIG-dressers, who look like the dams, as well as the cooks of what they roasted.

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  1636.  DAVENANT, The Wits, iii. 1.

        The gaping lies on every stall,
Till female with great belly call.

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