and fome of them had the confidence to plead in favour of it! The unnatural and inhuman behaviour of man, or rather of the tngleishman, toward his fellow-creatures, is reprefented, with fingular energy, by William Cowper, in the following beautyful pasfage: "Thus harmony and family accord Were driv'n from Paradise; and in that hour Were fawn in human Hence date the perfecution and the pain Or his bafe gluttony, are caufes good And juft, in his account, why bird and beast Within the confines of their wild domain! His murderer on his back, and, push'd all day, To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies. Th' inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praife * Task, B. 6. "The king travelled with so much expedition to Cheltenham, that three hack-horfes were killed on the road. Di Thomson, haveing flightly touched upon "the fportsman's joy," or, "rural game," proceeds with the following lines: "These are not fubjects for the peaceful mufe, The chace of the hare and ftag is no less eloquent and pathetick; but is not likely to have rections were given to the drivers to proceed with the utmost expedition, which they took as a hint not to fpare the beasts. His majesty paid for the horses; one of them coft thirty pounds." (Morning Herald, July 18, 1788.) much effect on the favage monsters devoted to those pursuits. It is indeed, observes Plutarch, a hard and difficult task to undertake (as Cato once fay'd) to dispute with mens bellys that have no ears... and it is no easey task to pul out the hook of flesheating from the jaws of fuch as have gorge'd themselves with luxury, and are, as it were, nail'd down with it. It would, indeed, be a good action, if, as the Aegyptians draw out the stomach of a dead body, and cut it open and expose it to the fun, as the onely caufe of all its evil actions, fo we could by cuting out our gluttony and blood-fheding, purify and cleanse the remainder of our lives... But if this may not be, and we are ashame'd, by reason of custom, to live unblameablely, let us, at least, fin with discretion: Let us eat flesh, but let it be for hunger, and not for wantonness. Let us kil an animal, but let us do it with forrow and pity, and not abuseing and tormenting it, as many now-a-days are ufe'd to do, while some run red hot fpits through the bodys of swine, that by the tincture of the quench'd iron the blood may be to that degree mortify'd, that it may sweeten and foften the flesh in its circulation: and others jump and stamp upon the udders of sows that are ready to pig, that fo they may take off (Oh! pia cular Jupiter!), in the very pangs of delivery, blood, milk, and corruption,* (destroying the young ones befide), and fo eat the most inflame'd and diseafe'd part of the animal: others fow up the eyes of cranes and fwans, and fo fhut them up in darkness to be faten'd, and then fowce up their flesh with certain monftrous mixtures and pickles.* By all which it is most manifest, that it is not for nourishment, or want, or any necesfity, but for mere gluttony, wantonnefs, and expensiveness, that they make a pleasure of villainy... The begining of a vicious diet is presently follow'd by all forts of luxury and expensiveness and what meal is not expenfive, for which an animal is put to death? Shal we reckon a foul to be a fmall expence? I wil not fay, perhap, of a mother, or a father, or of fome friend, as Empedocles did; but one participateing of feeling, of feeing, of hearing, of imagination and of intellection, which each of them hath receiv'd from nature for the acquireing of what is agreeable to it, and the avoiding what is disagreeable. Do but confider with yourself, which fort of philofophers render us most tame and civil, they who bid * This wil, doubtlefs, be particularly disgufting to the humane Engleifh reader, for whom fimilar crueltys, or others. at leaft equally fhocking, are every day commited. |