and fome of them had the confidence to plead in favour of it! The unnatural and inhuman behaviour of man, or rather of the Engleishman, toward his fellow-creatures, is represented, with fingular energy, by William Cowper, in the following beautyful passage:

"Thus harmony and family accord
Were driv'n from Paradife; and in that hour
The feeds of cruelty, that fince have swell'd
To fuch gigantic and enormous growth,
Were fown in human nature's fruitful foil.
Hence date the perfecution and the pain
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport,
To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,

Or his bafe gluttony, are caufes good

And just, in his account, why bird and beast
Should fuffer torture, and the streams be dye'd
With blood of their inhabitants impal'd.
Earth groans beneath the burden of a war
Wage'd with defenceless innocence, while he,
Not fatisfy'd to prey on all around,
Adds tenfold bitterness to death, by pangs
Needlefs, and firft torments ere he devours.
Now happiest they that occupy the scenes
The most remote from his abhor'd refort....
The wilderness is theirs, with all its caves,
Its hollow glenns, its thickets, and its plains
Unvifited by man. There they are free,
And howl and roar as likes them, uncontroul'd,
Nor afk his leave to flumber or to play.
Woe to the tyrant, if he dare intrude

Within the confines of their wild domain !
The lion tells him-I am monarch here-
And if he fpare him, fpares him on the terms
Of royal mercy, and through gen'rous fcorn
To rend a victim trembling at his foot.
In measure, as by force of inftinct drawn,
Or by necesfity conftrain'd, they live
Dependent upon man; thofe in his fields,
These at his crib, and fome beneath his roof;
They prove too often at how dear a rate
He fells protection. Witnefs, at his foot
The spaniel dying for fome venial fault,
Under disfection of the knotted scourge ;
Witness, the patient ox, with ftripes and yells
Driv'n to, the flaughter, goaded as he runs,
To madness, while the favage at his heels
Laughs at the frantic fufferer's fury spent
Upon the guiltlefs pasfenger o'erthrown.
He too is witness, nobleft of the train

That wait on man, the flight-performing horse:
With unfufpecting readiness he takes

His murd❜rer on his back, and, push'd all day,
With bleeding fides, and flanks that heave for life,
To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies.
So little mercy fhows who needs so much!
Does law, fo jealous in the cause of man;
Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.
He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boasts
(As if barbarity were high defert)

Th' inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praise
Of the poor brute, feems wifely to fuppofe
The honours of his matchlefs horfe his own."*

Task, B. 6. "The king travelled with fo much expedition to Cheltenham, that three hack-horses were killed on the road. Di

Thomfon, haveing slightly touched upon "the fportsman's joy," or, "rural game," proceeds with the following lines:

"These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,
Nor will the ftain with fuch her spotless fong;
Then moft delighted, when the focial fees
The whole mix'd animal creation round
Alive, and happy. 'Tis not joy to her,
This falfely-cheerful barbarous game of death;
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn ;
When beafts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urg'd by necesfity, had range'd the dark,
As if their confcious ravage fhun'd the light,
Afhame'd. Not fo the fteady tyrant man,
Who with the thoughtless infolence of power
Inflame'd, beyond the most infuriate wrath
Of the worst monfter that e'er roam'd the wafte,
For fport alone purfues the cruel chace,
Amid the beamings of the gentle day.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribe, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;
But lavish fed, in nature's bounty roll'd,
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.”

The chace of the hare and ftag is no lefs 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 spare the beafts. His majesty paid for the horses; one of them coft thirty pounds." (Morning Herald, July 18, 1788.)

much effect on the favage monfters devoted to those pursuits.

It is indeed, obferves 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 such 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 ftomach 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, sin with discretion: Let us eat flesh, but let it be for hunger, and not for wantonnefs. 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 fome run red hot fpits through the bodys of fwine, 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,* (deftroying the young ones befide), and fo eat the most inflame'd and diseafe'd part of the animai: others fow up the eyes of cranes and swans, and fo fhut them up in darkness to be faten'd, and then fowce up their flesh with certain monstrous mixtures and pickles. * By all which it is most manifeft, 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 moft tame and civil, they who bid

* This wil, doubtlefs, be particularly disgufting to the humane Engleish reader, for whom fimilar crueltys, or others at least equally shocking, are every day commited.