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 5 2
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 A 
 
 POEM, 
 
 IN FOUR BOOKS, 
 
 WITH 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 BY 
 
 MR. PRATT. 
 
 To justify the ways of man to brute. 
 
 Book I. Pane 4. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND ROWLAND, 
 
 Gawtll Street ; 
 
 FOR SHARPE AND HAILES, OPPOSITE ALBANY, 
 PICCADILLY. 
 
 1810.
 
 ?R 
 
 THE g\S c l 
 P$i 
 
 FOLLOWING POEM, 
 
 ON A SUBJECT 
 
 INTERESTING TO HUMANITY, 
 
 NOW UNDER THE CONSIDERATION, 
 
 AND LOOKING TO THE SUPPORT, 
 
 OF THE MOST AUGUST 
 
 4SSEMBLIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE; 
 
 is, 
 
 WITH THE MOST 
 
 PROFOUND RESPECT, 
 INSCRIBED 
 
 TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, 
 
 BT 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 London, 
 May 8. 1810. 
 
 8S5696
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 .A.f a time in which the Rights of Man are so 
 vigilantly watched, and zealously contended for, 
 it cannot be an unfavourable moment to inquire 
 into rights which form the basis of the following 
 Poem ; especially as they are now brought into 
 solemn discussion by the two great Assemblies of 
 the Empire. But, had it not been for the latter cir- 
 cumstance, this would not have appeared an auspi- 
 cious period ; yet, whatever may be the oppressions 
 of man to man in the conflicts of public affairs, or 
 dissensions of private life — subjects wholly irrele- 
 vant to the present question — that brutes have 
 their rights, and that there should be some reform 
 of the tyrannical and wanton cruelties exercised 
 by man upon the animal world, will be admitted by 
 the just and generous of all parties; and, by such 
 persons, the subject will not at any time be thought 
 unseasonable : being, in itself, though apposite to 
 the debate of the moment, not local, but like the 
 God of Truth, from everlasting to everlasting. 
 
 Simply as one of the community, the author has 
 
 to offer his acknowledgments, to the illustrious 
 
 framer*ofa Bill, the principle of which, if 
 
 carried into practice, cannot fail to produce this 
 
 * Lord Erskine.
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 reform: and for having thus called back his at- 
 tention to the subject. Although, as yet, the 
 noble Lord knows nothing of the execution of the 
 present poem, the Author can, with confidence, 
 challenge his approbation of the DESIGN, because 
 it immediately connects with his own ; and must 
 necessarily meet the wish of every other human 
 being, that duly considers the great and manifold 
 advantages which would arise from passing the Bill 
 into a law. 
 
 But, whether it fails or succeeds, it cannot be 
 a question, that, in proportion to the diffusion of 
 the principle on which it is founded, whether 
 by the Pulpit, the Senate, the Press, the Stage — 
 where a dramatic genius might, surely, introduce it 
 in contrasting humane and cruel characters — and by 
 every other mean of publicity, it will put the hearer, 
 reader, and spectator, upon serious and good think- 
 ing. Serious and good thoughts, lead, naturally, to 
 good and serious actions. The result cannot but 
 in some degree establish that law in the heart 
 which will insensibly extend its influence to every 
 thing that has life; and place "the lower 
 avorld under the genuine, unbought sympathies 
 of man." 
 
 The Bill is again brought before the Houses 
 of Parliament ; and it is zealously to be hoped will
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 be honoured with success by those who will there- 
 by honour themselves. But, should it be less for- 
 tunate than meritorious, the author of the following 
 pages concurs in opinion with the writer of an in- 
 teresting little work *, attributed to a pen which 
 is peculiarly devoted to the juvenile world, and 
 no less indefatigable in diffusing general knowledge 
 amongst men ; that " the cause of justice and 
 mercy, can only be delayed ; the abuses which have 
 been brought to light have sunk deep into the pub- 
 lic mind, and in time will be corrected. And even 
 if the law should be silent, the moral sense and 
 FEELING which have been excited by Lord Erskine's 
 eloquent and pathetic appeals, must operate in pre- 
 venting the frequent recurrence of atrocities, at 
 which humanity turns pale," 
 
 It is on this conviction that the Author of the 
 following sheets contributes his mite ; and it is on 
 this conviction, also, that he has, with so much ear- 
 nestness f, summoned the tuneful race to assist a 
 cause which they could not only ably advocate, 
 but which must be gratifying to their feelings. And 
 were it not from the appearance of travelling out 
 of the direct line of poetic composition, he could, 
 with no less earnestness and propriety, have called 
 
 * An article in the 12th number of the School Maga- 
 zine," imputed to the Rev. Dr. Mavor, 
 t Book I. Page It,
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 upon many living prose writers who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves on subjects of general hu- 
 manity ; and who would prove very powerful auxi- 
 liaries in the particular object now under conside- 
 ration. Many of these, indeed, are referred to in 
 an Appendix attached to the Notes. 
 
 In the Second Book, one passage from a former 
 work of the Author appeared so intimately con- 
 nected with the immediate arguments, that he 
 imagined it would be better to admit it into the 
 body of the poem, as distinguished by an asterism, 
 than to place it elsewhere. 
 
 Much of the poem has been written under se- 
 vere personal indisposition; but it is not to be 
 doubted, many of its readers are aware how fre- 
 quently mind rises above body, when warmed into 
 exertion by feelings. The poetical attempts of 
 the Author will close with this effort — as to any 
 theme that may require extent — and whatever may 
 be its fate, he cannot but be happy to have taken 
 leave of the Muse in a manner congenial to his 
 first invocation, after more than thirty years devo- 
 tion to her. During which time, scarcely any of 
 his writings, whether in verse or prose, have ap- 
 peared, in which the subject of the present work 
 has not been fervently pressed, at every possible 
 opportunity.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 BOOK I.
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Apostrophe to the Proposer of the Bill that suggested the 
 Subject. — Power of the existing Laws for the Protection 
 of Man against the Assaults of Man. — Dreadful State of 
 Human Society undefended by Laws. — The Lower 
 World a frequent Subject of Poetry and Painting. — 
 Their respective Powers in a Variety of Instances de- 
 scribed ; but neither the Pen or Pencil embrace the present 
 Subject. — Still less do the Laws extend to the Protection 
 of the Animal World. — Apostrophe to the living Poets of 
 the Country. — The Rights of the Lower World exa- 
 mined. — Common-place Arguments of Pride and Interest 
 against the Admission of such Rights. — Apostrophe to 
 false Reasoners on the Subject.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 W HEN public honours, in the public cause, 
 Exalt to power, yet dignify the laws ; 
 When with Fame's brightest laurels cover'd o'er 
 To favour'd genius, Fame can give no more ; 
 On these, when proud distinctions of the state, 
 The fair awards of eloquence await ; 
 When these, by noblest paths have led to wealth, 
 And nature grants the richer boon of health : 
 O ! with all these assembled blessings crown'd, 
 When sacred Leisure spreads its shades around ; 
 Where resting from the World's entangled road, 
 The soul ascends sublime from man to God ;
 
 Mid the bow'rM silence of the private scene, 
 Say, what so well can fill the pause between 
 As that which Nature prompts to Pity's breast ? 
 — Pity, of every generous heart the guest, 
 As that which dares each colder code refute, 
 And justifies the ways of man to brute? 
 
 A thousand laws, and what no law can reach, 
 The ways of man, to fellow man may teach ; 
 Not those alone who wrong their native land, 
 The mask'd assassin, or the robber band ; 
 Not those who stop the traveller on his way, 
 Ruffians of midnight, or of open day ; 
 Not they to whom the direst acts belong, 
 But for each shade of social crime and wrong, 
 Law lifts the giant arm, nor lifts in vain, 
 The sacred powers of order to maintain, 
 Guardian of human rights, nor wants the force 
 To aid inferior beings in its course. 
 Yet aids them only on the social plea, 
 Of goods or chattels, claiin'd by you or me ;
 
 As right protects, as property defends, 
 
 But to pure human pity ne'er extends. 
 
 The lower world, like purchas'd slaves, must find 
 
 A tyrant savage, or a master kind ; 
 
 This, holds the helpless tribe in sacred trust, 
 
 That, tortures life, or crushes it in dust. 
 
 Oh 1 who can paint the horror that prevails, 
 Where Law controls not, and where Mercy fails ? 
 The waves, when wild they overflow their bound, 
 Covering with wrecks the watery world around ; 
 The meteors, when they ride the catching air, 
 And shake contagion from their blazing hair ; 
 The maniac whirlwinds, when oppos'd they rave ; 
 The ravenous earthquake — an enormous grave, 
 Whose mouth capacious, by whole cities fed, 
 In one dire moment swallowing quick and dead, 
 Less fell than man, with passions unconfln'd, 
 And soul debas'd let loose upon his kind ; 
 His wit, his genius, then but more annoy, 
 His godlike powers but engines to destroy,
 
 The fiercest monster that e'er roam'd the wood, 
 Or lash'd the billow less profuse of blood. 
 No pen, no tongue, his cruelties can tell, 
 On earth committing foulest deeds of hell ! 
 
 The lower -would full oft the Muse has sung, 
 And every chord of every lyre been strung ; 
 Long have the feather'd, furr'd, and scaly train, 
 Inspir'd the painter's touch, the poet's strain. 
 Ardent alike the pen and pencil try, 
 Which most shall charm the heart, or lure the 
 
 eye; 
 Their varied hues and thrilling numbers move, 
 And all is beauty, harmony, and love. 
 
 On painted banks there sleeps the fleecy dam, 
 And close beside her stands the pictur'd lamb ; 
 Here stretch'd at large the pamper'd Ox is seen, 
 Pastur'd in meadows of Parnassian green ; 
 There bolder sketch'd the spirit-breathing Steed, 
 Like some proud courser of ethereal breed,
 
 Seems now to rest upon the canvass plain, 
 Now triumphs in the verse, and spurns the rein. 
 Reposing soft upon his master's knee 
 Caress'd, caressing, there the Dog we sec, 
 In hopes to gain his lord's society, 
 He watches now each motion of the eye, 
 Consults the history of the monarch face, 
 And leaps with joy when partner of the chase. 
 With rapture wild, yet passive to command, 
 Next view him bounding o'er the dewy land ; 
 The master seems the servant's bliss to share, 
 And mingled music fills the vocal air ; 
 As in yon group they join the hunter train, 
 Skirting the copse, and scattering o'er the plain. 
 
 Man, too, full oft so fondly is pourtray'd, 
 No cares annoy him, and no griefs invade ; 
 Here friendship's villa, there love's cot is shown, 
 And Cupid seated on his mother's throne. 
 Mark how th' affections circle yonder bound, 
 While rose-lip'd children dance like cherubs round.
 
 8 
 
 There infant buds and manhood's blossoms blend, 
 And every creature seems a cherish'd friend : 
 No gory bludgeon, no uplifted knife, 
 No object that revives a foe to life; 
 Man, bird, and beast, scarce differ but in food, 
 And all is sung or painted fair and good. 
 The poet's passion, and the painter's soul, 
 With magic arm'd, emparadise the whole. 
 
 Thus fancy, genius, feeling, lend their aid, 
 Pout the strong light, and soften all the shade ; 
 Fancy bestows the happiest tints of art, 
 And Feeling adds the colourings of the heart. 
 These grace the pallet, and adorn the lay, 
 While truth's more sombrous etchings fade away. 
 Thus man appears in picture and in verse, 
 The lower world's chief blessing, not its curse i 
 The happy patron of a happy train, 
 The central rivet of the social chain ; 
 A world of roses blooming without thorn, 
 Hymn'd by a seraph on creation's morn.
 
 What tho' perchance in landscape and in lay, 
 Vivid are seen the bird and beast of prey ; 
 Tho' Pard and Tiger, conscious of their power, 
 Couch on yon canvass, eager to devour ; 
 Tho' savage brute*, by bards and painters made, 
 In all their native terrors are display'd ; 
 Tho' the fell pa^k with echo seem to fly, 
 Nor heed the timid hare's half-human cry; 
 Tho' sometimes in the poet's fervid page, 
 Bulls fight with bulls, with lions lions rage ; 
 Tho' yon dire Snake ', in many a mazy fold, 
 Frantic with pain the horse and rider hold ; 
 The bard, the painter must our homage claim, 
 Since fiends and angels yield an equal fame; 
 'Tis a proud trial of the art to show 
 How far the magic of that art can go. 
 
 Yet glad from these we turn the startled 
 gaze, 
 To scenes that join our pleasure to our praise,
 
 10 
 
 Soft scenes of peace, and sympathy and love, 
 Where none but fair and gentle passions move ; 
 Where Nature seems upon her works to smile, 
 And God himself looks down well pleas'd the while. 
 But turn, ah ! turn, from painting and from song, 
 To mourn the doom of Nature's helpless throng. 
 O hear the voice of Innocenee and Grief, 
 And aid the Muse to urge the prompt relief: 
 Compassion's Muse, who each lov'd theme fore- 
 goes, 
 Of hapless myriads to relate the woes. 
 
 Tho' oft conceal'd with care from public sight, 
 The fierce banditti dread the blushing light ; 
 In solitudes obsceue their trade pursue, 
 Horrid, and fell — a dark and murderous crew ; 
 Unseen, unknown, their sacrifice devour, 
 "Like famish'd cannibals in rage of power : 
 Tho' these in woods and caves that power display, 
 Or mock the crime-rebuking eye of Day,
 
 11 
 
 Such base offenders rouse a common cause, 
 
 And meet a bold chastiser in the laws ; 
 
 Man's direst foe in his own form we find, 
 
 And human laws are made for human kind. 
 
 Tooth still for tooth, and eye for eye, is giv'n, 
 
 The prophet's judgment ratified by heav'n: 
 
 But for yon tribes, in mingled mischief hurl'd, 
 
 Whom the proud Reasoner calls the lower world ! 
 
 Without whose aid, tho' reasoning pride dispute, 
 
 Man still were less a monarch than the brute ; 
 
 Say, where for them, the solace or the cure, 
 
 For wounds and wrongs too mighty to endure ; 
 
 Beings consign'd to man's peculiar care, 
 
 O where for them the generous law — to spare ? 
 
 For them who half the cares of man relieve, 
 
 In full return for all that man can give ; 
 
 Unequal commerce, and unequal gain, 
 
 The tyrant's profit, and the vassal's pain. 
 
 In such a cause, why sleep the laurell'd train, 
 When every chord should echo to the strain ;
 
 12 
 
 A cause, might wake the noblest of the throng, 
 To pity move, or swell to rage the song. 
 A theme like this might Campbell's muse inspire, 
 Or breathe compassion from Cr abbe's genuine 
 
 lyre? 
 Prompt Marmion's* muse to quit the minstrel lay, 
 Tho' trophied knights to him resign the bay ; 
 And peerless dames weave chaplets in their bowers, 
 To crown their champion with enchanted flowers. 
 Yes — prompt their chief to raise his wondrous art, 
 And melt to mercy the obdurate heart ! 
 And Sheridan, if aught can move his fire, 
 Slighting the Muse that waits upon his lyre ; 
 The Muse who oft has won him to her arms, 
 And woos him still, tho' reckless of her charms, 
 Might pour the stream of eloquence along 
 The listening Senate, tho' he spurns the song ; 
 Or, doubly arm'd, might urge in both the cause, 
 And add a virtue to his country's laws. 
 And Gifford, thou great censor of the age, 
 Here might'st thou ply thy Juvenilian rage ;
 
 IS 
 
 The poet's scourge, and yet the poet's boast, 
 
 Here might thy genius prove itself a host ; 
 
 Raise up the tyranniz'd, the tyrant awe, 
 
 Thy Muse pass judgment, and her verse be law. 
 
 And Cumberland, long honour'd bard and sage, 
 
 Who sung of Calvary, might here engage ; 
 
 Or thou, gay Moore, whose variegated rhyme 
 
 Can stoop to trifle, or on wing sublime, 
 
 Like Pindar 3 , and the lark, full-plum'd can rise, 
 
 Oh ! leave your lowly furrow, mount the skies ; 
 
 A lofty Muse for lofty flight is given, 
 
 And this a theme to prove her birth from heaven. 
 
 The honour'd Hay ley this well-pleas'd might sing, 
 
 Or Devon's Bard + a welcome offering bring ; 
 
 Or thou, my Laureat Friend, whose tuneful art 
 
 Is but a comment on thy generous heart ; 
 
 Or thou, to Memory and the Muses dear, 
 
 Might feel rekindled, all thy ardours here. 
 
 And ye s who meet the tuneful train to aid, 
 
 And woo pale Genius from the chilling shade ;
 
 14 
 
 To feel the sunshine of your generous care, 
 Crush proud Oppression, and avert Despair : 
 Yes, ye who boast yourselves full many a muse, 
 O say, what nobler subject can ye choose ? 
 Or you 6 , who well may boast a double claim, 
 Blending the poet's with the painter's fame ; 
 No " truant from the pencil to the lyre 7 ," 
 But touch'd by either Muse with sacred tire. 
 And the Ionian Bard 8 , who mid the gloom 
 Of scenic ruins bade times past rebloom ; 
 Woo'd the fair Queen of Wisdom on the shore, 
 Where oft she sway'd, tho' now she sways no more. 
 Yes — he who tun'd the reed to high-ton'd praise 
 Of far-fam'd Greece, yet graced Britannia's lays ; 
 For others twined with skill the Doric crown, 
 Weaving, meanwhile, a chaplet for his own. 
 In nervous numbers here might Thelwall plead, 
 And Saul 9 thy Bard in Pity's cause succeed. 
 And ye, colleagues ,0 in friendship as in fame, 
 And not a few of noble note as name.
 
 15 
 
 Thou, Armageddon's Bard", in this might find 
 
 A rapture suited to thy daring mind. 
 
 Thy Muse, O Maurice ,2 , led by Bounty's ray, 
 
 In Pity's cause her feelings might display ; — 
 
 Or thou ,; , who pitying age, and sorrow's weight. 
 
 So sweetly raourn'd the hapless peasant's fate ; 
 
 A friend's example might thy bosom fire, 
 
 Pity long since has strung thy Bloom field's lyre '*. 
 
 And thou,lov'd Blacket "*, nearest to my breast, 
 Whose Muse I cherish as an angel guest : 
 My homage pay, and court at Nature'* shrine, 
 And bless the Providence that made thee mine ! 
 This the warm strain thy gentle breast would feel, 
 Thy heart would dictate, and thy Muse reveal ; 
 But that dire pthisis clouds thy beauteous morn, 
 A theme like this thy genius would adorn. 
 Oh ! source divine of everlasting day, 
 Chill not the promise of his rising ray ; 
 O'er thy own beam shed not untimely night, 
 So to tby glory may he use the light !
 
 16 
 
 The Just, 'tis true, no advocate require, 
 Or from the sage's force, or poet's fire ; 
 Ere that can point the moral, this the song, 
 Nature has borne sublimer truths along ; 
 And these, quick ripen into generous deeds, 
 Sure as the blossom to the bud succeeds. 
 Such wing'd emotions mark the speed of heart, 
 From the slow process of the noblest art, 
 And yield a rapid and unborrowed charm, 
 Steady as principle, as passion warm. 
 Where these prevail, the offerings of the Nine, 
 Tho' each should deck with incense Nature's shrine, 
 Are useless all — though each unlock her store, 
 To heap the pile till it could hold no more. 
 Ah, no ! the Just are placed near Mercy's throne, 
 And ask no laws, no councils but their own. 
 
 But the dread human savage, still untam'd, 
 Boast of the higher world, yet unreclaim'd : 
 Oh ! for a law that monster to enchain, 
 Who boasts the luxury of giving pain !
 
 17 
 
 Who proudly keeps the trembling earth in awe, 
 For him the lower world, demand a law. 
 " A law for brutes," exclaims some tyrant vile, 
 The claim repulsing, with a scornful smile ,6 ; 
 " A vassal tribe, the creatures of my nod, 
 Who owe to me the gifts I owe to God. 
 I, that can punish, pardon, or devour, 
 And prove a thousand ways my sovereign power, 
 Inferior, senseless beings, bought and sold, 
 Slaves of my stall, my stable, and my fold ; 
 For these, now fed, now smoking on my board, 
 For these a law — to try their sovereign Lord ! 
 As well my footstool might my foot reprove ; 
 And what are brutes but furniture that move ? 
 Were not all these to my dominion giv'n 
 A voluntary boon, unask'd of Heav'n ? 
 Unworthy God, had been th' Almighty plan, 
 Had it provided less for favour'd man ! 
 A godlike being suits a godlike world, 
 Else, in disorder, still had all been hurl'd. 
 C
 
 18 
 
 But all were subjected to man's control, 
 Exclusive guide and master of the whole. 
 Coeval with creation thus it stood, 
 The Great Creator hence pronounced it good! 
 
 " But go — subvert Heaven's long- established plan, 
 Exalt the grovelling brute, and sink the man. 
 With powers enlarged, invest an abject race, 
 Ordain'd by Heaven to fill the lowest place. 
 In the wild school of these distemper'd times, 
 Frame a new code of punishments and crimes. 
 Go — argue rights that, ere they shall prevail, 
 The sacred statutes of thy God shall fail ; 
 Statutes, that gave to sov' reign man the ball, 
 Himself of myriad tribes, the judge and lord of all." 
 
 Blasphemer cease ! nor thus profane the law 
 Which Patriarch heard, and taught with pious awe ; 
 Nor thus misconstrue the command of Heav'n, 
 In tenderest MERCY, as in Wisdom giv'n ;
 
 19 
 
 Formed was the Word, to serve thy brute and thee, 
 From famine man, and brute from tyranny ; 
 Yet gave to man the more endearing share, 
 A master's friends, and guardian's generous care. 
 God gave in trust, the rights of all the rest, 
 To thee, his image on thy soul impress'd ; 
 Rights ,7 fix'd as thine, and since thou dar'st to hear, 
 The dauntless Muse shall peal them in thine ear ; 
 Show to thine eye, what thou, perforce, shalt see, 
 The DREAD ACCOUNT BETWIXT THY 
 SLAVE AND THEE ! 
 
 END OF BOOK I.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 BOOK II.
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Summons to the Cruel to appear before their Accusers. — 
 The Author's Reluctance to go into the Evidence of 
 Crimes ; and his regret at the Consciousness of the Ne- 
 cessity. Accusations of — The Dog — The Bull — 
 
 The Horse — The Ox — the Ass — and a Variety of 
 other abused Animals, confided to the Protection and 
 
 appointed to the Service of Man. The diversified 
 
 Cruelties exercised upon each. — The high Claims of the 
 respective Sufferers to such Protection. — Specific Qua- 
 lities and Character of the different Animals. — Remarks 
 on the Rigour of their Condition. — General and particular 
 Reasonings and Reproofs. — Facts on which they are 
 founded. — Acts of Torment, and Excesses of Tyranny 
 practised by the Brute-demon. — The Claims of Man 
 and Brute stated and examined. — Pretensions on both 
 Sides investigated. — Deductions. — The Economy, Saga- 
 city, and Bounty of Nature. — Observations on the Con- 
 dition of Brute unassisted by Man, and of Man unas- 
 sisted by Brute. — Inferences. — The Moral Sense.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 utand forth thou champion of a Ruffian band, 
 At Mercy's bar uplift thy savage hand ; 
 A train of wrong'd Accusers standing nigh, 
 Truth, Justice, Nature, the dire cause shall try : 
 The Muse, who in her morn, ne'er mix'd in strife, 
 And now, at deep'ning eve, would close her life 
 In tranquil shades, amid the vocal throng, 
 List to their notes, or join the transient song — 
 Obeys the summons of an awful power, 
 And leaves sweet Peace, that woos her to the bower;
 
 24 
 
 Rouses indignant to arraign thy crime, 
 The righteous motive shall protect her rhyme ; 
 Shall prove at once her huckler and her shield, 
 Howe'er unskill'd the ceusor's arms to wield ; 
 Steady her principle, her zeal sincere, 
 Critics are men, and will befriend her here ! 
 
 Yes, haughty culprit, tyrannous and base, 
 The blushing Muse shall mark thy deep disgrace ; 
 And should'st thou spurn her charge, by crimes 
 
 made bold, 
 If thy cheek pales not, as those crimes unfold, 
 Harden'd by habit, warp'd by baneful art, 
 All grace of Nature has reuouuc'd thy heart ! 
 
 First, answer to thy Dog, as first in place, 
 Friend at thy board, companion of thy chace, 
 His no foul crime of " friend remembered not," 
 Each kindness cherish'd, and each wrong forgot ;
 
 25 
 
 And though full oft he feels thy stripes unjust, 
 He hears them all, and humbles to the dust ; 
 Unmurmuring bears them, and one slight caress, 
 Tho' smitten to the bone, again can bless. 
 Thy day of labour he is proud to share, 
 And guards thy slumbers with a lover's care ; 
 Thy presence hails, thy absence fondly mourns, 
 While bounding raptures mark thy wish'd returns ; . 
 To rage, to anguish, e'en to Death, resign'd, 
 1 What nobler feelings boast thy nobler kind ? 
 
 By nature fierce, at length subdued, and mild, 
 To each kind office of a duteous child — 
 Who, a dark Sire guides through the pressing throng, 
 See how yon Terrier gently leads along 
 The feeble Beggar, to his custom'd stand, 
 With piteous tale, to woo the bounteous hand ; 
 In willing bonds, but master of the way, 
 Ne'er leads that trusted friend, his charge, astray
 
 26 
 
 With slow, soft step, as conscious of his care, 
 As if his own deep sorrows form'd the prayer — 
 Should yielding Charity the scrip supply, 
 Tho' hunger press'd, untouch'd the boon would 
 
 lie; 
 Eyes to the blind, he notes the passing thief, 
 And guards the good Samaritan's relief; 
 A faithful steward, midst unbounded power, 
 Patient he waits the home-returning hour ; 
 Then, reconducts his master to his shed, 
 And grateful banquets on the coarsest bread. 
 And were that cheerless shed, by Fortune plac'd, 
 In the deep cavern, on the naked waste, 
 The sport of every storm, unroof 'd and bare, 
 This faithful slave would find a palace there ; 
 Would feel the labours of his love o'erpaid, 
 Near to his monarch master's pillow laid ; 
 Unchang'd, by change of circumstance, or place : 
 
 O SACRED LESSON TO A PROUDER RCAE 1 !
 
 27 
 
 But, Reasoner, say, are these thy gifts of art, 
 Or, native graces of the canine heart ? 
 Say, does he owe this social change of state, 
 To imitation of the fair and great ? 
 Copied from thee, and do his virtue's rise 
 From man's example of the Good and wise ? 
 If thou has't thus reclaimed from savage strife, 
 And made him thus a link of social life, 
 Ask thy own soul — that every harshness knows — 
 How oft his joys are follow'd by his woes ; 
 And, if like thee, this Slave could count his 
 
 gains, 
 Say, would his pleasures balance to his pains ? 
 
 Behold those pains in varied forms display 'd, 
 Then reckon what the poor reclaim d, has paid 
 For all thy boasted patronage, to prove 
 The proud distinction of thy vaunted love. 
 Reckon those scars, which thy unkindness gave* 
 A still-forgiving, still-insulted slave ;
 
 28 
 
 Reckon that wanton gash, that mangled limb, 
 
 From hateful vengeance this, and that from whim ; 
 
 Reckon that stunning stroke, which to the ground 
 
 Brought thy true friend, to welter in his wound ; 
 
 Count too, the auguish of those sounding blows, 
 
 i 
 And the deep stream, that blushes as it flows : 
 
 From yon stak'd Bull 3 , whom thy slip'd Dogs annoy, 
 
 Their mutual rage, their pangs, thy savage joy ! 
 
 A sport for demons in their central hell ! — 
 
 To force the combat terrible and fell, 
 
 At which the direst of the fiends might start, 
 
 Rouse the strong instinct of the mother's heart ; 
 
 The 4 parents' love and fear at once inflame, 
 
 And swell to acts the Muse forbears to name ; 
 
 Forbears such guilty horrors to rehearse, 
 
 Or stain with crimes so foul her sacred verse. 
 
 Yet e'en this massacre, were life restor'd, 
 
 The mangled servant, would forgive his Lord ; 
 
 His love would all thy cruelty survive, 
 
 And by another piece-meal death, to please thee strive !
 
 29 
 Wretch ! could'st thou see him when thy useless 
 breath 
 At last shall give thee to the grasp of death, 
 When, haply, thy sole mourner, fix'd he stands, 
 Watches thy couch, and licks thy barbarous hands ; 
 Those hands that long have tried their force to prove, 
 Thy heart was dead to pity, truth, and love. 
 Ah ! could'st thou view him, seem to look a prayer, 
 Or heave the moan that seem'd to speak despair ; 
 Then follow sad thy body to the grave, 
 There, each extremity of hunger brave ; 
 Nor quit the spot, till famine, fraud, or force, 
 Drove him awhile to quit thy much-lov'd corse ; 
 Soon to return — enaraour'd of the spot — 
 Thy savage nature, rage, and stripes forgot ; 
 Could'st thou seelhis, perchance, one tear would start, 
 One brief compunction stir thy stony heart ; 
 Then might'st thou wish Ingratitude forgiv'n, 
 And dread, that crime of hell, to show offended 
 Heav'n !
 
 30 
 
 And now behold, his day of glory o'er, 
 Thy Steed advances, bleeding at each pore ; 
 A hero once, perchance, like thee, in war, 
 He spurn'd the menace, and he brav'd the scar ; 
 Like thee, a victor in the jealous race ; 
 Like thee, he brook'd no rival in the chace ; 
 Proud of his pow'rs, by danger undismay'd, 
 Himself* the noblest conquest man e'er made. 
 
 Has grief oppress'd the chosen of thy heart ? 
 Say, who was first thy succours to impart ? 
 Did sickness to the grave a parent bend ? 
 Or, could dispatch alone preserve a friend ? 
 Who bore thy solace, as with winged speed, 
 In the deep hour of life's extremest need ? 
 Vain all thy force of duty, and of love, 
 Without thy Steed those charities to prove ; 
 Vain all thy reason, passion, youth, and health, 
 The gen'rous Steed was then a mine of wealth; 
 * Buffon.
 
 SI 
 
 O'er mountain steep, deep vale, and desert waste, 
 He bore thee with a tender lover's haste. 
 
 Pastur'd and shelter'd in his native wood, 
 He sought not man's protection, or his food ; 
 He lov'd the meads, that grac'd his native soil, 
 Rbclaim'd 5 , from happy Liberty, to toil; 
 Reclaim'd, from happy wildness, free as air, 
 To galling trappings, and tumultuous care ; 
 And tho', by custom soften'd, these may please, 
 Man more than shares the luxury and ease ; 
 Yet man partakes not, save for pride or gain, 
 The scarce remitting labour, or the pain ; 
 These all his own, a fav'rite slave at best, 
 Capricious kindness, and uncertain rest. 
 The honours of his mane, by art confin'd, 
 Emblem of liberty, that brav'd the wind ; 
 Frolic'd or triumph'd o'er each gale that blew, 
 As down his ample chest the tresses flew.
 
 32 
 
 Thy maladies and miseries he found, 
 But, ah! no freedom, e'en on British ground ; 
 And tho', still seen superior on the plains, 
 A prisoner still, he toils or sports in chains ; 
 Ev'n like some captive prince, he moves in state, 
 Noble in bondage, and in ruin great ! 
 
 Survey him now, barbarian as thou art, 
 Of cruel hand, and unrelenting heart ! 
 Hard run, hard driven, the slave of stern command, 
 Wrong heap'd on wrong, transferred from hand to 
 
 hand ; 
 His beauteous frame by long, long slavery worn, 
 A life of toil and sorrow nobly borne ; 
 In his last stage to life's worst griefs resign'd, 
 Lame, aged, famish 'd, e'er to Death consign'd ; 
 Yet long that boon denied, and many a grief, 
 And many a wrong, e'er it may bring relief. 
 Chang'd the luxurious mead, the manger stor'd; 
 No more the boast and treasure of his Lord ;
 
 33 
 
 His birth, his conquest, and his fame forgot, 
 " Fall'n from his high estate," to the dire lot, 
 To the dire uses of the servile hack, 
 The sordid harness buckled on his back ; 
 Fasten'd by chains, that man alone could forge, 
 While galls the shaft, and plies the knotted scourge ; 
 Impell'd still onward by the furious guide, 
 Not for the vassal's, but the tyrant's pride ; 
 From mean ambition, and from low renown, 
 The first to gain, and rattle thro' the town. 
 And, oh! if* jealousy with pride combine, 
 What toils devoted Drudge can equal thine ; 
 The deepest vales, tho' mountains, rocks oppose, 
 A rival despot no obstruction knows. 
 And what are all his gains? — a coachman's art, 
 And what the dying Slaves ?— a broken heart f. 
 
 * Excited by what are called competition coaches. 
 
 t This expression is literal : and goes to an ordinary 
 fact.
 
 34 
 
 Ill-fated Steed ! e'en days that fill the heart 
 With human joy, to thee no joys impart ; 
 Youth, manhood, age, from morn to midnight hours 
 Demand thy service, yet exhaust thy powers ; 
 And oft when man enjoys some change of state, 
 No change is thine, but of severer fate ! 
 What tho' the lover's bliss, the miser's gain, 
 Thy speed promotes, they but augment thy pain ; 
 And when a nation's triumph rends the air, 
 Tho' the glad tidings thou art urg'd to bear ; 
 Tho' in thy trappings Victory's wreaths are twin'd, 
 And shade the throbbing temples, which they bind ; 
 The bursting veins, and smoking nostrils, show 
 An empire's glory aggravates thy woe ; 
 And while thy Sovereign sits as on a throne, 
 Thou, luckless Slave! beneath the weight must 
 groan ! 
 
 From the full pasture which thy avarice gave, 
 Summon'd to slaughter, lo ! yon pamper'd slave
 
 35 
 
 The Ox comes forth to yield for thee his life, 
 To the uplifted axe, and ruthless knife ; 
 Yet e'en to Death compell'd in haste to go, 
 By stripes tormented, ere he meets the blow. 
 Why on his reeking side that searching lash ? 
 Why *, in his way-swoll'n heel, that bleeding gash ? 
 Why, near the public mart, arriv'd at length, 
 — With fever 'd frame, and with exhausted strength — 
 Why must he pass, by thirst and hunger press'd, 
 His last sad Sabbath, but no day of rest ? 
 
 Next view him on the spot 6 , long stain'd by pow'r, 
 Sad monument of England's darkest hour ; 
 Where hecatombs of human victims bled, 
 As bigot rage the sanguine edict spread ; 
 While fatal zeal usurp'd religion's name — 
 Dire scene ! devoted still to England's shame ; 
 The fell banditti there each other meet, 
 For the brute-demon there has rix'd his seat ; 
 * See Appendix..
 
 36 
 
 And tho' for mercy England has a tear, 
 
 A hand, a heart, the demon riots there. 
 
 I hear him in yon herd's afflictive moan, 
 
 And in that aged Steed's last feeble groan ; 
 
 In yon slain Dog of an ungrateful friend, 
 
 While change of tortures his sad being end. 
 
 T hear him in yon harass'd fleecy throng, 
 
 With barbarous speed to slaughter urg'd along ; 
 
 Proteus in shapes, and of an Argus eye, 
 
 He sallies forth, resolv'd on tyranny : 
 
 Bird, beast, fish, insect, tremble round his throne, 
 
 And prove too sure the lower world his own. 
 
 * 'Tis not enough that daily slaughter feeds, 
 
 That the Fish leaves its stream, the Lamb its meads ! 
 
 That the reluctant Ox is dragg'd along, 
 
 And the Bird ravish'd from its tender song ; 
 
 That in reward of all her music giv'n, 
 
 The Lark is murder'd as she soars to heav'n : 
 
 * Humanity, a poem. See Preface to the present 
 work.
 
 37 
 
 Tis not enough, our appetites require 
 That on their altars hecatombs expire ; 
 But cruel man, with more than bestial pow'r, 
 Must heap fresh horrors on life's parting hour : 
 Full many a being that bestows its breath, 
 Must prove the pang that waits a lingering death. 
 Here, close pent up, must gorge unwholesome food ; 
 There, render drop by drop, the smoking blood ; 
 The quiv'ring flesh improves, as slow it dies, 
 And Luxury sees the augmented whiteness rise : 
 Some gash'd and mangled feel the torturor's art, 
 Writhe in their wounds, tho' sav'd each vital part. 
 Ask you the cause? the food more tender grows, 
 And callous Luxury triumphs in the blows : 
 For this, are some to raging flames consign 'd 
 While yet alive, to soothe our taste refin'd ! 
 
 Oh pow'r of mercy that suspends the rod ! 
 Oh shame to Man, impiety to God !
 
 .38 
 
 Thou polish'd Christian in the untutor'd see, 
 The sacred rights of bless'd humanity; 
 Thine is the world, thy crimson spoils enjoy, 
 But let no wanton arts thy soul employ : 
 Live, tho' thou dost on blood, ah ! still refrain, 
 Nor load thy victims with superfluous pain ; 
 E'en the gaunt Tiger, tho' no life he saves, 
 In generous haste devours what famine craves ; 
 The bestial paw may check thy human hands, 
 And teach dispatch to what thy want demands ; 
 Abridge thy sacrifice, and bid thy knife 
 FOR HUNGER KILL, BUT NEVER SPORT 
 WITH LIFE. 
 
 Last of the injur'd, and accusing train, 
 First to endure, and latest to complain ; 
 Patient of wrong, the Ass appears in view, 
 The lowest victim of the lowest crew. 
 How, culprit, wilt thou here the charge refute ? 
 How thy ways warrant to that hapless brute ?
 
 39 
 
 Were the whole life of that scorn'd beast offence, 
 All reasoning on those ways were base pretence. 
 Thou call'st him stubborn 7 ! hence that stunning 
 
 stroke, 
 Given in a curse, and coupled with a joke. 
 The Merciful ! whose Name thou dar'st disgrace *, 
 From Heaven has warn'd, to help the harmless race ; 
 Hast thou forgot his own divine command, 
 Towards the stray Ox, or Sheep, to stretch thy hand ? 
 Thy ready care and succour to bestow 
 On the fall'n Ass, ev'n of an hated foe. 
 
 See how he labours with that Camel's load, 
 Bends to the weight, and yet must feel the goad ; 
 Staggering he moves, at length too hardly press'd, 
 The tyrant's body added to the rest, 
 He sinks to earth, where desolate he lies, 
 Till by redoubling blows condemn'd to rise ; 
 Resume the rugged path, nor dare to halt, 
 And e'en his falling punish'd as his fault ;
 
 40 
 
 No pause allow'd the " bruised reed" to heal, 
 Say, when shall Mercy teach thy heart to feel ? 
 Oh if one proud distinction be the tear, 
 Ye who have ought of pity shed it here ! 
 Or, if sweet Mercy ne'er has call'd thee friend, 
 Here, tyrant, might thy marble nature bend ; 
 The smitten rock within thy breast might glow, 
 And pour the unwonted stream of generous woe. 
 
 With swelling port, well suited to thy power, 
 Tis thus thou seekest whom thou may'st devour ; 
 By Heaven's high will the lower world is 
 
 thine! 
 But art thou cruel too by right divine? 
 Admit their lives devoted to thy need ; 
 Take the appointed forfeit — let them bleed : 
 Yet add not to the hardships of their state, 
 Nor join to servitude Oppression's weight; 
 By no unmanly rigours swell distress, 
 But where thou can'st, exert thy power to bless,
 
 41 
 
 Beyond thy wants 'tis barbarous to annoy, 
 
 And but from need 'tis baseness to destroy ; 
 
 Still in their place let all Heav'n's creatures be, 
 
 These, with their nature, and their wants agree ; 
 
 Thou hast from freedom brought them into chains, 
 
 Impos'd a life of penalties and pains ; 
 
 Yet count the comforts which their bonds supply, 
 
 Then, if thou can'st, their modest claims deny ; 
 
 More than thy wants, thy luxuries are fed, 
 
 Their flesh thy banquet, and their plumes thy 
 
 bed! 
 They guard thee from the storm, defend from strife, 
 And aid the softer vanities of life. 
 Yet think how brief their span, how quickly pass'd 
 The transient sunshine, why should clouds o'ercast ? 
 
 Grant we that Nature, on a nobler plan, 
 Has form'd the emotions of sublimer man ; 
 A keener sense has given to mental pain, 
 From scepter'd Reason's intellectual reign;
 
 Yet, since the reptile, made to last an hour, 
 
 Still feels to agony the corporal power ; 
 
 Who, beyond need, would harm a helpless throng, 
 
 And rob the fields and forests of a song ? 
 
 Who that has heard the chant, or seen the play, 
 
 Of the glad tribe that carol in the day ; 
 
 Or, who that views the herds and flocks at feed, 
 
 Happy and peaceful in the smiling mead, 
 
 And thinks, how soon to these succeed the moan, 
 
 The shriek, the dying shudder, and the groan ; 
 
 But, ere arrives th' inevitable hour, 
 
 Will guard the beings trusted to his power. 
 
 Nor is it less thy tnteuest to impart, 
 A stronger motive to a tyrant's heart — 
 Not less thy love of self, with gentle sway, 
 To rule these creatures which thy will obey ; 
 And let them pass serene their measur'd hours — 
 Haply thou know'st not yet their wond'rou» 
 powers ;
 
 43 
 
 How vast the trust which the eternal mind 
 Has to the variegated tribes assign'd. 
 
 9 Nature's unnumber'd family combine 
 In one beneficent, one vast design ; 
 
 E'en from inanimates to breathing man, 
 
 An Heaven-conceiv'd, Heav'n-executed plan ; 
 
 Onward from those who soar or lowly creep, 
 
 The wholesome equipoise through all to keep ; 
 
 As faithful agents in earth, sea, and air, 
 
 The lower world to watch with constant care, 
 
 Her due proportion wisely to conserve, 
 
 A wond'rous trust, from which they never swerve. 
 
 10 But for these instruments of bounteous Heav n, 
 To whom its awful ministry is given, 
 
 Each over each, like jealous sentries plac'd, 
 That none may trespass, and that none may waste ; 
 None by luxuriance on the other press, 
 The whole to order, yet the whole to bless ;
 
 44 
 
 A full yet frugal competence supply, 
 Within the bound of sage economy ; 
 Yes, but for these, disorder would prevail, 
 Amidst abundance famine would assail ; 
 The wood, the lake, the forest, and the field, 
 Too little now, and now too much would yield ; 
 The lawless plants each other would devour, 
 The lawless insects would enforce their power ; 
 Polluted pestilence at noon of day, 
 With haggard want and war contend for sway. 
 But, from the violet to the sovereign rose, 
 The golden mien each thing created knows ; 
 Lives in abundance, keeps its destin'd place, 
 Its state enjoys, and propagates its race ; 
 Dies at the allotted hour, yet still shall live, 
 And in its progeny its self survive. 
 To all that animate the teeming earth, 
 Such is the mighty law that gave them birth ; 
 And when man thinks them scourges from above, 
 Heav'n-sent, they came, " on errands full of love ;"
 
 4,5 
 
 "Creatures most fear*d, most loathsome to the sense, 
 Vast, or minute, are boons of Providence. 
 
 11 Tis true that noxious beings oft annoy, 
 That some embitter life, aud some destroy ; 
 Minims of Nature, or her monstrous band, 
 Yet, rarely these infest our blissful land ; 
 Trench on our safety, or pollute our food, 
 And murmuring man may see that " all is good !" 
 May still, tho' fall'n, his Paradise enjoy, 
 Spite of the partial evils that annoy. 
 
 But, wherefore, force thy slaves whilst life remains, 
 To wreak upon themselves superfluous pains ? 
 Why, ere they fall, for thy diurnal food, 
 Are they compell'd to shed each other's blood ? 
 Yet, here, thou call'dst wrong'd nature in defence, 
 The battle her's, you say : O vile pretence ! 
 Does she, like man, enjoy this conflict dire ? 
 Is it for Nature's pastime they expire?
 
 46 
 
 Does she, who kindly to their rage deny'd 
 Death's fell artillery, which men provide, 
 Partake the ecstasy their pangs impart, [heart ? 
 
 When thus ensnar'd to war, they pierce each other's 
 
 False Reasoner, no ! thou say'st she prompts their 
 tight, 
 Till their blood maddens at each other's sight ; 
 If hence the combat whensoe'er they meet, 
 Did nature too, yon engine to the street 
 And those dire instruments of torture bring, 
 These Inquisition-horrors in that ring *, 
 Within whose round 'tis thy demoniac joy, 
 To try all frauds and force that can annoy ; 
 All that the blood can fire, foment the strife, 
 13 The goad, the stave, the bludgeon, and the knife. 
 
 Thou say'st with these,the Steed's delights keep place, 
 Of conquest proud, exulting in the race j 
 
 * The baited Bull is generally fastened to an iron ring 
 in the middle of the street.
 
 47 
 
 That hopes and fears like thine his bosom fire, 
 And thirst of glory all his nerves inspire ; 
 Concede we this, but wilt thou too demand 
 A grant of all that arms the jockey band - t 
 The pliant whip, the spur-gash opening wide, 
 The rowel plung'd, and buried in his side ; 
 Do these exalt the triumphs of the Steed ? 
 Or, Nature bid him for these triumphs bleed ? 
 
 Betwixt a race of nature and of art, 
 The difference this, one warms — one breaks the 
 
 heart; 
 One gives the unreclaim'd and free-born Steed, 
 The ample scope of the unmeasur'd mead ; 
 To stretch with rapture o'er the echoing ground, 
 And one confines him to a stinted bound : 
 In this, 'tis wholesome exercise and joy, 
 In that 'tis dire excess, and must destroy. 
 14 The Bull will rage and bellow from afar, 
 Provoke the fight, and Chanticleer will spar ;
 
 48 
 
 But, had tbcy thus been forra'd to close their life, 
 
 In deep Antipathy's instinctive strife, 
 
 She would herself have arm'd them for the war, 
 
 Beyond the arching bill and pointed spur ; 
 
 With hardier weapons fenc'd the Cock's proud 
 
 heel, 
 And giv'n the angry Bull a horn of steel : 
 As well might you insist he lov'd the fight, 
 When the fierce Bull-dog gives the madd'ning bite ; 
 Or that the Dog your horrid joys could share, ] 
 When on the horn impall'd, or toss'd in air : 
 As well assert yon Bear — reluctant Slave ! 
 Heavy by nature, sullen, slow, and grave, 
 Enjoy 'd the movements of the sprightly dance, 
 By turns commanded to retreat, advance, 
 Tripp'd, with delight, to the harsh fiddle's sound, 
 And join'd the savage merriment around. 
 
 But now, if still resolv'd on vain dispute, 
 View thy proud self, unaided by the brute ;
 
 49 
 
 Though, with thy eulogists *, the Muse shall own, 
 That Nature plac'd thee on her loftiest throne ; 
 To others partial, has in thee combin'd 
 The happiest powers of body and of mind ; 
 To beauteous feature, form majestic giv'n, 
 And the imperial eye that looks on Heav'n ! 
 Yet view thyself, reduc'd to Nature's plan, 
 Unhelp'd, and unaccommodated man. 
 Renounce awhile the animal reclaim'd, — 
 Alas ! how falsely and how oft misnam'd ; — 
 Change toils awhile, and yet retain command, 
 At once the slave, and master of the hand ; 
 Dismiss the drudging Steer, and labouring Horse ; 
 Let nought but interest goad, and try thy force ; 
 Place thee in wood, on mountain, or on plain, 
 These rich in various food, and those in grain ; 
 Grant, that the labours of the winter o'er, 
 The earth gives promise of a plenteous store, 
 
 * Buffon, Lirma'iis ; Pennant, Goldsmith, Gregory.
 
 50 
 
 That teeming Nature shall to man afford 
 Her tenfold offerings for his pamper'd board ; 
 That genial sun and shower, without thy beast, 
 Shall yield the summer and autumnal feast ; 
 Grant that the favouring season, and the soil, 
 Shall ask for seed-time a diminisKd toil ; 
 Bereft of herds and flocks, the Dog, the Steed, 
 Thou may'st another year provide for need ; 
 May'st, yet a little, linger on thy lands, 
 With the frail help of unassisted hands. 
 
 But should the lower world, by angry 
 Heav'n, 
 No longer to the wrath of man be giv'n, 
 With all his genius, wisdom, cunning, crown'd, 
 How dire the prospect that would gloom around ! 
 Ocean a might} void, and earth a grave, 
 What could from horror, what from famine save ? 
 How would he mourn the terrors of his fate, 
 Pray for his savage, curse his social state ;
 
 5! 
 
 Wish his long-suffering slaves he could recal, 
 And owu himself a pensioner on all ? 
 How sigh his dumb companions to regain, 
 His bestial retinue, and feather'd train? 
 His mocking dream of greatness would be o'er, 
 Midst wealth and plenty, poorest of the poor. 
 
 Next view the brute unaided by the man, 
 Once more restor'd to Nature's pristine plan ; 
 From human bonds and snares again set free, 
 And worse than bondage, human tyranny ; 
 Tho* some, from relish of man's grosser food, 
 Taint with his maladies their purer blood, 
 And die of luxury — man's worst disease — 
 Like the niark'd victim of the putrid breeze ; 
 Numerous as sands upon the sea-beat shore, 
 Myriads would hail their day of slavery o'er ; 
 And were there not in Nature's ample round 
 One of their human despots to be found,
 
 52 
 
 The fish would triumph in its native flood ; 
 The bird would carol in its native wood ; 
 And tho' by Nature's long-establish'd power, 
 These might each other in their turn devour ; 
 The sacrifice .of life for life is brief, 
 And sudden death, from man escap'd, relief ! 
 
 But if to things sublime thou mak'st pretence, 
 And thy supremacy be moral sense ; 
 Oh ! if with this, to favour'd Man is giv'n 
 The balms of piety, and bliss of Heav'n ; 
 What nobler practice can its precepts teach, 
 Than the plain maxim, which all heads may reach, 
 The earliest moral of thy infant day, 
 When unseduc'd pure Nature held her sway — 
 Ere yet the nursery gave thee to the school — 
 To Bird, Beast, Man, let justice be thy rule, 
 " Do that to others," which, did States agree, 
 Thy conscious soul would wish " were done to thee !' 
 
 END OF BOOK II.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 
 BOOK III.
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Vindications of general Nature from the Charge of Cruelty 
 to the lower world. — Rejection of those Arguments 
 of Philosophers and Poets that have painted a World of 
 Monsters. — The indiscriminate Eulogist and Libeller 
 equally remote from Truth. — A Sentiment of general 
 Compassion and Sensibility in the public Mind. — Illus- 
 trations. — Increased Happiness of Animals derived from 
 this Source. — Example of the good Effect of kind Usage 
 to be drawn 'from the Treatment of the Arabians to 
 their Horses. — Excess of Attachment to favourite Ani- 
 mals, in some Individuals, sacred from the Motive. — 
 Some of the Causes of this Excess accounted for in par- 
 ticular Cases. — Cruelty of Children to Animals consi- 
 dered — Traced in a Variety of afflicting and disgraceful 
 Incidents. — Appeal to Parents.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Y et think not that the Muse with Satire's rage, 
 By Truth unsanction'd, shall pollute her page ; 
 Think not that Man, all savage she would draw, 
 Bound only by the sordid bonds of law ; 
 Led in the giant's chain a struggling foe, 
 Like the cag'd Bajazet, a public show ; 
 Think not she deems when Man first springs to birth, 
 That Nature labours with a monstrous birth ; 
 All other living things to hold in dread, 
 Alive to Cruelty, to Pity dead. —
 
 56 
 
 Avaunt the artist, and accurs'd the art, 
 That in distemper thus would draw the heart ; 
 That in one sombrous and inveterate scrawl, 
 Whelms it in shade, and gives no light at all. 
 
 Dim-sighted Bards ! Philosophers more blind, 
 Ah ! spare your senseless libels on mankind ; 
 Paint not the world a wreck in anger giv'n, 
 The scourge of Nature, and the scorn of Heav'n. 
 Howe'er ye rhime, or descant, or dispute, 
 Each work of Nature must your rage confute ! 
 If such the system, which kind Heav'n forfend ! 
 If such our birth, our being, and our end, 
 If thus chain'd down by an imperious fate, 
 To mix with monsters in a world of hate : 
 If such Man's curse, since he from Angel fell, 
 Foretasting thus anticipated hell ; 
 If thus, deep-tainted, ocean, earth, and air, 
 Say, what is left to mortals but despair ?
 
 57 
 
 What but to yield the cruel gift of life, 
 And by one effort — close the scene of strife ? 
 
 Oh false, oh impious, and to Heav'n ingrate ! 
 To favour'd Man is giv'n a softer fate. 
 What tho' the tenfold gloom of wintry cloud 
 The native lustre of the sun may shroud, 
 Doth there no light appear because his ray 
 Pours not th' unsullied flood of perfect day ? 
 Yes, at a thousand points the raptur'd eye 
 Catches the beam warm darting from the sky ; — 
 Yes, at a thousand points the Muse could prove, 
 That Man was born for universal love. 
 Not the ephemeral being, weak and wild, 
 Sore Irritation's sentimental child ; 
 The hectic offspring of a feverM brain, 
 Conceiv'd in folly, and produc'd in pain : 
 But the soul's genuine scyons, strong and fair, 
 Who think, that all who live, life's rights should 
 share ?
 
 58 
 
 Promiscuous censure and promiscuous praise, 
 As wide from Reason, as from Justice strays ; 
 What though fierce legions Cruelty may boast, 
 Humanity leads on a gentler host; 
 And while those ply each agonizing art, 
 To heal the wounds these every aid impart. 
 If those inflict of Man the "fear and dread," 
 A kinder influence these delight to spread. 
 By Nature form'd emotions to reveal, 
 Which sterner beings know not, or conceal ; 
 Of Nature's or of Fortune's favour vain, 
 The bliss of bliss, the pain of giving pain ; 
 Yet, tyrants o'er the bestial race, we find 
 A thousand fold, outnumbered by the kind ! 
 
 These feel th' emotions of a pure delight, 
 Each pleasure soften, and each good requite ; 
 As pours the Nightingale's mellifluous note, 
 As tuneful raptures swell the Linnet's throat; 
 As mounts the Lark in music to the sky, 
 Or, breasting oft the streamlet as they fly,
 
 59 
 
 In many a circling maze, the Swallows wind, 
 Souls, thus attun'd, an answering transport find : 
 Nor less, as shifts the notes of joy to woe, 
 To pity true, their solace they bestow. 
 From yonder distant coppice, dark and lone, 
 Heard you that deep and desolated moan? 
 It was the plunder'd Turtle in despair ; 
 But souls, like these that plunder, would forbear. 
 Would not despoil for sport the cradling nest, 
 Nor swell with needless grief the plumy breast ; 
 Would not in wantonness the worm destroy, 
 Nor crush the father's hope, nor mother's joy. 
 Yet sacred Order still entire maintain, 
 Strength'ning in every link the social chain ; 
 File down the rugged edges, rais'd by man, 
 And thus restore the all-connecting plan. 
 
 See how yon courser, unconstrain'd and free, 
 Grateful repays his hour of liberty !
 
 60 
 
 Leaps from his couch upon the verdant ground, 
 And wakes an echo at each glad rebound : 
 He loves his master's figure, loves his call, 
 And, not reluctant, follows to the stall. 
 No slavish curb, no fetter he requires, 
 A patron beckons, and a friend inspires ; 
 E'en when in chains, so gentle is the sway, 
 With service pleas'd, in bondage he is gay; 
 Bends to the saddle, champs the bit in sport, 
 And seems the burden of his lord to court ; 
 From dawn to night-fall traverses the land, 
 Cheer'd by the well-known voice, and fondling 
 
 hand. 
 
 i 
 
 The wayworn horse of labour next comes on, 
 And for the goodly service freely done, 
 Preserv'd from toil, and rescu'd from the knife, 
 Enjoys secure a soft retreat for life ; 
 The vacant hunter leaves his green recess, 
 Or bowering tree, to share the wish'd caress.
 
 61 
 
 Of meadow, and of shed allow 'd the range, 
 He finds a shelter for each season's change ; 
 And haply oft invited to the spot, 
 Where stands his generous master's smiling cot ; 
 Gains ready entrance at the good man's door, 
 Who sighs to think the days of youth are o'er ; 
 Then strokes the hoary front, or silver mane, 
 And gently leads him to the fields again. 
 
 The sober Ox, and placid Sheep at feed, 
 Advance to greet the master of the mead ; 
 The feather 'd home-tribes too quick gather round, 
 Hear his glad summons, and obey the sound ; 
 With songs of pleasure hail the early day, 
 And varied orisons delighted pay ; 
 Their evening incense offer at his shrine, 
 And own, indeed, " the human face divine ;" 
 All seem to beg a blessing at his hands, 
 While in the midst, e'en like some god, he stands !
 
 Perchance — for who the ways of Heav'n may 
 scan ? 
 The brute's superior being may be man ; 
 And when he governs thus with gentle hand, 
 Chast'ning with smiles the frown of stern command ; 
 Kind words, kind deeds, like attributes may 
 
 shine ; 
 And, as in presence of a power divine , 
 The conscious tribes subordinate may move, 
 Their deity below, as ours above ' ! 
 And e'en their fear partake of pious awe, 
 Man's voice an edict, and his look a law. 
 
 Bless'd thus to think, if thoughts like these dispense, 
 A touch more vivid to the moral sense ; 
 If they inspire the imitative glow, 
 To take, in trust, Heaven's ministry below ; 
 Receive the homage— we should worship call 
 When breathing incense to the Lord of all —
 
 63 
 
 As offer'd up to Him in earnest prayer, 
 Thro' Man, vicegerent of his guardian care ! 
 
 Tyrant, by these examples warn'd, be wise, 
 And know in kindness thy best interest lies ; 
 Wrinkled by passion now, and now by pride, 
 The torturer's system thou too long hast try'd ; 
 And when th' offenders were thy bestial train, 
 How rarely Reason urges to complain ; 
 How oft would Reason, spurning thy decree, 
 Transfer the sentence from thy brute to thee ; 
 Acquit tby culprit, and indignant own, 
 Since thine the error, thine should be the groan. 
 Yes — warn'd, be wise — and let the Muse beguile 
 To the unwonted softness of a smile ; 
 Tis Pity's smile — and if a tear should start, 
 Tis Pity's tear — and will not wound thy heart ; 
 'Twill ope the sacred source of generous woe, 
 In whose rich stream a thousand virtues flow.
 
 64 
 
 Yet, haply, custom, searing up thy mind, 
 Ne'er hast thou felt the charm of being kind. 
 Kindness can woo the Lion 2 from his den, 
 A moral teaching to the sons of men ; 
 His mighty heart in silken bonds can draw, 
 And bend his nature to sweet Pity's law. 
 Kindness can lure the Eagle from her nest, 
 Midst sunbeams plac'd, content with man to 
 
 rest : 
 Can make the Elephant 3 , whose bulk supplies 
 The warrior tower, compassionate, as wise : 
 Make the fell Tigress 4 , from her chain unbound, 
 Herself unfed, her craving offspring round, — 
 Forget the force of hunger and of blood, 
 Meekly receive from man her long-wish'd food; 
 Take, too, the chastisement, and if 'tis just, 
 Submissive take it, crouching to the dust. 
 Kindness can habit, nay, can nature change, 
 That swim the deep 5 , or thro' the forests range.
 
 65 
 
 And for the mild, domestic train, who come — 
 The Dog — the Steed — with thee to rind a home ; 
 Gladly they serve thee, serve thee better too, 
 When only happy beings meet the view : 
 Ah ! then let gentler accents, gentler looks supply 
 The thunders of thy voice, and lightnings of thine eye. 
 
 6 The wandering Arab may these truths impart ; 
 Than gems more precious, bind it round thy 
 
 heart ; 
 Fierce, savage, fell, and as his desert wild, 
 His Steed receives th' endearments of a child ; 
 Feeds at his board, reposes in his tent ; 
 Confides, yet ne'er finds reason to repent. 
 The wife, the children, trusted to his love, 
 The generous Slave seems half afraid to move. 
 See on his glossy back the infants lay, 
 Or, with his awful tresses, harmless play ; 
 The lightest touch restrains, or urges speed ; 
 Are England's coursers a less generous breed ? 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 Ah ! no ; already this the Muse has shown ; 
 Then on Arabian model form thy own, 
 And let the leader of a robber band 
 Breathe Christian precepts o'er a Christian land ! 
 
 But some there are, who verging on excess, 
 For softness form'd, solicitous to bless, 
 May feel a patron's, parent's, anxious fear, 
 And of the lower world too fond appear. 
 Perchance some kind affection, pure and true, 
 As ere the generous breast of woman knew, 
 In youth's impressive morning, might invade 
 The earliest hope of the affianc'd maid ; 
 The cherish'd feelings of the plighted heart, 
 On some new image must transfer a part. 
 Or haply, offspring wish'd, but wish'd in vain, 
 They seek some object that may soothe the 
 
 pain. 
 Love, tho' a despot, ne'er can reign alone, 
 But asks some tender partner of his throne;
 
 67 
 
 And when by fortune, or by fate displac'd, 
 
 He brooks not that his realms should run to waste ; 
 
 On that new image still the hope must rest, 
 
 To soothe, tho' not to fill, the aching breast ; 
 
 And tho' less cherish'd than the former flame, 
 
 Differing as much in Nature as in name ; 
 
 A favourite of the feline, canine race, 
 
 Of grove, mead, garden, may our thoughts embrace 
 
 A feather'd friend, a chosen flower, may prove 
 
 Geliad's sweet balm to disappointed love ; 
 
 We deem a friend each soother of our grief, 
 
 And grow more fond as more it brings relief; 
 
 And if, from hence, the feeling gives it power, 
 
 The Steed, Dog, Songster, or the simplest flower, 
 
 Favour'd, and like a favourite, caress'd, 
 
 'Tis still the object of a grateful breast ; 
 
 Affection's error in the slight abuse, — 
 
 Since partial kindness mars not general use ; — 
 
 If it ne'er shuts against the griev'd, or poor, 
 
 Compassion's, Friendship's, Nature's, sacred door.
 
 68 
 
 If to all these, and many a want beside, 
 And the sweet charities, it opens wide, 
 Well may the fond extreme our candour claim, 
 And if we blame it, smiling let us blame. 
 
 Far lovelier this than his low-thoughted plan, 
 Whose world resolves into one useless man ; 
 Who never quits his vile primeval clod, 
 And feel no touch of Nature, or of God ; 
 No care, no kindness, or for bird or beast, 
 But as it heaps the idol's sullen feast ; 
 One sordid point the compass of his soul, 
 Himself at once the Needle and the Pole. 
 
 Would we the cause of brute distress explore, 
 Turn of life's volume its first pages o'er ; 
 There read the history of the infant mind, 
 Close to the records of the cradle join'd. 
 The doating parent, and the gossip friend, 
 To b'ast the opening bud, their influence lend ;
 
 69 
 
 Leagu'd with the nursery, and the kitchen bands, 
 In mock revenge they raise the baby hands ; 
 Ere Reason can assume her scepter'd sway, 
 Fondness and Folly lead the child astray ; 
 Teach baby hearts, with idle rage to glow, 
 Prompt baby passion to give blow for blow ; 
 Urge them with senseless objects war to wage, 
 And stir the strife that mars a riper age. 
 Thus, while in leading strings, the fragile form, 
 And infant bosom swell to mental storm ; 
 
 7 And fancied wrongs from table, or from chair, 
 For feuds, more fierce, the ill-taught child prepare. 
 
 Behold yon idling groups in school recess, » 
 
 Learning full soon the science to oppress ; 
 
 8 There crush'd the egg, and murder'd in its birth, 
 The half-form'd embryo seiz'd, and dash'd to earth ; 
 Here the shrill scream, loud plaint, and pensive wail, 
 While mingling notes of anguish load the gale !
 
 70 
 
 Perversion strange ! when songs of bliss invite, 
 That tones of pain and sorrow should delight : 
 And stranger still should charm the youthful heart, 
 By Nature tender till despoil'd by Art ; 
 Art, Janus-like, that shows a double face, 
 And at each turn displays a fiend or grace ; 
 Nature's best friend — a wise instructor, here ; 
 Her direst foe — a base seducer, there. 
 On this side, Virtue's lineaments are seen, 
 On that, of Vice we trace the hateful mien. 
 
 9 Hence the warp'd stripling, when arriv'd at man, 
 His habits fiYd, full oft pursues the plan ; 
 To Reason less, to Passion more inclin'd, 
 At length he yields to this, the vanquish'd mind. 
 For still in imitative man we find, 
 That early culture moulds the human mind ; 
 That precept much, and that example more, 
 Exert on plastic youth, a wondrous pow'r ;
 
 71 
 
 That habits fix'd at home, gain strength in schools, 
 10 Till beardless tyrants mock at grey-beard rules ; 
 That cruel pastimes, or of field or flood, 
 Form the young despot to delight in blood ; 
 That bird or beast, in frolic robb'd of breath, 
 Leads on from pang to pang, from death to death. 
 
 Myriads from custom, but from Nature few, 
 A course like this, from youth to age pursue ; 
 Some idly wanton, cruel some from fear, 
 But all demand a check in their career. 
 Yes, all require the guardian's, parent's eye, 
 Intent to watch the growing tyranny — 
 That check delay'd, full thrift the mischief leads, 
 From the child's follies to man's direst deeds ; 
 It is the nourish'd snake, that in the heart 
 Infuses poison through each vital part ; 
 It is the canker, working to the root, 
 Devouring first the blossom and the fruit.
 
 72 
 
 Mothers ! be prompt — for your's the awful care 
 Of "infant man" — of each extreme beware ; 
 If weakly fond — now doating — now severe, 
 The Slave and Tyrant you by turns appear. — 
 If now you hold too tight, now slack the rein, 
 Now bribe, and now delude the youthful train ; — 
 If now by anger urg'd, now mov'd by love, 
 You but increase the ills you would remove ; — 
 The stripling spurns at undeserv'd disgrace, 
 And sits himself in judgment on his case ; 
 Resists and ridicules unequal sway, 
 Usurps the matron throne, or bursts in scorn away. 
 
 " And you, ye Fathers, lur'd by tender thought, 
 By potent Nature's magic instincts taught; 
 That when the Sire's allotted sands are run, 
 He fills again his hour-glass in the s#n ; 
 His future self, his present hope and pride — 
 Yet, ah ! beware, lest Nature should misguide.
 
 73 
 
 " In Brute she cannot err, in Man she may, 
 The fondest Sires led most their sons astray ; 
 And oft th' enraptur'd parents' feelings prove, 
 Than hate more fatal, tho' they spring from love. 
 
 Soon as the long-wish'd gift — an heir appears, 
 Nature comes smiling through her graceful tears ! 
 Comes in a mother's form, and gives the boy 
 To a glad father's arms, and all is joy ! 
 The pangs maternal change to speechless bliss ! 
 And that immortal moment, when the kiss, 
 The first fond kiss the infant's lip receives, 
 Unconscious of the transport that it gives ; 
 The new emotions thronging to the heart, 
 What future moment shall such joy impart ? 
 The happy father would that joy declare, 
 Were it bestow'd Vhile thunders rent the air ! 
 And summer seem to rise on winter's morn, 
 'Tis Nature's jubilee — a son is born !
 
 74 
 
 Indulge awhile the luxury supreme ! 
 Yet, will it pass like Fancy's baseless dream ? 
 Ere as night's vapour from the sunbeam flies, 
 If the rapt father proves more fond than wise ; 
 If no soft tear attempers ardent hope, 
 If the strong instinct takes too wide a scope, 
 This blessing so invok'd, implor'd in prayer ! 
 The father curses in his soul's despair ! 
 Horrors succeed ! the crime full oft his own, 
 From purest passion, into dotage grown. 
 
 Haste then, O haste, to teach, with timely care, 
 The sacred principle to aid and spare ! 
 While yet the plastic infant may receive, 
 E'en like the new-fall'n snow, the print you give ; 
 Ere that impressive, pliant hour be lost, 
 Like the snow harden'd to unbending frost ; 
 Fix in the ductile breast this aweful truth, 
 Anhonour'dage must spring from well-form'd youth.
 
 75 
 
 Teach him, that Mercy by his God was giv'n, 
 A seraph messenger direct from Heav'n ! 
 That all his race in guilt and grief had died, 
 Nor ended there, had Mercy been deny'd ! 
 Tell him, Compassion, is sweet Mercy's child, 
 Firm and yet tender, and not weak tho' mild ; 
 That from the purest source compassion flows, 
 Yet largely shares the blessing it bestows ; 
 On his young heart the moral sense impress, 
 The fall'n to raise, the injur'd to redress ; 
 One truth, o'er other truths sublime, reveal, 
 That beast, bird, insect, like himself 
 
 CAN FEEL ; 
 That every pang which you for him could know, 
 The mother's agony, the father's woe. — 
 Should some fell arm your blossom'd hope destroy, 
 And in his death bereave your souls of joy, 
 13 Would all be theirs ! like anguish and despair, 
 And tho' more brief than yours, as hard to bear !
 
 76 
 
 But, from whatever source the vice is brought, 
 Iufus'd by Nature, or from habit caught ; 
 Since the fell monster has acquir'd at length 
 More than a giant's size, a giant's strength, 
 Lifts the Colossal arm, Briarian hand, 
 Wantons in pow'r, and stains with blood the land ; 
 The voice of thousands in one mingled cry, 
 That find an echo in the pitying sigh — 
 For justice calls upon that fiend of strife, 
 Who sports and revels in the waste of life ; 
 Who tries the round of tortures to annoy, 
 Those who can rob him of no human joy ; 
 Those who repair his strength, his wants remove, 
 Promote his pleasure, and deserve his love ; 
 His being cherish, aid his failing breath, 
 Nor quit him in the agonies of Death. 
 
 END OF BOOK III.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 BOOK IV.
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Second Address to the Poets of Britain. — The Author's 
 Apology. — Difficulty of the Subject. — Appeal of the 
 respective injured Animals to Man. — Apostrophe to the 
 Society at Liverpool, associated for the Purpose of 
 ameliorating the Condition of the Animal World. — Ad- 
 dress to the Lords and Commons of Great Britain in 
 their august Characters as Senators, and important Situa- 
 tion as distinguished Members of Society. — Supposed 
 Personification of the Sufferers, advancing to the Houses 
 of Parliament as to the Seats of Judgment and Mercy. — 
 The Boon of the Petitioners stated. — Summary of the 
 Subject. — Conclusion. — Apostrophe to the known Hu- 
 manity of the Country in its Resistance of every Species 
 of Oppression, whether practised against Man or Brute, 
 when left to the Guidance of the Moral Sense.
 
 THE 
 
 LOWER WORLD. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 OTILL mute Britannia's Bards, while I, by pain, 
 
 By sickness sore, unfitted for the strain, 
 
 Have now relinquish'd, now resum'd the lyre, 
 
 Felt now the Muse's, now the fever's fire ; 
 
 While Time prepares his sweeping scythe to bring, 
 
 And cover with his own, the poet's wing ! 
 
 Yet still my heart shall hail the lingering page, 
 
 If it but tends to check one tyrant's rage ; 
 
 If it but turns aside one threat'ning arm, 
 
 Or lures one cruel breast to Pity's charm ;
 
 80 
 
 If it but rouse, tho' late, the tuneful band, 
 To aid the song, and make one glorious stand. 
 
 Yet say, what offering shall the Muse bestow, 
 Tho' Inspiration bade the numbers flow ; 
 The sons of Mercy and of Truth to grace, 
 Illustrious champions of an injur'd race ; 
 Friends of the Tribes who prove yet want a friend, 
 Their varied wrongs to soothe, their rights defend ? 
 
 Ah ! could yon sufferers, labouring with their load, 
 Assail'd by bludgeons, or the sharpen'd goad ; 
 Ill-fated victims of the probing lash, 
 The galling harness, and the deep-mouth'd gash :— ~ 
 Could yon meek drudge, of wantonness the prey, 
 By want and strong temptations led astray ; 
 Impell'd by daring hunger, to forsake 
 The scanty herbage of the waste, or brake ; 
 The labours of his day but ill repaid 
 By the dry thistle, or the wither'd blade ;
 
 81 
 
 Should he, spurn'd Slave ! on these refuse to feed, 
 And dare to trespass on the neighbouring mead ; 
 Seiz'd, scourg'd, imprison'd in a barren round, 
 And left to pine, or perish on the ground ;— 
 Or harsher still, could that decrepit crew, 
 That long the fullness of the pasture knew ; 
 That in the pride of favour, and of prime, 
 Seem'd to outstrip, and win the race from Time ; 
 The riders bore to triumphs not their own, 
 Plac'd by their Steeds upon a conqueror's throne. — 
 Could that sad group, devoted to the knife, 
 In the last moments of a faithful life, 
 The deaf, the dumb, the aged, aud the blind, 
 Patient in hardships, and to stripes resign 'd, 
 In slaughter-prisons pent ', condemn'd to lie, 
 And feel the pang of famine ere they die ; 
 Wait the cold leisure of the tyrant's blow, 
 In Avarice rapid, yet in Mercy slow. — 
 Could these — and myriads more like these, who feel 
 The mangling whip 2 , fell staff, and murd'rous steel ; 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 Severely rais'd by stern barbarian hands, 
 Beyond what hunger, or e'en pride demands ; 
 Beyond what luxury itself inspires, 
 With all its sordid train of vain desires. — 
 Yes, could these bruis'd and bleeding victims raise 
 The mingled voice of Gratitude and Praise, 
 Could they, their advocates, their patrons, know, 
 And Heav'n to brute the power of speech bestow, 
 What notes of joy thro' woods and wilds would 
 
 ring, 
 How rich the offering their glad hearts would bring ? 
 From low-born Plough-horse to the high-bred Steed, 
 What varied tribes would hail the gen'rous deed ; 
 The crowded city, and the peopled grove, 
 Would echo notes of harmony and love. 
 
 But man's sky-reaching powers, to brute deny'd, 
 Were, for the suffering universe, supply'd ; 
 Were, with a hand of bounty largely giv'n 
 To you, harmonious ministers of Heav'n !
 
 85 
 
 Rouse then, ye Bards, who to the loveliest art, 
 A gift more precious own — the feeling heart : 
 O rouse to arras, ye heav'n-descended throng ! 
 Achilles' spear, less keen than Homer's song ! 
 Would but Apollo's bands their force unite ■ 
 More strong than thine proud Mars in all thy might ; 
 Than thine Bellona, more renown'd in fame, 
 Save when thou arm'st in bless'd Minerva's name : 
 Then haste, ye generous heroes of the Lyre, 
 And more than all the Muses shall inspire ; 
 More than the god who draws the silver bow, 
 To help the helpless, shall embattled go ; 
 Against a foe of Earth and Heav'n accurs'd, 
 A second Crusade holier than the first, 
 In Heav'n's own cause might Heav'n's own poet 
 
 sing, 
 The Psalmist's harp again might David string. 
 Go then — the God of gods your shafts shall 
 
 guide, 
 Go, and his Cherubim shall join your side !
 
 84 
 
 Bless'd be the pitying 3 , heav'n-assembled band, 
 And midst the proudest archives of the land, 
 Inscrib'd their names in characters to last 
 When every tyrant's record shall be cast, 
 By Truth's strong arm into forgotten dust — 
 Immortal Fame still faithful to her trust ! 
 Thrice bless'd the generous Synod who debate, 
 E'en now to advocate the sufferer's fate ; 
 E'en now to aid the unoffending train, 
 Smooth their hard toils, and mitigate their pain; 
 Teach Mercy's foes her ardent friends to fear, 
 And check the Cruel in their fell career ; 
 Strike at their only vulnerable part, 
 Virtue's sole passage to a sordid heart, 
 Strike at vile Interest, idol of the breast ! 
 That craving cormorant brooding on its nest ; 
 Make them for love of gold your law obey, 
 Tho' love of gain alone maintains its sway ; 
 To acts humane unwillingly resign'd, 
 Constraint to virtue, while to vice inclin'd.
 
 85 
 
 By manly precept and example too, 
 Enforce a sacred truth they never knew ; 
 That liberal Commerce, when, like your's, it leads 
 From great designs, to humanizing deeds, 
 Is the fair mean of honourable ends, 
 And private good, with public virtue, blends. 
 Long, long be your's, the still-iucreasing store, 
 By your own ocean floated to your shore ; 
 May every freight come wafted in the gale, 
 And your own navy guard the home-bent sail ; 
 And, O to crown the meed of heav'n-bless'd wealth, 
 Fair bloom in Fortune's wreath, the freshest rose of 
 Health ! 
 
 And ye *, who guard a generous people's rights, 
 In whom strong wisdom, with strong power, unites; 
 Ye chosen guardians of a smiling land, 
 To whom an empire delegates command ; 
 
 * The two houses of parliament.
 
 86 
 
 Patrons, protectors of her awful laws, 
 Rise ye to aid Compassion's sacred cause ; 
 Your's of the Higher World, the highest place, 
 Ah ! look with Pity on a hapless race, 
 Thrown on the rage or mercy of mankind, 
 A tower of strength in you they yet may find. 
 Think that you see the desolated throng, 
 Cover'd with stripes, and many a bleeding wrong ; 
 Think that you see the Suppliants at your feet, 
 And hear the pang-extorted moan and bleat ; 
 Think you behold them congregating round, 
 Dragging their ruins near your hallow'd ground. 
 Think that they raise to you th' imploring eye, 
 The pitious look, deep wound, and piercing cry ; 
 Victims of wanton pride and deadly rage, 
 O let them all your eloquence engage ; 
 The hard of heart, a moral sense to teach, 
 Image then gifted with the powers of speech ; 
 Think, that, in verity, just Heav'n bestows 
 A human voice to tell inhuman woes ;
 
 87 
 
 Sublim'd awhile their Nature to your own, 
 Think that you hear them plead from Reason's 
 throne ! 
 
 Yet, ah ! the sufferers need no aid of speech, 
 The bosom'd advocates of man to reach — 
 Of man, whose form, ascending from the clod, 
 Shames not the awful image of his God, 
 The light celestial beaming in his face, 
 Protector, patron of the bestial race ! 
 They ask not lengthen'd days, they ask not life, 
 All they could wish, to pass devoid of strife ; 
 The little span, by craving man decreed 4 , 
 Ere for his raiment and his food they bleed ! 
 Their hopes, their prayers, e'en were they granted 
 
 all, 
 Alas ! how great to them, to man how small ! 
 O then, at length the saving code impart, 
 Tis your's to frame this statute of the heart.
 
 88 
 This be your law — to make each tyrant 
 
 KNOW, 
 
 The woe he gives shall be return'd by 
 
 WOE. 
 
 Proclaim it loud ! high Heav'n shall bless the sound, 
 And Mercy's Angel spread the tidings round ; 
 Immortal hands the chaplet shall entwine, 
 And fondly wreath it round Britannia's shrine. 
 
 And thou ! as oft the raptur'd Muse has sung, 
 Devote to thee since first the lyre she strung ; 
 E'en to the hour that warns her now to part — 
 O may her last fond offering reach thy heart ! 
 Yes ; thou rever'd and sympathizing land, 
 First to extend thy ever-helping hand. 
 Oft has thy tender pity temper'd power, 
 And rais'd e'en Vice in dark Misfortune's hour ; 
 Brought timely succour to the hapless Slave, 
 And snatch'd Pride's destin'd victim from the grave j
 
 89 
 
 Not Conquest's only, thine Compassion's isle, 
 A truth thy Myriads sanction with a smile : 
 Bulwarks of strength ! when warm'd to MERCY'S 
 
 cause, 
 These Myriads Mercy calls to aid her gentle laws. 
 
 And, ah ! when homefelt, or when foreign storms, 
 The chequer'd scenery of life deforms, 
 Folly and vice, the darkling prospect shroud, 
 And wrap thy virtues in an awful cloud ; 
 Tho' threat'ning tumults, like tornados fell, 
 Life's wholesome breeze to hurricane should swell ; 
 Or more portentous of some ill profound, 
 The silence that is felt should brood around ; 
 While Charities 5 like these, shall pour the ray, 
 And shed their lustre o'er fair England's day, 
 Still mid the nations, towering o'er the rest, 
 Jionour'd shall be her deeds, her name be bless'd. 
 
 END OF BOOK IV.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 1 Tfco' yon dire Snake ] Alluding to the Constric- 
 tor, painted by Mr. James Ward, in a manner that ex- 
 hibits the powers of his mind employed on sublime sub- 
 jects ; at the same time that it displays the truth and vi- 
 gour of his delineation, in regard to the subjects themselves. 
 His painting of this Terror of Nature is still, we believe, 
 part of his private collection in Newman Street. 
 
 This enormous serpent certainly holds the first rank, 
 in regard of size and force, both in the genus, and in 
 the whole order of serpents. In beauty, size, agility, 
 strength, and patient industry to wait for and seize its 
 prey, it far surpasses every other species, and may well 
 be named the king or emperor of serpents. Like the 
 elephant and lion among quadrupeds, the Constrictor far 
 surpasses all the animals of its kind, resembling the ele- 
 phant in size, and the lion in strength and courage *. 
 
 • Count de la Cepede's Oviparous Quadrupeds and Serpents, from th.e 
 Collections of Button, translated by Kerr.
 
 92 
 
 From its enormous size and vast force, combined with 
 the brilliancy of its scales and beauty of its colours, this 
 species has been viewed with a degree of admiration 
 mingled with dread, by several half-savage nations*. 
 Their supreme god, named Vilzilipuztli, was represented 
 with a serpent in his right hand, and all his temples and 
 altars were filled with representations of serpents, which 
 we have reason to suppose were intended as images of the 
 Constrictor t. 
 
 The Constrictor is not stopped in its course by rivers, 
 or large arms of the sea, and can even swim with ease in 
 the midst of rough waves. It can likewise easily mount 
 to the top of the highest trees ; where, fixing itself by the 
 folds of its body to the boughs, it often lies a long time 
 concealed, waiting patiently for some prey to pass un- 
 derneath. When at too great a distance, or it wishes 
 to reach a neighbouring tree, it twists its tail round a 
 branch, and, balancing its extended body to that fixed 
 point, springs forward with prodigious force, and with the 
 swiftness of an arrow, either against its destined victim, 
 or into the tree it wants to fix itself to. This is the 
 very situation at which Mr. Ward has brought the dread- 
 ful energies of this monarch of the serpent tribe, under his 
 pencil. 
 
 * Prompt Marmioris Muse.] This delightful poet has 
 • As the ancient Mexicans. + Hist. Gen. des Voy. 48.
 
 93 
 
 a vigour of expression, a scenic richness of fancy, and a 
 power of exciting the most interesting emotions, on what- 
 ever subject his Muse is engaged. We owe, and willingly 
 pay him our gratitude and admiration. But his claims 
 would be still greater, were he to choose a theme that 
 might call for the whole force of his talents ; of which, with 
 all their beauties, (and they have many to boast) what he 
 has yet given, are but the blossoms; the fruit may be ex- 
 pected, and of the highest flavor. 
 
 3 Like Pindar and the lark.] Peter Pindar. There 
 cannot be the shade of a doubt, in the mind of any one 
 acquainted with the writings of the poet, who has appro- 
 priated this signature, that, if the same degree of time and 
 talent had been displayed on less local and personal sub- 
 jects, he would have given beauty and spirit to themes 
 the very reverse of those he has chosen. This opinion, 
 indeed, has been established by several smaller pieces, to 
 which the public have given a welcome that implies at 
 once admiration and regret. 
 
 * And Gifford thou — 
 
 • By a singular, though entirely accidental coincidence, the names of 
 these two writers are brought near each other, though it is in general 
 recollection the writers themselves are as widely separated from each 
 other by their public as private sentiments. In a general call upon the 
 British living bards, however, the author threw out of his mind, and 
 indeed out of his memory, till revisions of his poem, all differences, per- 
 sonal or literary, that might have subsisted between any of the parties 
 invoked, remembering only the different powers with which drey
 
 94 
 
 4 Or Devon's bard.] Rev. Mr. Polwhele, author of 
 " Local Attachment," a poem of peculiar interest and 
 touching sentiment. 
 
 5 And ye who meet.] Literary Fund. 
 
 * Or you whose Muse.] Rhymes on Art, by Mr. Shee, 
 page 25. 
 
 ' Or you who well may boast a double claim.] The sister 
 Muses, likewise, acknowledge a favoured votary in 
 Wilkie; who, in both the lovely arts has given proof 
 of his genius and sensibility. 
 
 ' And Saul thy bard.] Sotheby, author of Saul, a poem, 
 and other estimable pieces. 
 
 8 And the Ionian Bard.] Waller Rodwell Wright, 
 author of " Horae Ionicse :" a poem descriptive of the Io- 
 nian islands, and part of the adjacent coast of Greece. 
 
 were independently and individually gifted ; and a warm admiration 
 for their respective genius, without even considering whether they 
 were in friendship or enmity with each other, or to say the truth, with 
 myself. Of the talents of all the poets of the country, to which the 
 author has offered this brief and farewell compliment, if that can be 
 called complimental, which states a simple and generally admitted fact, 
 I am not only satisfied myself, but believe every reader will sanction 
 the opinion, that each of the poets here mentioned, (and many more 
 which might have been enumerated) could have advocated this cause of 
 the Lower World with great ability ; each after his own manner and 
 character of genius.
 
 95 
 
 10 And ye colleagues,'] Southey and Coleridge. 
 
 «» Thou Armageddon' shard. ~] Mr. George Townshend, 
 of Trinity-College, Cambridge, who has the happiness of 
 being introduced to the public by Mr. Cumberland, under 
 whose auspices a volume of poems, which give promise of 
 ripening talent, have recently been published. 
 
 ? Thy Muse, O Maurice.] This estimable man and ele- 
 gant poet, is author of " Indian Antiquities, Richmond 
 Hill," &c. would do justice to every cause in which his 
 talents and benevolence engaged. 
 
 13 Or thou who pitying age.] Mr. Holloway, author 
 of a poem, called " The Peasants' Fate," and other pieces- 
 which discover worth, genius, and feeling. 
 
 14 Bloomfield's lyre.] This amiable poet has given 
 a very affecting description of a post-horse, in his truly- 
 interesting " Farmer's Boy." 
 
 n And thou, lov'd Blacket.] The public are as yet 
 but slightly acquainted with the merits of this extraordi- 
 nary young man ; the only mark of his genius, properly be- 
 fore them, being " The Times," an Ode on the commence- 
 ment of the year 1809 ; one of the most important events 
 of which, the glorious though unfortunate struggle of the
 
 96 
 
 Spanish nation for its liberty, furnishing its principal sub- 
 ject. It was, however, not undistinguished by the profes- 
 sional critics, and to adopt the language of one of them, 
 ** hailed as possessing many beauties which are not to be 
 found in many of the effusions of a highly-cultivated Muse;" 
 and by another, " as a bud promising future excellence, 
 when matured by time and experience ; the age of the 
 author being as they (rightly) understood little more than 
 twenty." His little production, " The Times," indepen- 
 dently of its poetic merit, will for ever be dear and interest- 
 ing to the author of " The Lower World," as it was the prin- 
 cipal means of an introduction, commencing an acquaint- 
 ance which gradually ripened into friendship, that, by a 
 natural progress, has grown into an affection mutually ex- 
 changed. The author of the poem, now soliciting the can- 
 dour of the reader, would have deemed this information 
 obtrusive, but that, he trusts, it may serve as a notice of 
 his speedily intending to solicit a similar favour to farther 
 developements of his young friend's genius, in a volume 
 now in the press, and which will be accompanied by many 
 deeply interesting circumstances, not of merit only, but 
 of misfortune. It may be proper, however, meanwhile, to 
 observe, that a considerable impression of many of the 
 pieces that will be included in the proposed collection, 
 have been liberally dispersed, and largely recompenced 
 for the author's profit and honour by private circulation, 
 under the title of " Specimens of the Poetry of Joseph
 
 97 
 
 Blacket" with introductory observations by the editor. 
 And of those specimens printed, but still not published, 
 the opinion is so nearly one, and that favonrable, the 
 editor would treasure it among the few unmixed feli- 
 cities of life, as a happy earnest of the sanction of the 
 public in general, were not that fair prospect heavily 
 clouded by the still afflicting state of Mr. Blacket's 
 health. 
 
 u The claim repulsing.] It really cannot for a moment 
 be supposed, that a man of so many known private virtues 
 and public talents, as one of the most distinguished mem- 
 hers of the House of Commons, who is presumed to be 
 inimical to the object of the bill under consideration, can 
 be serious in his objections ; at least to the unimpeachable 
 principle of it, however he may conceive the practice 
 of it as a law, may be questioned. Nor can it be appre- 
 hended that the humane and enlightened gentleman, above- 
 alluded to, will consider ridicule as the test of truth in his 
 definitive sentiments on the deep interests of that very hu- 
 manity which is certainly involved in this question, and 
 which he is allowed on all hands so generally to support 
 in his own character and conduct. 
 
 " Rights fix'd as thine.'] It is utterly impossible to 
 deny or to dispute the truths pressed on the attention 
 of the hearer or reader in the subsequent passage : — " In 
 
 ■
 
 98 
 
 this, as in every thing else, the whole moral system is in- 
 culcated by the pursuit of our own happiness. In this, 
 as in all other things, our duties and our interests are 
 inseparable. I defy any man to point out any one abuse 
 of a brute which is property, by its owner, which is not 
 directly against his own interest. Is it possible then, to 
 contemplate this wonderful arrangement, and to doubt 
 for a single moment that our dominion over animals is a 
 trust ? Their freedom and enjoyments, when they cease 
 to be consistent with our just dominion and enjoyments, 
 can be no part of their natures ; but whilst they are con- 
 sistent, I say their rights, subservient as they are, ought 
 
 to be AS SACRED AS OUR OWN.'' 
 
 Lord El-shine's Speech. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 1 What nobler feelings."] A very pleasing example, of 
 the courage, temperance, and fidelity of the dog, is given 
 in the subsequent passage: — 
 
 " When during the night he becomes the guard of the 
 house, he assumes a more than usual degree of boldness, 
 and is sometimes even ferocious. He watches, goes his 
 rounds, scents strangers at a distance ; and if they stop
 
 99 
 
 or attempt to break into the house, he flies with fury to 
 oppose their entrance ; and by continued barking, and 
 other efforts of passion, he gives the alarm, and thus 
 rouses the family to avert the danger. He is as furious 
 against thieves as he is against rapacious animals. He 
 attacks, wounds, and forces from them whatever plunder 
 they are endeavouring to take away. But contented with 
 his victory he will lie down upon the spoil, nor even touch 
 it to satisfy his appetite.* — Bingley's Memoirs of Quad- 
 rupeds. 
 
 In several convents situated among the mountains 
 which divide France and Italy, travellers assure us, a cus- 
 tom prevails that does honour to human nature : in these 
 sequestered cloisters, which are often placed in the most 
 uninhabited parts of the Alps, strangers and travellers 
 are not only hospitably entertained, but a breed of dogs 
 are trained to go in search of wanderers, and are every 
 morning sent from the convents, with an apparatus fas- 
 tened to their collars, containing some refreshments, and 
 a direction to travellers to follow the sagacious animal ; 
 many lives are by this means preserved in that wild ro- 
 mantic country. The Siberian dogs are likewise of tried 
 fidelity, yet the treatment they receive seems but ill cal- 
 culated for securing their attachment. During the winter, 
 they are fed sparingly with putrid fish ; and in summer 
 are turned loose, to shift for themselves, till the return of 
 the severe season renders it necessary to the master's in-
 
 100 
 
 terest that they should be taken again into custody, and 
 brought once more to their state of toil and slavery. 
 
 1 A sacred lesson to a prouder race /] In this place it 
 is hoped the reader will permit the author to strengthen 
 his present argument in favour of the dog tribe, by the 
 subsequent stanzas introduced into a former work. 
 
 Thou animal sublime, we human call, 
 Who deem'st these attributes but instinct's sway, 
 
 Thyself, sole reasoning tyrant of the ball, 
 The rest thy slaves, to tremble and obey. 
 
 Virtues in thee are instincts in the brute, 
 
 Yet in these instincts, proud One ! niay'st thou find, 
 Plain honest arguments, which oft confute 
 
 The subtlest maxims of thy soaring mind. 
 * * * 
 Hast thou e'er follow'd friend with steps more tr«e, 
 
 With nobler courage hast thou met the foe? 
 And if that friend in anger left thy view, 
 
 Hast thou so felt the reconciling glow ! 
 
 Or if thou hast, O tell me ! hast thou borne, 
 
 Insult unmerited, stripes undeserv'd ? 
 And didst thou both in meek submission mouru, 
 
 As if thou only hadst from duty swerv'd ?
 
 101 
 
 Thro' life the same, in sunshine and in storms, 
 At once his lord's protector and his guide, 
 
 Shapes to his wishes, to his wants conforms, 
 His slave, bis friend, bis pastime, and bis pride. 
 
 • * * 
 
 Lo ! while the master sleeps, he takes his rounds, 
 
 His master's happiness bis sole delight ; 
 A wakeful centinel, whose watch-bark sounds, 
 
 To awe the rude disturbers of the night. 
 
 » * * 
 
 But would'st thou see an instance yet more dear, 
 A touch more rare — thy dog may still afford, 
 
 The example high — go read it on the bier, 
 
 If chance some canine friend survives his lord. — 
 
 Awhile survives, his latest dues to pay, 
 Beyond the grave his gratitude to prove, 
 
 Moans out his life in slow but sure decay, 
 Martyr sublime, of friendship and of love. 
 
 ' From yon staked Bull.'] * It is a fact," says Daniel, 
 in his Rural Sports, a work of reputation, " that at a bull- 
 baiting in the north of England, a young man, more mer- 
 ciless than the brute he tormented, laid some trifling 
 wager, that he would at separate times cut off all the four 
 feet of bis dog, and that after every amputation it would
 
 102 
 
 attack the bull. The cruel experiment was tried, and 
 the dog continued to seize the bull as eagerly as before 
 he was mutilated. — A degrading instance which depicted 
 man as a fiend, inflicting the extreme of cruelty upon 
 an animal, whose courage the inteuseness of pain could 
 neither slacken nor subdue. 
 
 4 Tke parents love and fear. ~\ A butcher lately brought 
 a bitch with her puppies to a bull-baiting, and exclaimed, 
 " I will not say any thing about the goodness of this 
 breed ; you shall see." Immediately he let the bitch at 
 the bull, who pinned him, although she had now scarcely 
 a tooth in her head. He then cut her to pieces with a 
 hedge-bill, and she quitted her hold only with her breath. 
 There was instantly a great demand for the whelps, and 
 he sold them for five guineas a piece. This horrible fact 
 is confirmed by Bewick, and various testimonies no less 
 credible. To put an end to this savage custom of bull- 
 baiting at Wokingham, in Berkshire (where one George 
 Staverton, to his eternal disgrace, left property in 1661, 
 for the purchase of a bull, to be baited every St. Tho- 
 mas's day), on the 20th of December, 1801, a most im- 
 pressive and eloquent sermon was preached by Dr. Barry 
 of Reading. 
 
 6 Reclaim' d from happy liberty.] It should seem that 
 an instinctive love of freedom, and a wish to redeem
 
 103 
 
 others from captivity inspired this noble part of the quad- 
 ruped race. 
 
 It is well known that the wild horses of South America 
 are of Spanish origin, and entirely of the Andalusian breed. 
 They are now become so numerous as to live in herds, 
 some of which are said to consist of ten thousand. As 
 soon as they perceive domestic horses in the fields, they 
 gallop up to them, caress, and by a kind of grave and 
 prolonged neighing, invite them to run off. The domestic 
 horses are soon seduced to unite themselves to the inde- 
 pendent herd, and depart along with them. — Linnceus, 
 Buffon, Bingley. 
 
 This is still more strongly confirmed on the same his- 
 torical evidence by the latent desire of the unreclaimed 
 steeds to throw off the yoke, even after they have been 
 in some measure resigned to captivity. When the inha- 
 bitants wish to convert some of these wild horses into 
 domestic ones, which they find not very difficult to be 
 done, persons mounted on horseback attack a troop of 
 them ; and when they approach them, they throw ropes 
 with great care round their legs, which prevents them 
 from running away. When brought home, they are tied 
 with a halter to a stake or a tree, without food or drink 
 for two or three days. After this they are broke in the 
 same manner as the domestic horses ; they soon become 
 docile ; but, if not carefully watched, will again join their 
 wild friends.
 
 104 
 
 * Next view him on the ipot.~} We had every hope of 
 congratulating both the lower and higher world on 
 the removal of the public nuisance of the cattle market 
 from Smithfield to a more commodious spot, but are con- 
 cerned to state that salutary measure appears to be post- 
 poned, if not annihilated. Some excellent observations, 
 however, having been thrown out in one of the public 
 prints *, the author of this poem looks upon it as a duty he 
 owes, both to his subject and his fellow-citizens to offer 
 them to the reader's consideration : — 
 
 " The cruelties inflicted on thousands of animals, by 
 being cooped up in a space not one-sixth of the necessary 
 site, is a matter of serious moment to feeling hearts. The 
 value of the cattle sold at Smithfield exceeds 5,000,000/. 
 per annum. The present place, cut and intersected as it 
 is with loads, will not contain more than 2400 beasts at 
 a time, whereas this great metropolis demands 4000 to 
 be brought up at a time for its consumption. There is 
 an imperious necessity therefore for a removal. It is 
 besides a serious evil to ha«'e a beast market close to an 
 hospital, to which wounded and sick persons are to be 
 conveyed, frequently through droves of cattle, and in the 
 vicinity also of two great seminaries, where thoughtless 
 boys must be often in the way of infuriated auimals, 
 Smithfield being near their necessary thoroughfare. The 
 
 • Morn m; Chronicle.
 
 105 
 
 place designed for the new market * is liable to no such 
 objection. It is in the outskirts. It will be inclosed on 
 all sides ; and the beasts instead of having to traverse the 
 streets twice to and from the same place, will pass through 
 them but once to the different slaughtering-houses. 
 
 ' 77wu call'st him stubborn f] BlNGLEY,in his " Memoirs 
 of British Quadrupeds," which is a very valuable and in- 
 teresting extension of his " Animal Biography," a work of 
 distinguished merit, and deserved character, observes : — 
 This animal is doomed to a neglect, which the race by 
 no means deserves. It has become the slave and com- 
 panion only of the poor. Thus, condemned to the very 
 lowest servitude, it is not only treated with indignity, but 
 oftentimes experiences all the misery of harsh and ill* 
 usage. Naturally patient and persevering, it is loaded 
 with enormous burthens, or compelled to drag the hea- 
 viest weights ; and, in order to keep it in motion, its sides 
 or back are goaded by a sharp pointed iron prong. Under 
 such treatment, we cannot be surprised that its native 
 spirit is subdued ; and that, sometimes, it should show it- 
 self intractable or stubborn. Persons who are in habit 
 of seeing these animals treated with the kindness and at- 
 tention they deserve, know that they are naturally mild 
 and gentle, and that they undergo a reasonable share of 
 labour and fatigue, with cheerfulness and alacrity. 
 
 * Islington.
 
 106 
 
 * The Merciful whose Name.'] " If thou meetest thine 
 enemy's ox or ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring 
 it back to turn again. If thou see the ass of him that 
 hateih thee, lying under his burden, and wouldst forbear 
 to help him, thou shalt surely help with him." — Exodus, 
 chap, xxiii. 
 
 We are informed, moreover, that the mouth of Ba- 
 laam's ass was miraculously opened to upbraid the cruelty 
 of the rider, and his barbarous usage of a faithful old 
 servant, which had never stumbled or fell with him be- 
 fore — " Wherefore," says she, " hast thou smitten me 
 these three times? Am not I thine ass, upon which thou 
 hast ridden ever since I was thine, unto this day, was I 
 ever wont to do so to thee? And he said, Nay." And 
 when the angry prophet justified his severity to the poor 
 beast, the angel of the Lord pleaded for the ass, and 
 condemned the rider. " Wherefore," said he, " hast 
 thou smitten thine ass these three times? Unless she 
 had turned from me, surely I should have slain thee and 
 saved her alive." — Numbers, chap. xxii. 
 
 ' Nature's unnumber'd family combine. 
 
 10 But for these instruments of bounteous Heav'nJ] The 
 whole earth would be overwhelmed with carcases, and 
 stinking bodies, if some animals did not delight to feed 
 upon them. Therefore when an animal dies, bears, 
 wolves, foxes, ravens, &c. do not lose a moment till they
 
 107 
 
 have taken all away. But if a horse dies near the 
 public road, you will find him, after a few days, swoln, 
 burst, and at last rilled with innumerable grubs of carni- 
 vorous flies, by which he is entirely consumed, and re- 
 moved out of the way, that he may not become a nui- 
 sance to passengers by his poisonous stench. When the 
 carcases of fishes are driven upon the shore, the voracious 
 kinds, such as the thorn-back, the hound-fish, the conger 
 eel, &c. gather about and eat them. But because the 
 flux and reflux soon change the state of the sea, they 
 themselves are often detained in pits, and become a prey 
 to the wild beasts, that frequent the shores. Thus the 
 earth is not only kept clean from the putrefaction of car- 
 cases, but at the same time by the economy of nature, 
 the necessaries of life are provided for many animals. In 
 the like manner, many insects at once promote their own 
 good, and that of other animals. Thus gnats lay their 
 eggs in stagnant, putrid, and stinking waters, and the 
 grubs that arise from these eggs clear away all the putre- 
 faction. Stiliuigfleet's Tracts. 
 
 Respecting the sagacity of particular animals for gene- 
 ral good all naturalists agree, that so various is the appe- 
 tite of animals there is scarcely any plant, which is not 
 chosen by some, and left untouched by others. The 
 horse gives up ihe water-hemlock to the goat. The cow 
 gives up the long-leaved water-hemlock to the sheep. 
 The goat gives up the monk's-hood to the horse, &c. for
 
 108 
 
 that which certain animals grow fat upon, others abhor as 
 poison. Hence no plant is absolutely poisonous, but only 
 respectively. Thus the spurge, that is noxious to man, 
 is a most wholesome nourishment to the caterpillar. That 
 animals may not destroy themselves for want of knowing 
 this law, each of them is guarded by such a delicacy of 
 taste and smell, that they can easily distinguish what is 
 pernicious from what is wholesome ; and when it happens 
 that different animals live upon the same plants, still one 
 kind always leaves something for the other, as the months 
 of all are not equally adapted to lay hold of the gross ; 
 by which means there is sufficient food for all. To this 
 may be referred an economical experiment well known 
 to the Dutch, that when eight cows have been in a pas- 
 ture, and can no longer get nourishment, two horses will 
 do very well there for some days, and when nothing is 
 left for the horses, four sheep will live upon it. 
 
 Ignorant people wonder, not to say murmur, at the 
 wise disposition of the Creator, who has produced so 
 many noxious plants ; but without sufficient reason, for 
 no one plant in the world is universally poisonous, but all 
 things are good, as they came from the hands of the 
 Creator. Physicians often mention that this or that 
 plant is deadly, because its particles are of a nature apt 
 to wound the tihres of the body, or corrupt the juices. 
 But this is only respectively to the species of animals, the 
 sun-spurge, has a milky juice, which causes blotches in
 
 109 
 
 our skin, and harts our fibres, and therefore it is said 
 to be poisonous , yet the moth, almost entirely lives upon 
 this plant, and prefers it both for taste and nourishment 
 to all others, as it thrives best upon it. Thus one ani- 
 mal leaves that, which to itself is poisonous, to another 
 animal, which feeds upon it deliciously. 
 
 11 Creatures mostfear'd.] We find on the authority of 
 Linnaeus, and of the enlightened train mentioned in the 
 Amaenitates Academics?, that, in the grand police and 
 economy of nature, animals remove all impurities arising 
 from animal and vegetable putridity ; and lastly, multi- 
 ply and disseminate plants, and serve them in many other 
 respects. 
 
 The insects are the most numerous tribe of the ministers 
 of nature, the multitude of their species seems to vie 
 with that of plants. Some of these are always found ad- 
 hering to vegetables, and subsist upon them totally when 
 in the state of caterpillars; such are the papiliones', 
 chrysomelae 2 , cicadae l , and a long catalogue besides. It 
 is almost impossible to find a plant not exposed to the ra- 
 vages of some of these, yet they are all confined to their 
 distinct stations in the same manner as vegetables ; this is 
 proved by innumerable examples in the Pandora Insecto- 
 rum. Every one of these has the care of a single plant 
 
 » Butterfly. * Gold-chaflfcr. 3 Grasshopper.
 
 110 
 
 assigned to it, which when it cannot procure, there are a 
 few others which it preys upon by necessity, to preserve 
 life and perpetuate the species, till a new supply of its 
 more proper and natural food springs up. 
 
 Wherever any putrid matter is collected, certain insects 
 are gathered together by it, whose brood devour it, and 
 presently purify the place. Gnats drop their eggs over 
 impure and putrid water, the musca putris 4 in mire, the 
 musca domestica b in dunghills, and others in dead car- 
 cases. 
 
 Animals seem created to assist in effecting these three 
 purposes : — they assist in the generation of plants by crop- 
 ping them down, and preventing a sterility, which might 
 be the consequence of too much luxuriance ; they, like- 
 wise, admirably contribute to their dissemination, and 
 many of them dig up the earth for the reception of their 
 seeds. Thus hundreds and thousands of separate com- 
 missions are given to different animals, that the general 
 proportion of things should be kept up ; and nothing be 
 multiplied beyond it : every created thing has a superior 
 and a subordination appointed. 
 
 The bodies of dead fish in the. bottom of the water 
 are perforated by eels, and devoured by the myxina?, 
 besides crabs and some insects : so that here likewise we 
 see the greatest attention employed to preserve purity 
 as well as proportional number. 
 
 * B. 1T6. 17. 5 Hoose-fly.
 
 Ill 
 
 Fro?s remove all those superfluities which swarm upon 
 the surface of our waters and wells, as the duck-weed ; 
 and those small worms which change into gnats. 
 
 The Gralla? 6 perform their task, in lakes and pits, where 
 myriads of insects, ascarides, and worms, are continually 
 employed in removing all impurities. 
 
 It is the business of the Picae to clear the earth by 
 picking up the worms and insects ; the Buceros and Cor- 
 vus corax 7 devour carrion. 
 
 The Accipitres find their appointed food in dead 
 bodies. 
 
 The principal food of the Buteo 8 is the toad. 
 
 The Halietus ' scarcely touch any thing but dead car- 
 cases. 
 
 The owl destroys the superfluous bats, mice, and the 
 nocturnal mammalia, besides moths. 
 
 The Cete 10 , with the Phocae 11 and Lutrae ,2 , are the 
 rulers of the waters, and subsist by repressing the too 
 great abundance of their inhabitants. 
 
 The Pecora and Belluae ' 3 every year devour the herb* 
 that the face of the earth may be cleared for its annual 
 renovation. 
 
 The Glires M have it assigned to them in office to gnaw 
 away and consume all superfluous and dead substances. 
 
 « Order 4. 
 
 7 Raven. 
 
 8 Buzzard. 
 
 9 Oiprey. 
 
 ■° Order 7. 
 
 " Sea-calf. 
 
 11 Others. 
 
 "3 Order 5, and 6. 
 
 •4 Order 4.
 
 112 
 
 The Ferae " are employed in taking away dead car- 
 cases from the surface of the earth, and hence they are 
 assembled at places where they abound, but accompanied 
 by the falcon, the vulture, the owl and the crow, and 
 other birds destined to the same service ; being all drawn 
 together by the putrid scent of their prey. 
 
 Vegetables likewise, which are so many proofs of the 
 wisdom of the great Creator, are destined always to pre- 
 serve their number of species. 
 
 Vast or minute.] How finely is this illustrated in the 
 following impressive arguments, clothed in the attractive 
 garb of poetry. 
 
 *• How wond'rous is this scene ! where all is form'd 
 With number, weight, and measure ! all design'd 
 For some great end ! where not alone the plant 
 Of stately growth ; the herb of glorious hue, 
 Or food-full substance ; not the labouring steed, 
 The herd, and flock that feed us ; not the mine 
 That yields us stores for elegance and use ; 
 The sea that loads our table, and conveys 
 The wanderer man from clime to clime, with all 
 Those rolling spheres, that from on high shed down 
 Their kindly influence ; not these alone, 
 Which strike ev'n eyes incurious, but each moss, 
 
 »S Order 8.
 
 113 
 
 Each shell, each crawling insect holds a rank 
 Important in the plan of Him, who fram'd 
 This scale of beings; holds a rank, which lost 
 Wou'd break the chain, and leave behind a gap 
 Which nature's self would rue." — Stillingfleet. 
 
 11 'Tis true that noxious beings ojl annoy.} Let us not 
 imagine, when these rapacious animals sometimes do us 
 mischief, that the Creator planned the order of nature 
 according to our private principles of economy ; for the 
 Laplanders have one way of living ; the European hus- 
 bandman another ; the Hottentots and savages a third, 
 whereas the stupendous economy of the Deity is one 
 throughout the globe. [bid. 
 
 12 And chanticleer will spar."] The author has to ex- 
 press his gratification from the perusal of an Essay on 
 Humanity to Brutes*, by Mr. Young of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, and mentioned by Lord Erskine in bis 
 
 • Printed for Cadell and Davie*. To this Essay is prefixed an Ode 
 to Hnraanity, by tlie Rev. C. Hoyle, of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
 " But O for some benignant charm, 
 That might, in happy hour, 
 Subdue the tyrant pride of power, 
 
 The torturing hand of rage disarm, 
 
 And on each heart the precept biud 
 
 Of mercy to the brutal kind 1" 
 
 The whole ode breathes the generous ardour of this passage, and 
 combines the spirit of poetry with that of piety.
 
 114 
 
 " Speech" with justly merited distinction. It displays 
 the subject of the " Lower World " in a great many 
 interesting points of view ; and while the author of the 
 poem congratulates himself in perceiving he has thought 
 and felt with Mr. Young in many of the points discussed, 
 he regrets that the book came under his eye too late to 
 avail himself of its contents to strengthen some of his ar- 
 guments, except by enriching the Notes with the follow- 
 ing excellent observations on cock-fighting, and some other 
 valuable remarks, which will be found in their proper 
 places. 
 
 " Fighting of cocks is productive of more mischief than 
 most other cruel sports. In particular it is notorious as 
 a nursery for cheats and pick-pockets. In this feature, 
 and as it is ridiculous for exciting in the amateurs an heat 
 and eagerness utterly disproportioned to their object, it 
 has been admirably touched by the manners-painting 
 pencil of Hogarth *. • What aggravates the reproach 
 and disgrace upon Englishmen, are those species of fight- 
 ing which are called the Battle-royal, and the Welch- 
 
 * See bis " Cock-pit." Mr. Young will rejoice, as will all minds 
 consttucted like his, to know that the long-established receptacle of 
 this most cruel recreation, the Royal Cock~pit, in St. James's Park, is 
 at length abolished. It has been too long the resort of the wanton 
 or avaricious, and escape of the kind and liberal. The governors and 
 trustees of Christ's Hospital, (to whom the ground belongs) met on the 
 spot, the very day the lease expired : and as might be expected from 
 the patrons of so glorious an institution, gave directions for the imme- 
 diate erasement of the building.
 
 115 
 
 main, known no where in the world but there. These 
 are scenes so bloody as almost to be too shocking to re- 
 late ; and yet as many may not be acquainted with the 
 horrible nature of them, it may be proper for the excite- 
 ment of our aversion and detestation, to describe them 
 in a few words. In the former an unlimited number of 
 fowls are pitted ; and when tbey have slaughtered one 
 another for the diversion of the other-wise generous and 
 humane Englishman, the single surviving bird is to be 
 esteemed the victor, and carries away the prize. The 
 Welsh-main consists, we will suppose, of sixteen pair of 
 cocks ; of these, the sixteen conquerors are pitted a se- 
 cond time ; the eight conquerors of these are pitted a 
 third time ; the four conquerors a fourth time ; and 
 lastly, the two conquerors of these are pitted a fifth time ; 
 so that (incredible barbarity !) thirty-one cocks are sure 
 to be most inhumanly murdered for the sport and plea- 
 sure, the noise and nonsense, the profane cursing and 
 swearing, of those who have the effrontery to call them- 
 selves, with all these bloody doings, and with all this im- 
 piety about them, Christians ; nay, what with many is 
 a superior and distinct character, men of benevolence and 
 morality. But let the morality and benevolence of such 
 be appreciated from the following instance, recorded as 
 authentic in the obituary of the Gentleman's Magazine * : 
 
 * This is also to be fount) in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
 
 116 
 
 u Died, at T , John A , Esq. He was very fond 
 
 or' cock-fighting ; and had a favourite cock upon which 
 he had won many profitable matches. The last bet he 
 laid upon this cock, he lost ; which so enraged him, that 
 he had the bird tied to a spit, and roasted alive before a 
 large fire. The screams of the miserable animal were so 
 affecting, that some gentlemen who were present at- 
 tempted to interfere j which so enraged Mr. A , that 
 
 he seized a poker, and with the most furious vehemence 
 declared, that he would kill the first man who interposed ; 
 but, in the midst of his passionate asseverations, he fell 
 down dead upon the spot." 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 » Their deity below, fyc.~] Since the sheet in which this 
 passage appears was printed off, the author has met with 
 the following observations, not unfavourable to the idea. 
 
 " Though not endued with mental powers, equal to 
 those of man, they possess in some degree, every faculty 
 of the human mind ; sensation, memory, imagination ; 
 the principle of imitation ; curiosity, cunning, ingenuity, 
 gratitude, or respect for superiors, which is devotion : all 
 these are discoverable, in the brute creation : every spe-
 
 117 
 
 cies, too, lias a language, either of sounds, or gestures, 
 sufficient for the individuals to communicate their wants 
 to each other ; and some animals, understand in part, the 
 language of man. 
 
 Young animals examine all objects they meet with, 
 and in this investigation, they employ all their organs : 
 the first periods of their life, are dedicated to study. 
 
 Edinburgh Transactions. 
 
 2 Kindness can woo the Hon.] We are assured from 
 numberless authorities, that the anger of this animal is no- 
 ble ; that his courage is magnanimous, and his disposition 
 grateful. He has often been seen to despise contempti- 
 ble enemies, and pardon their insults when it was in his 
 power to have punished them. He has been known to 
 spare the lives of such creatures as were thrown to be 
 devoured by him, to live peaceably with them, to afford 
 them part of his subsistence, and sometimes even to 
 want food himself rather than deprive them of that life 
 which his generosity had spared. 
 
 3 Can make the elephant.] There is scarcely any animal 
 in the creation that has at different times occupied so 
 much the attention of mankind as the elephant. The 
 disposition of those animals is gentle, and their manners 
 social, for they are seldom seen wandering alone. A 
 variety of soothing and caressing arts are practised after
 
 118 
 
 being ensnared in the first instance to reconcile him to 
 servitude; sometimes the keeper threatens, and even 
 goads him with a long stick pointed with iron, but more 
 generally coaxes and flatters him, scratching his head and 
 trunk with long bamboo split at one end into many pieces 
 and driving away the flies from his sores and bruises. In 
 a few days he advances cautiously to his side, and strokes 
 and pats him with his hand, at the same time speaking to 
 him with a soothing voice, and after a little while the 
 beast begins to know his keeper and obey his commands. 
 By degrees the latter becomes familiar, and at length 
 mounts upon his back from one of the tame elephants ; 
 and from hence he gradually increases the intimacy as the 
 animal becomes more tame, till at last he is permitted to 
 seat himself on his neck, from which place he is after- 
 wards to regulate and direct all his motions. 
 
 4 Make the fell tigress.'] The tiger, if taken young, and 
 kindly treated, may for a short time, at least till his fero- 
 city comes with his age, be in some measure domesticated 
 and rendered mild and playful to his keepers. An in- 
 stance of which is thus recorded by Bingley : — f* A beau- 
 tiful young tiger brought from China, in the year 1790, 
 when only ten months old, in the Pitt East Indiaman, was 
 so far domesticated as to admit of every kind of famili- 
 arity from the people on board. It seemed to be quite 
 harmless, and was as playful as a kitten. It frequently
 
 119 
 
 slept with the sailors in their hammocks ; and would 
 suffer two or three of them to repose their heads on its 
 back, as upon a pillow, while it lay upon the deck. In 
 return for this indulgence, it would, however, now and 
 then, steal their meat ; having one day stolen a piece of 
 beef from the carpenter, he followed the animal, took the 
 meat from its mouth, and beat it severely for the theft, 
 which punishment it suffered with all the patience of a dog." 
 
 6 The wandering Arab.'] A beautiful instance of the 
 good effect of kind usage may be drawn from the Ara- 
 bian. 
 
 There cannot be a doubt but that the constant inter- 
 course between the Arabs and their horses, says Bingley, 
 arising from living in the same tent with their owner and 
 his family, creates a familiarity that could not otherwise 
 be effected, and a tractability that can proceed only from 
 the kindest usage. And so obedient are they to the will of 
 the rider, as to be directed in their course merely by the 
 motion of a slender switch. The Arab, his wife, and chil- 
 dren, always lie in the same apartment with the mare and 
 foal, who instead of injuring, suffer the children to rest on 
 their bodies and necks without in the least incommoding 
 them. 
 
 7 And fancied wrongs.] Nothing more common than 
 to hear attendants or relations of children, impute to
 
 120 
 
 these, or other parts of furniture, or even to the floor it- 
 self, the injury or pain which an infant receives from a 
 fall or other accident. 
 
 8 There crush'd the egg.~] The Author of the Essay on 
 '' Humanity to Animals" thinks, and humanity itself must 
 have suggested the thought, " that by proper manage- 
 ment they might be brought to take more pleasure in 
 knowing of a number of nests, in going to visit them at 
 intervals, and in observing the progress from the first 
 foundation of the nest to the flight of its inhabitants, than 
 in getting into their possession either the eggs or the 
 young ones." He adds, that he has known an instance 
 of a family of children standing single in this respect, 
 among a whole village. Nor are the natural and social 
 affections of the scaly race less powerful than those of the 
 feathered tribe ; a most interesting example of which is 
 given of the whale and round-tailed Manati, on the com- 
 bined authority of Linnasus, Pennant, Grieve, Buffon, and 
 the author of " Animal Biography." The Whale-tailed Ma~ 
 nati live entirely in the water, and in other respects they 
 so nearly approach the whale tribe, as scarcely to deserve 
 the name of quadrupeds. What are denominated feet 
 are little more than pectoral fins, which serve only for 
 swimming. In their manners they are peaceable and 
 harmless, and beat the strongest attachment to each other. 
 When one is hooked, the whole herd will attempt its rescue;
 
 121 
 
 some will strive to overset the boat, by going beneath it; 
 others will fling themselves on the rope of the hook, and 
 press it down in order to break it ; and others, again, will 
 make the utmost efforts to wrench the instrument out of 
 the body of their wounded companion. In their conjugal 
 affection, if such it may be termed, they are most exem- 
 plary. A male, after having used all his endeavours to 
 release his mate which had been struck, pursued her to the 
 very edge of the water ; and no blows that were given 
 could force him away. As long as the deceased female 
 continued in the water, he persisted in his attendance, 
 and even for three days, after she wus drawn on shore, cut 
 up and carried away, he was observed to remain in expec- 
 tation of her return. 
 
 The round tailed Manati are found in the African rivers, 
 from Senegal to the Cape, and in abundance on some of 
 the eastern coasts of South America. In the river of 
 Amazons they are often seen nearly a thousand leagues 
 from its mouth. The affection of the parent for her young 
 is as conspicuous in this as in the last species. If a young 
 one is with its mother when she is struck by a fisherman, 
 careless of her own sufferings, she affectionately takes it, 
 if not too large, under her fins or feet to protect it from her 
 own fate. 
 
 10 Till beardless tyrants.] The golden verses of Py- 
 thagoras are not of more sterling value than the following
 
 122 
 
 sentiments. They might be formed into golden rules, 
 and preserved among the archives of every father of a 
 family, and bequeathed with pious care to posterity ! 
 
 " The cruelties which we daily deplore, in children and 
 in youth," says Lord Erskine, " arise from defect in edu- 
 cation, and that defect in education from the very defect 
 in the law, which I ask your lordships to remedy. From 
 the moral sense of the parent re-animated, or rather in 
 this branch created by the law, the next generation will 
 feel, in the first dawn of their ideas, the august relation 
 they stand in to the Lower World, and the trust 
 
 WHICH THEIR STATION IN THE UNIVERSE IMPOSES ON 
 
 them. This extension of benevolence to objects be- 
 neath us, become habitual by a sense of duty inculcated 
 by law, will reflect back upon our sympathies to one ano- 
 ther, so that I may venture to say firmly, that this bill, 
 may not only be an honour to the country, but an aera in 
 the history of the world." 
 
 11 And you, ye fathers.'] In the prints of the inimitable 
 Hogarth, the progress of cruelty is traced from the tor- 
 menting of cats, dogs, and other harmless animals, through 
 all its varieties, till the perpetrator arrives at the horrid 
 pitch of murdering a fellow creature. A youth may 
 think his station in life, and the soft refinements of a su- 
 perior education will exempt him from the like atrocious 
 acts ; but no one knows to what a point the indulgence
 
 123 
 
 of bad habits will lead : and as an affecting instance of 
 gradual depravity, it has been recorded, that a boy, who, 
 in a fit of ill humour, squeezed to death a harmless spar- 
 row, committed, when a man, in a paroxysm of rage, the 
 like enormity on one of his own children. 
 
 In confirmation of this, Mr. Young justly observes: 
 " A child makes his first essays of cruelty upon the weak- 
 est and most defenceless parts of the animal creation : 
 from thence he proceeds, as his strength and powers of 
 cruelty increase, to attack the stronger and more formi- 
 dable : last of all, after having been thus trained in a re- 
 gular exercise of savageness, he falls upon his own species. 
 When the boy has been accustomed to contemplate with 
 pleasure the cries and writhings of tortured animals, what 
 better can be expected of the man, than that he should 
 feel an enjoyment in the sufferings of human beings? 
 Cruelty, like all other vices, is progressive and ingenious ; 
 it calls continually for stronger gratifications, and is driven 
 upon refined methods of satisfying its cravings." 
 
 It is not in language to close the foregoing remarks, 
 better than by adding the appeals of the very Muse of 
 Loving-Kindness and Mercy, the tender Cowper. 
 " Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons 
 To love it too! The spring time of our years 
 Too soon dishonour'd and defil'd, in most, 
 By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand 
 To check them ! But alas ! none sooner shoots,
 
 124 
 
 If unrestrain'd, into luxuriant growth, 
 Than cruelty, more devilish of them all." 
 
 12 Would all be theirs.'] Among the striking instances 
 of the force of affection in birds, the following anecdote, 
 related by the Rev. Mr. White, in his Natural History of 
 Selborne, and quoted by Mr. Young is truly astonishing : 
 
 " The fly catcher of the Zoology (thestoparola of Ray) 
 builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of 
 my house. A pair of these little birds had one year in- 
 advertently p'aced their nest on a naked bough, perhaps 
 in a shady time, not beingawaie of theinconvenience that 
 followed. But an hot sunny season coming on before the 
 brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became 
 insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the 
 tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, 
 and prompted the parent-birds to hover over the nest all 
 the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths 
 gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their 
 suffering offspring." , 
 
 Shall I not be forgiven for inserting in this place, the 
 following most affecting instance of maternal affection, 
 even in the bear ! sanctioned by the benevolent Dr. 
 Percival, and to be found in the Journal of a Voyage for 
 making Discoveries towards the North Pole : — 
 
 " Early in the morning, the man at the mast head of 
 the Carcase gave notice that three bears were making
 
 125 
 
 their way very fast over the ice, and that they were di- 
 recting their course towards the ship. They had, with- 
 out question, been invited by the scent of the blubber of 
 a sea-horse, killed a few days before, which the men had 
 set on fire, and which was burning on the ice at the time 
 of their approach. They proved to be a she bear, and 
 her two cubs ; but the cubs were nearly as large as the 
 dam. They ran eagerly to the fire, and drew out from 
 the flames part of the flesh of the sea-horse that remained 
 unconsumed, and ate it voraciously. The crew from the 
 ship threw great lumps of the flesh of the sea-horse, which 
 they had still left, upon the ice, which the old bear fetched 
 away singly, laid every lump before her cubs as she brought 
 it, and dividing it, gave each a share, reserving but a 
 small portion to herself. As she was fetching away the 
 last piece, they levelled their muskets at the cubs, and 
 shot them both dead ; and in her retreat they wounded 
 the dam, but not mortally. 
 
 • It would have drawn tears of pity from any but 
 the unfeeling to have marked the affectionate concern 
 expressed by this poor beast, in the last moments of her 
 expiring young. Though she was sorely wounded, and 
 could but just crawl to the place where they lay, she 
 carried the lump of flesh she had fetched away, as she had 
 done others before, tore it in pieces, and laid it down be- 
 fore them ; and when she saw they refused to eat, she 
 laid her paws first upon one, and then upon the other,
 
 1Q6 
 
 and endeavoured to raise them up : all this while it was 
 pitiful to hear her moan. When she found she could not 
 stir them, she went off, and when she had gotten at some 
 distance, looked back and moaned ; and that not availing 
 her to entice them away, she returned, and smelling round 
 them, began to lick their wounds. She went off a second 
 time, as before ; and having crawled a few paces, looked 
 again behind her, and for some time stood moaning. But 
 still her cubs not rising to follow her, she returned to 
 them again, and with signs of inexpressible fondness, went 
 round one and round the other, pawing them and moan- 
 ing. Finding at last that they were cold and lifeless, she 
 raised her head towards the ship, and growled a curse 
 upop the murderers, which they returned with a volley 
 of musket-balls. She fell between her cubs, and died, 
 licking their wounds." 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 1 In slaughter prisons pent.] "Another abuse," says Lord 
 Erskine, u exists, not less frequent and much more shock- 
 ing, because committed under the deliberate calculation 
 of intolerable avarice. I allude to the practice of buying 
 np horses when past their strength, from old age or dis- 
 ease, upon the computation (I mean to speak literally) of 
 how many days torture and oppression they are capable
 
 127 
 
 of living under, so as to return a profit with the addition 
 of the flesh and skin, when brought to one of the numerous 
 houses appropriated for the slaughter of horses. 
 
 • This horrid abuse, which appears at first view to be 
 incapable of aggravation, is nevertheless most shockingly 
 aggravated when the period arrives at which one would 
 think cruelty must necessarily cease, when exhausted 
 nature is ready to bestow the deliverance of death. But 
 even then, a new and most atrocious system of torture 
 commences, of which, I could myself be a witness in your 
 committee, as it was proved to my own perfect satisfac- 
 tion, and that of my friend Mr. Jekyll, upon the informa- 
 tion of a worthy magistrate, who called our attention to 
 the abuse." 
 
 The following authenticated letter was then adduced 
 in proof, and read by the noble mover of the bill. 
 
 " A very general practice of buying up horses still 
 alive, but not capable of being even further abused by 
 any kind of labour. These horses, it appeared, were 
 carried in great numbers to slaughter-houses, but not 
 killed at once for their flesh and skins, but left without 
 sustenance, and literally starved to death, that the market 
 might be gradually fed. The poor animals in the mean 
 time frequently gnawing one another's manes in the agonies 
 of hunger •„■ 
 
 • It ii well known that the Mosaic law to guard against tortures 
 being inflicted on animals, which were slaughtered for sustenance, or-
 
 128 
 
 1 Bless'd be the pitying.'] A society has been lately 
 formed at Liverpool, for preventing wanton cruelty to 
 brute animals. At their first general meeting, they ap- 
 pointed a committee to prepare an account of the objects 
 of the society, and of the modes which they might deem 
 best fitted to secure the accomplishment of those objects ; 
 and this committee accordingly presented a report, of 
 which the following is the substance : " The great object 
 of the society is to meliorate the state of brute animals, 
 by preventing those sufferings which they unnecessarily 
 experience at the hand of man. Your Committee judge 
 that you may aim to accomplish this object in two ways : 
 1. By the exercise of coercion with respect to those who 
 are guilty of cruelty to brute animals; 2. By the diffusion 
 of such principles and feelings as shall be incompatible 
 with the existence of that spirit, whence cruelty to ani- 
 mals originates. The coercion exercised may be of three 
 sorts ; that of the laws, that of shame, and that of indi- 
 vidual discountenance. For one of the species of cruelty 
 towards brute animals existing in this town, (we mean 
 the overloading of carter's horses) the law has provided 
 a remedy. All that your Committee, therefore, judge to 
 be needful for the removal of this evil, is the due enforce- 
 ment of the law. The sense of shame may, they think, 
 
 dainrd tbem to die by a highly polished and pointed instrument, and at 
 a tingle operation ; if the bone was pierced, or the beast mangled it was 
 deeme.l unclean and burnt.
 
 129 
 
 be turned to good account in the service of this society. 
 A man may be perfectly indifferent to the sufferings of 
 brute animals, who may, nevertheless, dread that the 
 public should talk of his cruelty. Your Committee pro- 
 pose, therefore, that a committee be appointed for the 
 purpose of enquiring into reported cases of cruelty, and 
 of publishing the accounts of them (when the facts are 
 well established) in the papers of the day. 
 
 2. The abuses which have appeared to your Committee 
 to be most prevalent in this town, and to call for the 
 most immediate attention, and to which they would apply 
 some of the above-stated principles of redress, are those 
 practised by carters and by butchers. Concerning car- 
 ters, they have told yon that they mean, at the close of 
 this report, to submit to you a resolution. The cruelties 
 of butchers are displayed, chiefly, when they are driving 
 their beasts into or through the town. One of your Com- 
 mittee saw a sheep with one of its horns torn out of the 
 socket, stated by the popnlace to have been beaten or 
 wrested out by the driver. The practice of cutting * the 
 heel-tendons of sheep before they enter the town, in order 
 that the drivers may have less trouble with them in passing 
 through the streets (a practice the alledged necessity for 
 which would be removed by the employing a larger num- 
 ber of drivers) is, your Committe have reason to believe, 
 
 * This barbarous expedient is mentioned also in the Appendix at 
 the end of the poem.
 
 ISO 
 
 by no means uncommon. Such things call for the marked 
 animadversion of those who are desirous to lessen the 
 sufferings of brute animals ; and in the present uncer- 
 tainty of the disposition of the law, as to such practices, 
 your Committee do strongly recommend it to the indivi- 
 duals of this society, to show their disapprobation of those 
 who perpetrate, or authorise them, by withholding from 
 them their support, in the way of trade. 
 
 3. The duty tojbe tender to the inferior creatures, they 
 hold to be obligatory on men of every rank ; and a rich 
 man, who wantonly abuses his power over a brute animal, 
 ought, they conceive, the more especially to be an ob- 
 ject of censure, because his example may operate the more 
 largely as a supposed warrant. In your individual capa- 
 cities, they would recommend to you, that you should 
 expel the spirit of cruelty from your own houses, that you 
 should especially allow none of those practices to exist 
 within the range of your influence, by which brute animals 
 are made to suffer pain, either for the mere amusement 
 of men, or for the qualification of a pampered luxury. 
 Monthly Magazine, for April 1810. 
 
 1 The mangling whip.] A few months ago, the follow- 
 ing unparalleled instance of cruelty occurred at North 
 Shields : — A horse, drawing a heavily loaded cart up Bed- 
 ford-street, being unable to reach the summit of the 
 hill, the driver, assisted by a joiner, beat the animal most
 
 131 
 
 unmercifully, te no purpose; at length the latter sug- 
 gested the horrid scheme of setting fire to a quantity 
 of shavings under the horse's belly, which was actually 
 adopted, without any apparent remorse. The poor ani- 
 mal made every exertion to remove the vehicle, but in 
 vain ; and, after the fire had spent its fury, the two mon- 
 sters were under the necessity of clapping their should- 
 ers to the cart, in aid of that brute they had so cruelly 
 tormented. 
 
 4 The little span by craving man.'] Mr. Pope, in one 
 of the most beautiful argumentative passages of his 
 " Essay on Man," says, 
 
 " Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, 
 And, till he ends the being, makes it bless'd." 
 This can only be taken relatively ; ~pre-supposing the 
 " being " appertains to a good master : in the hands of a 
 bad one, the life of the "being " is the very reverse of 
 being • bless'd." 
 
 ' IVhile charities like these.] A valuable book * of in- 
 formation and reference on the subject of our institu- 
 tions of national benevolence, is recently published, in 
 which the widely diffused bounties, that in other works 
 are only noticed or detailed separately, are here collect- 
 ed, like scattered rays of the sun, concentrated into one 
 
 * Pietai Londinensii. By A. Highmore, esq.
 
 132 
 
 splendid focus. The humane reader will require no apo- 
 logy for closing the preceding poem, with a passage from 
 the above-mentioned work, so honourable to the higher f 
 and holding out so cheering and well-founded a hope, 
 that " the private benevolences of the rich and power- 
 ful are, in England, countless as the sand ; an attempt to 
 enumerate the gifts which every family, and every indi- 
 vidual of it bestow, would be vain. It is alike imprac- 
 ticable to tell the various channels in which the stream of 
 benevolence flows among equals : all these the veil of 
 humility and charity conceals; and if they are ever 
 known, it is by their effects. It is thus that the spirit to 
 think, and to do what is right, is abroad amongst us, 
 and has persuaded our hearts that we are entrusted with 
 each other's welfare." 
 
 " But the benevolence which is public in England, is 
 seen every where. The legislative and parochial taxa- 
 tion for the poor is estimated at an annual amount of 
 several millions ; in addition to which, no part of the 
 army, or of the navy, the church, for any other esta- 
 blishment ; not the smallest congregations for worship 
 among the numerous denominations of Christians, or of 
 Jews ; not the smallest district, not a hamlet, or a vil- 
 lage, unknown to the passing traveller, and too insig- 
 nificant to find a place on the map ; not a city or town, 
 parish or ward, throughout the united kingdom , not a 
 manufacture of the least extent ; not a corporate asso-
 
 133 
 
 ciation, or company for trade, agriculture, science, edu- 
 cation, or medicine; not a club for the enjoyment of 
 festivity, for the pleasures of the chace, or for the indul- 
 gence even of luxury, in her various folds ; not even a 
 theatre will be found without their respective institutions 
 of charity to which a willing and prompt subscription 
 flows almost without solicitation ; and in all which, both 
 the extent of opulence and splendour, and the parsimo- 
 nious distributions of the scantiest means, alike afford for 
 the necessitious a proportional tythe, and far more than 
 a tythe of all they possess. Thus every individual in 
 England becomes a benefactor to himself." 
 
 " Whosoever will take the trouble to turn out of the 
 high road, and visit but a few of the habitations of want 
 and infirmity, which he is accustomed to relieve by his 
 voluntary subscription to any of these charitable insti- 
 tutions, he will find his benevolent design amply justi- 
 fied, and see the necessity of his work ; and while he 
 seeks to hide an involuntary tear, which springs at the 
 waitings of sorrow, or the praises of gratitude, he will, 
 perhaps, as he walks away, cherish the feelings they 
 have inspired."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 1 he Author felt it incumbent upon him to gain informa- 
 tion on this interesting subject by every mean within his 
 reach. He is indebted to an ingenious and investigating 
 friend, several of whose compositions are before an 
 approving Public, for the following references to the 
 " Monthly Review," in ihe progress of their official re- 
 ports. The series will probably furnish those who may be 
 in possession of the Journal above mentioned, with what 
 has been advanced, in point of argument towards justify- 
 ing the ways of man to brute, by a succession of writers, 
 with remarks of the Critic upon their respective dissensi- 
 ons of the question. t 
 
 Animals, apology for torturing in experiments, i. 375. 
 
 inquiry into the right of mankind to the use of 
 
 them, xiii. 16.'. 
 
 cruelly treated by mankind, xxxii. 79. 
 
 ■ cruel experiments on, xxxix. h73. ' 
 
 unjustifiable cruelty of torturing in anatomi- 
 
 cal experiments, xliii. 213.
 
 1.36 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 Animals, mercy and tenderness to, recommended from 
 the Pulpit, xlvii. 291. 
 
 their death from mephitic exhalations, lvii. 
 
 484 ; and particularly from the Grotto de Cane, 
 lvii. 507. — The half killing Dogs for amusement 
 of visitors, is a remarkable circumstance in the 
 history of man's cruelty to the u lower world," 
 and should be noted by the Author. 
 
 cruel treatment of, censured, lxxix. 315. 
 
 Brutes, on clemency to, ibid. xxiv. 314 ; and on a lec- 
 ture proposed to inforce the obligation of cle- 
 mency to. 
 
 their existence in a future state maintained, 
 
 xxxviii. 129. " I know not," observes my friend, 
 " the arguments the writer uses to support this. 
 If he is successful, man has a dreadful account 
 to settle." 
 
 on the reason of, lx. 58. 
 
 never mistake their natural fitnesses, and parti- 
 cularly Dogs, xii. 358. 
 
 whether to be considered as machines, lxxiv. 498. 
 
 Cruelty of man to inferior animals, striking picture of, 
 lxvii. 83. 
 
 Dog, instance of one that was taught to speak, ix. 370. 
 
 funeral of one described, xi. 498. 
 
 English, a considerable article in the ancient com- 
 merce of this country, xxix. 509.
 
 APPENDIX. 137 
 
 Dog, cruelly used in the business of hunting, lxv. 217. 
 
 remarkable story of, lxvii. 18. 
 
 Horse, respect due from man to, xxxi. 189. 
 censure of a flagitious horse-race, ibid. 
 
 Why in his way-worn heel, that bleeding gash * ? — The 
 answer to this question is furnished by the friend who 
 
 supplied the preceding references : B Cutting the 
 
 tendons of the hinder legs of cattle, is certainly em- 
 ployed to obstruct their natural means of escaping from 
 the torturer. The worthy fraternity of bullock-drivers, 
 in the lowest cant of their avocation, denominate it 
 letting-down ; technically houghing, pronounced hock- 
 ing — to retard action as well as to stimulate exertion." 
 
 In regard to these experiments it cannot be doubted 
 that all just thinking and just feeling men will support 
 the opinion expressed by Mr. Yoving, whose book having 
 appeared so long since as the year 1798, must have come 
 under the inspection of the " Monthly Reviewers," and, 
 perhaps, the work here referred to may belong to one or 
 both of these very articles. It, at any rate, proposes a 
 moral and medical reform of this practice in the follow- 
 ing indisputable observations :— " I will not venture to 
 
 • Page 35 of the Poem.
 
 138 APPENDIX. 
 
 condemn any experiment, although it may give great 
 pain to the animal upon which it is made, if it has lor 
 its object the leading to such skill as may prevent or 
 remove far greater pain in other animals, or in man. I 
 think also that whenever a truth in Natural Philosophy 
 has been once sufficiently established by experiments, no 
 Experiment of the same sort, or new one tending only to 
 the same conclusion, ought to be made, unless it can be 
 done without cruelty to animals. Why, for instance, 
 might not students in Natural Philosophy begin now, 
 after innumerable proofs by experiment, and upon the 
 testimony of so many authors of undisputed authority, to 
 believe that fishes cannot live in water without air, 
 although they did not actually see them gasping in Ex- 
 hausted Receivers?" — He adds, u I should find consider- 
 able difficulty in attempting to fix upon any particular in- 
 stances of cruelty in experiments relating to Anatomy, 
 because the plea of utility and necessity would be always 
 ready at hand to oppose to my objection. — But, surely, 
 when one Anatomist*, affecting to speak in a light and 
 pleasant manner of the patience displayed by an hedge- 
 hog that was dissected alive, tells us, that it suffered its 
 feet to he nailed down to the table, and its entrails to be 
 cut into pieces, without a single groan, bearing every 
 stroke of the operator's knife with a more than Spartan 
 
 • Vide Pennant's British Zoology. Article Hedge-IIog.
 
 APPENDIX. 139 
 
 fortitude , and when another * professes himself to have 
 been amused with the noise of a grasshopper, excited Oy 
 tortures — when, in the descriptions of experiments, we 
 meet with expressions of the above nature, we have good 
 reason to suspect that there was some cruelty in the ex- 
 periments themselves." 
 
 There are many cruelties not enumerated in the Poem, 
 or the Notes, of which children are guilty ; and to the 
 committing of which they are not seduced by equal 
 temptation with that of bird-nesting — the various modes 
 of torturing toads and frogs ; the spinning of the cock- 
 chaffers, the pleasure of which consists in their thrusting 
 a pin through the body of the unfortunate insect, to 
 which they affix a string, holding the other end of it in 
 their hands : the misery and torture that the poor ani- 
 mal is consequently labouring under, induces it to fly 
 round in an agonized manner. The string confining his 
 flight, generally forms a circle, in the sight of tiiis, and 
 in the buzzing noise his struggling wings make in this cir- 
 cular round of torture, is all the diversion. 
 
 Sparman, in his " Voyages," reports, the good people 
 of Sweden believe three sins will be forgiven a man if he 
 
 • Vide Phil. Trans, for 179-J. Part I. Article 4.— ind alio tbe 
 British Critic, for Sept. Ifjfi.
 
 140 APPENDIX. 
 
 replace on its feet a cockchafer, which has happened to 
 fall upon its back, as it cannot, without great difficulty, 
 turn of itself. Baiting of badgers, hedgehogs, and hunt- 
 ing of squirrels, are popular cruelties, winked, if not 
 smiled at, in children. 
 
 Bingley observes, in regard to the squirrels, that the 
 activity of these animals render it a very difficult task 
 to take full grown ones alive ; yet school-boys sometimes 
 contrive to do this by going in great numbers into the 
 woods, and pursuing the animals with violent noises. On 
 such occasions their recollection forsakes them, and they 
 often fall to the ground from terror and alarm. 
 
 Amongst the unnecessary cruelties of " children of a 
 larger growth," docking, nicking, and cropping of horses, 
 are to be enumerated. 
 
 Heavy by Nature, sullen, slow and grave. — Dancing bears*. 
 The proprietors and leaders of bears confess, that those 
 animals are first taught to dance by placing them upon 
 an heated floor, and playing some tune to them in the 
 mean time. It is justly observed, however, that magis- 
 trates have the power to prevent persons from travelling 
 about the country with shows of the above description ; 
 and by a proper exertion of it they would do much good, 
 besides cutting off one source of cruelty to animals. 
 * See Book 2. line 12.
 
 ■ .APPENDIX. 141 
 
 The Appendix affords the Author an opportunity to 
 notice a poetical effusion just brought to him by a 
 friend, consisting only of half a sheet, on this interest- 
 ing subject, under the title of " Mercy." It was printed 
 at Liverpool, but without any publisher's name : from 
 which circumstance it is to be presumed that it was 
 limited to private circulation. Be that as it may, it is 
 the offering of some rightly instructed mind, and pro- 
 bably of some youthful Muse, whose sentiments are per- 
 fectly in unison with those of the author of the lower 
 world : especially in hoping ardently that * " the Genius 
 of Britain cannot behold with insensibility, Qreatness, Wis- 
 dom, and Virtue, struggling against Ignorance, Prejudice, 
 and Cruelty, to rescue from oppression an innocent and 
 unjustly despised part of the creation t." And as fer- 
 vently wishing, that the noble-minded man +, who comes 
 forward with a Bill, 
 
 " To§ aid the persecuted rise, 
 And who would lawless cruelty chastise, 
 May still proceed ; till with heroic blow, 
 He lays the hydra-headed monster low r* 
 
 The Anthor cannot more impressively, perhaps, in the 
 whole round of language, sum up the whole of the rea- 
 
 • Advertisement prefixed. i Page 13 of the Poem. 
 
 t LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 $ The author has been informed, that Lord Milford and Sir Charles 
 Bnnbury zealously attempted, many years ago, to bring in a Bill similar 
 in some respects to the present, on accumulated experience of its 
 ficrtssity.
 
 148 APPENDIX. 
 
 soilings and feelings upon this subject, than by the follow- 
 ing sentiments, derived partly from the highest human, 
 and partly from the highest divine authority. 
 
 A righteous man is merciful uuto his beast. 
 
 Proverbs. 
 BLESSED are the merciful ; for they shall obtain MERCY. 
 
 St. Matthew, v. 7. 
 " The poorest beetle that we tread upon, 
 In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great 
 At when a giant dies." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Whittiugbam and Rowland, Printers, V 
 tioswell Street, London.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Argument, Book I. line 7, read embraces/or embrace. 
 
 Page 2 line 7, for or read nor. 
 
 7 ...... 7, for monarch read monarch. 
 
 10 7, for innocence read innocence. 
 
 13 11, dele comma after rekindled. 
 
 18 4, good, should be between iarerted 
 
 commas. 
 
 15, comma after lair. 
 
 26 last for RC/1E read RACE. 
 
 27 7, dele apostrophe in hast. 
 
 28 18, dele comma after servant. 
 
 40 3, after Oh add ! 
 
 ...... 56 11, for forsend read forefend. 
 
 64 last line, should be as follows : 
 
 Of all that swim the deep or forest range. 
 The figure of reference on Gifford, page 12, last line but 
 
 one, being omitted, the appropriate Note will be 
 
 found page 93—* And Gifford thou—
 
 »
 
 In the Press, and speedily will be published, 
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEP$ PLACKET. 
 
 SECOND EDITION *, 
 
 ENLARGED. 
 
 Wffl AN ENGRAVING OF THE AUTHOR BY COOK, 
 FROM A PORTRAIT BY MASQUERIER. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE, 
 
 AND SOME 
 
 INTROD UCTOR Y OBSER VA TIONS, 
 
 BT 
 
 MR. PRATT. 
 
 " Oft before his infant eyes would run 
 Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray 
 With orient hues, unborrowed of the son." 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 • The first having been dispoied of in private patronage.
 
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