sued. Nor shall I say with Monsieur Fleury, that this sport is a remain of the Gothic barbarity; but I must animadvert upon a certain custom yet in use with us, and barbarous enough to be derived from the Goths, or even the Scythians; I mean that savage compliment our huntsmen pass upon Ladies of quality, who are present at the death of a Stag, when they put the knife in their hands to cut the throat of a helpless, trembling, and weeping creature. Questuque cruentus Atque Imploranti similis. But if our sports are destructive, our gluttony is more so, and in a more inhuman manner. Lobsters roasted alive, Pigs whipped to death, Fowls sewed up, are testimonies of our outrageous luxury. Those, who (as Seneca expresses it) divide their lives betwixt an anxious conscience, and a nauseated stomach, have a just reward" of their gluttony in the diseases it brings with it: for human savages, like other wild beasts, find snares and poison in the provisions of life, and are allured by their appetite to their destruction. I know nothing more shocking, or horrid, than the prospect of one of their kitchens covered with blood, and filled with the cries of creatures expiring in tortures. It gives one an image of a Giant's den in a romance bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were slain by his cruelty. • He used the very same expression on the same subject in his Essay on Man. The excellent Plutarch (who has more strokes of good-nature in his writings than I remember in any author) cites a saying of Cato to this effect: "That 'tis no easy task to preach to the belly which has no ears. Yet if (says he) we are ashamed to be so out of fashion as not to offend, let us at least offend with some discretion and measure. If we kill an animal for our provision, let us do it with the meltings of compassion, and without tormenting it. Let us consider, that 'tis in its own nature cruelty to put a living creature to death; we at least destroy a soul that has sense and perception." In the life of Cato the Censor, he takes occasion from the severe disposition of that man to discourse in this manner: "It ought to be esteemed a happiness to mankind, that our humanity has a wider sphere to exert itself in, than bare justice. It is no more than the obligation of our very birth to practise equity to our own kind; but humanity may be extended through the whole order of creatures, even to the meanest such actions of charity are the overflowings of a mild good-nature on all below us. It is certainly the part of a well-natured man to take care of his horses and dogs, not only in expectation of their labour while they are foals and whelps, but This is a just character of Plutarch, whose Lives are well known; but whose Morals are not read and attended to so much as they deserve, being some of the most valuable remains of all antiquity. Good editions of them have long been wanted; but we hope the elegant one now publishing at Oxford will awaken the attention of many readers. 2 B 2 even when their old age has made them incapable of service." History tells us of a wise and polite nation, that rejected a person of the first quality, who stood for a judiciary office, only because he had been observed in his youth to take pleasure in tearing and murdering of birds. And of another, that expelled a man out of the senate for dashing a bird against the ground which had taken shelter in his bosom. Every one knows how remarkable the Turks are for their humanity in this kind. I remember an Arabian author, who has written a treatise to shew, how far a man, supposed to have subsisted in a desert island, without any instruction, or so much as the sight of any other man, may, by the pure light of nature, attain the knowledge of philosophy and virtue. One of the first things he makes him observe is, that universal benevolence of nature in the protection and preservation of its creatures. In imitation of which, the first act of virtue he thinks his self-taught philosopher would of course fall into is, to relieve and assist all the animals about him in their wants and distresses. Ovid has some very tender and pathetic lines applicable to this occasion : Quid meruistis, oves, placidum pecus, inque tegendos Quam male consuescit, quam se parat ille cruori Perhaps that voice or cry so nearly resembling the human, with which Providence has endued so many different animals, might purposely be given them to move our pity, and prevent those cruelties we are too apt to inflict on our fellow-creatures. There is a passage in the book of Jonas, when God declares his unwillingness to destroy Nineveh, where, methinks, that compassion of the Creator, which extends to the meanest rank of his creatures, is expressed with wonderful tenderness-" Should I not spare Nineveh, the great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons-and also much cattle?" 'Imitated by a poet whose benevolence was equal to his genius: - The beast of prey, Blood-stain'd deserves to bleed; but you, ye flocks, I wonder the tender Thomson omitted, Immotas mugitibus aures; et vagitus which Dryden charmingly translates : And imitates in vain thy children's cries. -And we have in Deuteronomy a precept of great good nature of this sort, with a blessing in form annexed to it, in those words: "If thou shalt find a bird's nest in the way, thou shalt not take the dam with the young; but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days." To conclude, there is certainly a degree of gratitude owing to those animals that serve us; as for such as are mortal or noxious, we have a right to destroy them; and for those that are neither of advantage nor prejudice to us, the common enjoyment of life is what I cannot think we ought to deprive them of. This whole matter with regard to each of these considerations, is set in a very agreeable light in one of the Persian fables of Pilpay, with which I shall end this paper. A traveller passing through a thicket, and seeing a few sparks of a fire, which some passengers had kindled as they went that way before, made up to it. On a sudden the sparks caught hold of a bush, in the midst of which lay an adder, and set it in flames. The adder eentreated the traveller's assistance, who tying a bag to the end of his staff, reached it, and drew him out: he then bid him go where he pleased, but never more be hurtful to men, since he owed his life to a man's compassion. The adder, however, prepared to sting him, and when he expostulated And the poor beetle that thou tread'st upon, |