first pleasures we allow them, is the licence of inflicting pain upon poor animals: almost as soon as we are fenfible what life is ourselves, we make it our sport to take it from other creatures. I cannot but believe a very good ufe might be made of the fancy which children have for birds and infects. Mr. Locke takes notice of a mother who permitted them to her children, but rewarded or punished them as they treated them well or ill. This was no other than entering them betimes into a daily exercise of humanity, and improving their very diverfion to a virtue.

I fancy too, fome advantage might be taken of the common notion, that 'tis ominous or unlucky, to deftroy fome forts of birds, as Swallows and Martins. This opinion might poffibly arife from the confidence these birds feem to put in us by building under our roofs, fo that it is a kind of violation of the laws of hospitality to murder them. As for Robin-red-breafts in particular, 'tis not improbable they owe their fecurity to the old ballad of The Children in the Word. However it be, I don't know, I fay, why this prejudice, well improved and carried as far as it would go, might not be made to conduce to the preservation of many innocent creatures, which are now exposed to all the wantonness of an ignorant barbarity.

There are other animals that have the misfortune, for no manner of reafon, to be treated as common enemies where-ever found. The conceit that a Cat has nine lives has coft at least nine lives in ten of the whole race of them: fcarce a boy in the streets but has in this point outdone Hercules himself, who was famous for killing a monfter that had but three lives. Whether the unaccountable animofity against this useful domestick may be any cause of the general perfecution of Owls (who are a fort of feathered cats) or whether it be only

an unreasonable pique the moderns have taken to a ferious countenance, I fhall not determine. Tho' I am inclined to believe the former; fince I obferve the fole reafon alledged for the deftruction of Frogs is because they are like Toads. Yet amidst all the misfortunes of these unfriended creatures, 'tis fome happiness that we have not yet taken a fancy to eat them: for fhould our countrymen refine upon the French never fo little, 'tis not to be conceived to what unheard-of torments owls, cats, and frogs may be yet reserved.

When we grow up to men, we have another fucceffion of Sanguinary sports; in particular hunting. I dare not attack a diverfion which has fuch authority and cuftom to fupport it; but muft have leave to be of opinion, that the agitation of that exercise, with the example and number of the chafers, not a little contribute to refift those checks, which compaffion would naturally fuggeft in behalf of the animal purfued. Nor fhall I fay with Monfieur Fleury, that this fport is a remain of the Gothic barbarity; but I muft animadvert upon a certain custom yet in ufe with us, and barbarous enough to be derived from the Goths, or even the Scythians I mean that favage compliment our huntfmen pafs upon Ladies of quality, who are prefent 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.

Queftuque cruentus,
Atque Imploranti fimilis.

But if our sports are deftructive, our gluttony is more fo, and in a more inhuman manner. Lobfters roafted alive, Pigs whipp'd to death, Fowls fewed up, are teftimonies of our outragious luxury. Thofe, who (as Seneca expreffes it) divide

heir lives betwixt an anxious confcience, and a nauseated stomach, have a juft reward of their gluttony in the diseases it brings with it: for human favages, like other wild beafts, find fnares and poifon in the provifions of life, and are allured by their appetite to their destruction. I know nothing more fhocking, or horrid, than the profpect of one of their kitchins 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 bestraw'd with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were flain by his cruelty.

The excellent Plutarch (who has more ftrokes of good-nature in his writings than I remember in any author) cites a faying of Cato to this effect: "That 'tis no eafy talk to preach to the belly "which has no ears. Yet if (fays he) we are "afhamed to be fo out of fashion as not to offend, "let us at leaft offend with fome difcretion and "measure. If we kill an animal for our provi"fion, let us do it with the meltings of compaf"fion, and without tormenting it. Let us confi"der, that 'tis in its own nature cruelty to put a "living creature to death; we at leaft deftroy a "foul that has fenfe and perception." In the life of Cato the Cenfor, he takes occafion from the fevere difpofition of that man to difcourfe in this manner: "It ought to be esteemed a happiness to "mankind, that our humanity has a wider fphere "to exert itself in, than bare juftice. It is no more "than the obligation of our very birth to practife equity to our own kind; but humanity may be "extended thro' the whole order of creatures, << even to the meaneft: fuch actions of charity

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are the over-flowings of a mild good nature on all "below us. It is certainly the part of a well-na"tured man to take care of his horfes and dogs, "not only in expectation of their labour while

they

"they are foals and whelps, but even when their "old age has made them incapable of service.”

Hiftory tells us of a wife and polite nation, that rejected a perfon of the firft quality, who flood for a judiciary office, only because he had been obferved in his youth to take pleasure in tearing and murdering of birds. And of another, that expelled a man out of the fenate for dashing a bird against the ground which had taken fhelter in his bofom. 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 fhew, how far a man, supposed to have fubfifted in a desert island, without any instruction, or so much as the fight of any other man, may, by the pure light of nature, attain the knowledge of philofophy and virtue. One of the first things he makes him obferve is, that univerfal benevolence of nature in the protection and prefervation of its creatures. In imitation of which, the first act of virtue he thinks his felf-taught philofopher would of courfe fall into is, to relieve and affift all the animals about him in their wants and diftreffes.

Ovid has fome very tender and pathetick lines applicable to this occafion:

Quid meruiftis, oves, placidum pecus, inque tegendos
Natum homines, p'eno qua fertis in ubere neclar?
Mollia quæ nobis vefiras velamina lanas
Præbetis; vitaque magis quam morte juvatis.
Quid meruere boves, animal fine fraude dolifque,
Innocuum, fimplex, natum tolerare labores?
Immemor eft demum, nec frugum munere dignus,
Qui potuit, curvi dempto modo pondere aratri,
Ruricolam mactare fuum---

Quam male confuevit, quam fe parat ille cruori
Impius humane, vituli qui guttura cultro

Rumpit,

Rumpit, et immotas præbet mugitibus aures!
Aut qui vagitus fimiles puerilibus hædum
Edentem jugulare poteft! ----

Perhaps that voice or cry fo nearly resembling the human, with which providence has endued fo many different animals, might purposely be given them to move our pity, and prevent thofe cruelties we are too apt to inflict on our fellow creatures.

There is a paffage in the book of Jonas, when God declares his unwillingness to deftroy Nineveh, where, methinks, that compaffion of the Creator, which extends to the meaneft rank of his creatures, is expreffed with wonderful tenderness---“ Should "not I fpare Nineveh the great city, wherein are 66 more than fixfcore thousand perfons --And also "much cattle ?" And we have in Deuteronomy a precept of great good nature of this fort, with a blesfing in form annexed to it in those words: " If "thou fhalt find a bird's neft in the way, thou "fhalt not take the dam with the young: But "thou fhalt in any wife let the dam go, that it "may be well with thee, and that thou may'ft "prolong thy days."

To conclude, there is certainly a degree of gratitude owing to those animals that serve us; as for fuch as are mortal or noxious, we have a right to deftroy them; and for those that are neither of advantage or 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 confiderations, is fet in a very agreeable light in one of the Perfian fables of Pilpay, with which I hall end this paper.

A traveller paffing thro' a thicket, and seeing a few fparks of a fire, which fome paflengers had kindled as they went that way before, made up to

it.