MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. THE seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd Or his base gluttony, are causes good And just in his account, why bird and beast In measure, as by force of instinct drawn, Upon the guiltless passenger o'erthrown. That wait on man, the flight-performing horse: His murderer on his back, and push'd all day, * Written in 1785. Some forty years later, in face of an almost incredible amount of opposition from selfish interest and equally selfish indifferentism both in and out of the Houses of Parliament, the genuine humanitarianism of Mr. Martin and two or three other cooperators, at length forced the Legislature to interfere, for the first time, to protect, in some degree, the domesticated inferior races of beings. The new Act, however, was of importance as a recognition of the right of the inferior animals to the protection, scanty as it was, of the laws, rather than as any very effectual or earnest intervention on their behalf. Even now, spite of one or two later extensions of the Act, legislative, or, at all events, administrative, intervention is miserably inadequate and compromising, witness e.g. the contemporary records of the police courts and magisterial benches. Law has always been more concerned to punish than to prevent crime; but in the present instance it has been little concerned even to punish. Education (at once scientific and moral) alone can cure the barbarism of inhumanity; and only when the general indifferentism (the greatest obstacle to every kind of reform) has been removed, will adequate ideas on the subject begin to prevail. Meanwhile it is not beside the purpose to observe (a fact that has been ably pointed out in Lectures on the Science of Language) that mere words and names have, owing to the imperfection of language for expressing ideas, from the first dawn of language, exercised an incalculable and fatal influeree upon human thought and action. So long as the present stereotyped terms, almost as illogical as they are mischievous-beast,' 'brute,' animal' (as though man were not himself animal) continue to sanction the popular prejudices as to the physical sensibility and reasoning faculties of the non-human races, so long does it seem vain to expect any adequate conception of their claims, and any real and radical revolution in their treatment. (As if barbarity were high desert) The inglorious feat, and clamorous in praise Id. POPULAR APPLAUSE. MAN praises man. The rabble all alive, From tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes, The gilded equipage, and turning loose His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve. Why? what has charm'd them? Hath he saved the state? No. Doth he purpose its salvation? No. Enchanting novelty, that moon at full, That finds out every crevice of the head Wrought this disturbance. But the wane is near, And his own cattle must suffice him soon. Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise, And dedicate a tribute, in its use And just direction sacred, to a thing Doom'd to the dust, or lodged already there. Id. BOADICEA. AN ODE. WHEN the British warrior Queen, Sage beneath the spreading oak Princess! if our aged eyes Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, "Tis because resentment ties All the terrors of our tongues. Rome shall perish-write that word In the blood that she has spilt; Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd, Deep in ruin as in guilt! 'Rome, for empire far renown'd, Tramples on a thousand states; Soon her pride shall kiss the ground— Hark! the Gaul is at her gates! 'Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize: Harmony the path to fame. Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command. 'Regions Cæsar never knew Such the bard's prophetic words, She, with all a monarch's pride, Felt them in her bosom glow; Rush'd to battle, fought, and died, Dying, hurl'd them at the foe :— Ruffians! pitiless as proud, Heaven awards the vengeance due: Empire is on us bestow'd, Shame and ruin wait for you.' |