Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS.

THE seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd
To such gigantic and enormous growth,
Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
Hence date the persecution and the pain
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport,
To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,

Or his base gluttony, are causes good

And just in his account, why bird and beast
Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed
With blood of their inhabitants impaled.
Earth groans beneath the burden of a war
Waged with defenceless innocence, while he,
Not satisfied to prey on all around,
Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs
Needless, and first torments ere he devours.
Now happiest they who occupy the scenes
The most remote from his abhorr'd resort.

In measure, as by force of instinct drawn,
Or by necessity constrain'd, they live
Dependent upon man; those in his fields,
These at his crib, and some beneath his roof,
They prove too often at how dear a rate
He sells protection. Witness at his foot
The spaniel dying for some venial fault,
Under dissection of the knotted scourge:
Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells
Driven to the slaughter, goaded as he runs
To madness, while the savage at his heels
Laughs at the frantic sufferer's fury spent

[ocr errors]

Upon the guiltless passenger o'erthrown.
He, too, is witness, noblest of the train

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

His murderer on his back, and push'd all day,
With bleeding sides, and flanks that heave for life,
To the far distant goal, arrives and dies.
So little mercy shows who needs so much!
Does law, so jealous in the cause of man,
Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.*
He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boasts

* 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
Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose
The honours of his matchless horse his own.
But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth
Is register'd in heaven, and these, no doubt,
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.

Id.

POPULAR APPLAUSE.

MAN praises man.

The rabble all alive,

From tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes,
Swarm in the streets. The statesman of the day,
A pompous and slow-moving pageant, comes.
Some shout him, and some hang upon his ear
Το gaze in his eyes and bless him. Maidens wave
Their kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy:
While others, not so satisfied, unhorse

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
That is not sound and perfect, hath in theirs

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,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods,

Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.

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
Thy posterity shall sway:
Where his eagles never flew
None invincible as they.'

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending, as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

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.'

« ForrigeFortsæt »