fancies of the world. I am, in a word, a member of that numerous tribe who write for their daily bread. I flourish in a dearth of foreign news; and though I do not pretend to the spleen, I am never so well as in the time of a westerly wind. When it blows from that auspicious point, I raise to myself contributions from the British isle, by affrighting my superstitious countrymen with printed relations of murders, spirits, prodigies, or monsters. According as my necessities suggest to me, I hereby provide for my being. The last summer I paid a large debt for brandy and tobacco, by a wonderful description of a fiery dragon, and lived for ten days together upon a whale and a mermaid. When winter draws near, I generally conjure up my spirits, and have my apparitions ready against long dark evenings. From November last to January I lived solely upon murders, and have, since that time, had a comfortable subsistence from a plague and a famine. I made the Pope pay for my beef and mutton last Lent, out of pure spite to the Romish religion; and at present my good friend the King of Sweden finds me in clean linen, and the Mufti gets me credit at the tavern.

"The astonishing accounts that I record, I usually enliven with wooden cuts, and the like paltry embellishments. They administer to the curiosity of my fellow-subjects, and not only advance religion and virtue, but take restless spirits off from meddling with the public affairs. I therefore cannot think myself an useless burthen upon earth; and that I may still do the more good in my generation, I shall give the world, in a short time, a history of my life, studies, maxims, and achievements, provided my bookseller advances a round sum for my copy. I am, sir, yours."

"Sir,

"I am a lady of birth and fortune, but never knew till last Thursday, that the splendour of my equipage was so beneficial to my country. I will not deny that I have dressed for some years out of the pride of my heart; but am very glad that you have so far settled my conscience in that particular, that I can now look upon my vanities as so many

virtues.

Since I am satisfied that my person and garb give

pleasure to my fellow-creatures, I shall not think the three hours' business I usually attend at my toilette below the dignity of a rational soul. I am content to suffer great torment from my stays, that my shape may appear graceful to the eyes of others; and often mortify myself with fasting, rather than my fatness should give distaste to any man in England.

"I am making up a rich brocade for the benefit of mankind, and design in a little time to treat the town with a thousand pounds' worth of jewels. I have ordered my chariot to be new painted for your use and the world's; and have prevailed upon my husband to present you with a pair of fine Flanders mares, by driving them every evening round the Ring. Gay pendants for my ears, a costly cross for my neck, a diamond of the best water for my finger, shall be purchased at any rate to enrich you; and I am resolved to be a patriot in every limb. My husband will not scruple to oblige me in these trifles, since I have persuaded him, from your scheme, that pin-money is only so much set apart for charitable uses. You see, sir, how expensive you are to me, and I hope you will esteem me accordingly; especially when I assure you that I am, as far Entirely yours,

as you can see me,

STEELE.

"CLEORA."

ON HUMANITY TO ANIMALS. (No. 61).

I CANNOT think it extravagant to imagine that mankind are no less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use of their dominion over creatures of the lower rank of beings, than for the exercise of tyranny over their own species. The more entirely the inferior creation is submitted to our power, the more answerable we should seem for our mismanagement of it; and the rather, as the very condition of nature renders these creatures incapable of receiving any recompense in another life, for their ill treatment in this.

"Tis observable of those noxious animals which have qualities most powerful to injure us, that they naturally

avoid mankind, and never hurt us unless provoked, or necessitated by hunger. Man, on the other hand, seeks out and pursues even the most inoffensive animals on purpose to persecute and destroy them.

Montaigne thinks it some reflection upon human nature itself, that few people take delight in seeing beasts caress or play together, but almost every one is pleased to see them lacerate and worry one another. I am sorry this temper is become almost a distinguishing character of our own nation, from the observation which is made by foreigners of our beloved pastimes, bear-baiting, cockfighting, and the like. We should find it hard to vindicate the destroying of any thing that has life, merely out of wantonness; yet in this principle our children are bred up, and one of the first pleasures we allow them, is the license of inflicting pain upon poor animals: almost as soon as we are sensible what life is ourselves, we make it our sport to take it from other creatures. I cannot but believe a very good use might be made of the fancy which children have for birds and insects. 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 diversion to a virtue.

I fancy too, some advantage might be taken of the common notion, that it is ominous or unlucky to destroy some sorts of birds, as swallows or martins: this opinion might possibly arise from the confidence these birds seem to put in us by building under our roofs, so that it is a kind of violation of the laws of hospitality to murder them. As for robin-red-breasts in particular, it is not improbable they owe their security to the old ballad of "The Children in the Wood." However it be, I don't know, I say, 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 reason, to be treated as common enemies wherever

found. The conceit that a cat has nine lives, has cost at least nine lives in ten of the whole race of them. Scarce a boy in the streets but has in this point outdone Hercules himself, who was famous for killing a monster that had but three lives. Whether the unaccountable animosity against this useful domestic may be any cause of the general persecution of owls (who are a sort of feathered cats), or whether it be only an unreasonable pique the moderns have taken to a serious countenance, I shall not determine,—though I am inclined to believe the former; since I observe the sole reason alleged for the destruction of frogs is because they are like toads. Yet amidst all the misfortunes of these unfriended creatures, 'tis some happiness that we have not yet taken a fancy to eat them: for, should our countrymen refine upon the French never so 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 succession of sanguinary sports; in particular, hunting. I dare not attack a diversion which has such authority and custom to support it, but must have leave to be of opinion, that the agitation of that exercise, with the example and number of the chasers, not a little contributes to resist those checks which compassion would naturally suggest in behalf of the animal. pursued. 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.

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.

The excellent Plutarch (who has more strokes of goodnature 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 over-flowings 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 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