Swift be my feet when the cry of calamity piercies my ear, and powerful be my efforts in eafing the plaints of virtue. Even when it might be juft to be fevere, may I remember that farcasm is a bitter potion, and to be administered only by those who have no foibles of their own.

"Infenfibility, thou idol of fools, I deteft thy very name! Thou bane of blifs, from incapability of enjoyment, be thou never mine, but at two periods, if they fhould ever arrive (which kind heaven avert) then fpread thy influence over every fenfe, and screen me from myfelf in the dreary mantle of forgetfulness."

If any of our readers should be difpofed to think this profe had better been poetry, let them ask themselves how much the following poetry is better than profe.

THE WASP S.

"Moft humbly infcribed-to thofe, who, because the author had never been out of Woolwich for her education, ungenerously queftioned, if the could compofe the Poems occafionally produced by her, which now conftitute this collection.

HARD is the fate of mortal man,
Whatever be his fav'rite plan;
For chance it is but fome may wonder,
He on that fame defign should blunder.
However-left I fuperfede
My purposes, go on, and read.

A wafp, as ftory doth relate,
Of humble rank within the ftate;
Whene'er the toils of day were o'er,
Above the neighb'ring wafps would foar :
And ftrange yet I would have you know,
He envy'd not the great below.

In meditation pleas'd he spent,

The ev'ning hours on wifdom bent.

The earth-the air-the fky-the flow'rs,
He fcann'd by dint of mental powers.
Much more he learn'd by application,
Than was expected in his station.
But modefty conceal'd his knowledge,
Until a brother came from college;
With him he frequently would chatter
Of trees of brooks-and fuch like matter.
Surpriz'd, the bufy wafps all cry,
We cannot think the reason, why
Yon drone fhould be fo much preferr'd,
We never of his talents heard;

Had he poffefs'd them why not fhew it,
And let all other infects know it?

It is impoffible-befides-
No one their excellencies hides ;
But ever proud on that will dwell,
In which they others do excell.

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Still

Still more pray how should he obtain ;
He, humbleft wafp that fkims the plain,
The charms of learning or of fcience,
To fet his neighbours at defiance.
We know his narrow education
Was fuited to his humble flation.
Hence we proclaim he little knoweth,
Nor will believe although he fheweth
Some proofs of fkill, of tafte, and fpirit,
Determin'd to deny him merit.
A wafp who long did filent fit
To hear their despicable wit,

Now fpoke-My friends, with due submission,
Just let me read this wafp's petition.
Imprimis, Sirs, he humbly pleadeth,
E'er your fuperior judgment readeth
His youthful labours-that you'd lay
Envy and malice quite away,
Since for the candid he alone
Hath trifles into order thrown;
Convinc'd that the judicious few
Will ever praise where praise is due.
And as for those whom ignorance,
Ill-nature, pride, and want of fenfe,
Lead captive to mean prejudice,
He only means to tell them this:
"Fortune to fools may riches give,

Beauty from nature fome receive, "But fenfe and noblenefs of mind

"Are gifts fhe hath to few confin’d.”

How invidious is it in the powder-proof critics of Woolwich and its vicinage to infinuate that a genius, because confined to their own neighbourhood, fhould not be able to write fuch verfes as thefe! Do they imagine a proteftant poetefs fhould make a religious pilgrimage to Parnaffus, like a papist to Loretto or a Muffulman to Mecca, to be able to tag rhimes with poetical propriety? We will venture to fay Mrs. Gilding might have made as good verfes as the above had the always lived among the fireworkers in the Warren, or the fhip-carpenters in the Dock-yard. And we warrant ye, fhe has, in her life-time, been at the top of Greenwich and of Shooter's Hill; both as high, for ought they know, as Parnaffus.-Shame on fuch detractors! but, alas, alas, a poet, like a prophet, has no honour in his own country!

ART.

133

Dr. Primatt's Differtation on the Duty of Mercy, &c ART. VII. A Differtation on the Duty of Mercy and Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals. By Humphry Primatt, D. D. 8vo. 5s.

Cadell.

"However men may differ, fays Dr. Primatt, as to fpeculative points of religion, juftice is a rule of univerfal extent and invariable obligation. We acknowledge this important truth in all matters in which man is concerned, but then we limit it to our own fpecies only. And though we are able to trace the most evident marks of the Creator's wisdom and goodnefs, in the formation and appointment of the various claffes of animals that are inferior to men, yet the confcioufnefs of our own dignity and excellence is apt to suggest to us, that man alone of all terreftrial animals is the only proper object of mercy and compaffion, because he is the most highly favoured and distinguished. Milled with this prejudice in our own favour, we overlook Jome of the brutes*, as if they were mere excrefcences of nature, beneath our notice, and infinitely unworthy the care and cognifance of the Almighty; and we confider others of them, as made only for our fervice; and fo long as we can apply them to our ufe, we are careless and indifferent as to their happiness or mifery, and can hardly bring ourselves to fuppofe that there is any kind of duty incumbent upon us toward them.'

To rectify this miftaken notion is the laudable defign of the prefent treatise; in which the very humane and pious author endeavours to prove that,

"As the love and mercy of God are over all his works, from the highest rational to the lowest fenfitive, our love and mercy are not to be confined within the circle of our own friends, acquaintance, and neighbours; nor limited to the more enlarged fphere of human nature, to creatures of our own rank, fhape, and capacity; but are to be extended to every object of the love and mercy of God the univerfal parent; who, as he is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all bis works, will undoubtedly require of man, fuperior man, a ftrict account of his conduct to every creature entrusted to his care, or coming in his way; and who will avenge every inftance of wanton cruelty and oppreffion, in the day in which he will judge the world in righ teoufness."

Nor does our author represent mercy to brutes merely as a doctrine of divine revelation, but also as in itself reasonable, amiable, useful and juft. In his appeal to the fenfibility and sense of juftice, implanted in mankind, he says,

"I prefume there is no man of feeling, that has any idea of justice, but would confefs upon the principles of reafon and common fenje, that if he were to be put to unnecessary and unmerited pain by another man, his tormentor would do him an act of injuftice; and from a fenfe of the injuftice in his own cafe, now that he is the fufferer, he mutt naturally infer, that if he were to put another man of feeling to

In the enfuing treatife I use the word Brute as a general term for every createre inferior to man, whether beast, or bird, or fish, or fly, or worm.

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the

the fame unneceffary and unmerited pain which he now fuffers, the injuftice in himself to the other would be exactly the fame as the injuftice in his tormentor to him. Therefore the man of feeling and juftice will not put another man to unmerited pain, because he will not do that to another, which he is unwilling fhould be done to himfelf. Nor will he take any advantage of his own fuperiority of ftrength, or of the accidents of fortune, to abuse them to the oppreffion of his inferior; because he knows that in the article of feeling all men are equal; and that the differences of ftrength or ftation are as much the gifts and appointments of God, as the differences of understanding, colour, or ftature. Superiority of rank or ftation may give ability to communicate happiness, (and feems fo intended;) but it can give no right to inflict unneceffary or unmerited pain. A wife man would impeach his own wifdom, and be unworthy of the bleffing of a good underftanding, if he were to infer from thence that he had a right to defpife or make game of a fool, or put him to any degree of pain. The folly of the fool ought rather to excite his compaffion, and demands the wife man's care and attention to one that cannot take care of himself.

"It has pleafed God the father of all men to cover fome men with white skins, and others with black skins: but as there is neither merit nor demerit in complexion, the white man (notwithstanding the barbarity of custom and prejudice) can have no right, by virtue of his colour, to enflave and tyrannize over a black man; nor has a fair man any right to defpife, abuse, and infult a brown man. Nor do I believe that a tall man, by virtue of his ftature, has any legal right to trample a dwarf under his foot. For, whether a man is wife or foolish, white or black, fair or brown, tall or fhort, and I might add rich or poor (for it is no more a man's choice to be poor, than it is to be a fool, or a dwarf, or black, or tawny,) fuch he is by God's appointment; and, abftractedly confidered, is neither a fubject for pride, nor an object of contempt. Now if amongst men, the differences of their powers of the mind, and of their complexion, slature, and accidents of fortune, do not give to any one man a right to abuse or infult any other man on account of thefe differences; for the fame reafon, a man can have no natural right to abuse and torment a beast, merely because a beaft has not the mental powers of a man. For fuch as the man is, he is but as God made him; and the very fame is true of the beast. Neither of them can lay claim to any intrinfic merit, for being fuch as they are; for before they were created, it was impoffible that either of them could deserve; and at their creation, their fhapes, perfections, or defects were invariably fixed, and their bounds fet which they cannot pafs. And being fuch, neither more nor less than God made them, there is no more demerit in a beaft's being a beaft, than there is merit in a man's being a man; that is, there is neither merit nor demerit in either of them.

"A brute is an animal no lefs fenfible of pain than a man. He has fimilar nerves and organs of fenfation; and his cries and groans, in cafe of violent impreffions upon his body, though he cannot utter his complaints by speech or human voice, are as ftrong indications to

us

us of his fenfibility of pain, as the cries and groans of a human being, whofe language we do not understand. Now as pain is what we are all averfe to, our own fenfibility of pain should teach us to commiferate it in others, to alleviate it if poffible, but never wantonly or unmeritedly to inflict it. As the differences amongst men in the above particulars are no barrs to their feelings, fo neither does the difference of the shape of a brute from that of a man exempt the brute from feeling; at leaft, we have no ground to fuppofe it. But shape or figure is as much the appointment of God, as complexion or ftature. And if the difference of complexion or ftature does not convey to one man a right to defpife and abuse another man, the difference of shape between a man and a brute, cannot give to a man any right to abuse and torment a brute. For he that made man and man to differ in complexion or ftature, made man and brute to differ in fhape or figure. And in this cafe likewise there is neither merit nor demerit; every creature, whether man or brute, bearing that shape which the fupreme Wifdom judged moft expedient to answer the end for which the creature was ordained."

In replying to the objections that may be made to his argument, he expatiates, as follows.

"It is argued That man has a permiffion, that is, it is a univerfal practice with mankind, to eat the flesh of animals; which cannot be done without taking away their lives, and putting them to fome degree of pain.

66 -That there are some animals obnoxious to mankind; and the most compaffionate of men make no fcruple to deny them. And

66

-That there are fome brutes of prey which wholly fubfift on the flesh of other brutes; and whofe lives are one continued course of rapine and bloodshed.”

To these formidable arguments our author feparately replies. On the first head he takes for granted, as it is an univerfal prac tice, that man has a permiffion to eat the flesh of animals: and confequently to kill them for food or neceffary use.

"But this permiffion, fays he, cannot authorize us to put them to unneceffary pain, or lingering death. Death they are all liable to; they must fubmit to it; and they do not feem to us to have any idea, or fear of death. Avoidance of pain is indeed as natural to brutes as it is to men, therefore pain is the only ground of fear in brutes.

"As to ourselves, we fear both pain and death; and our fear of death arifes from the fear of future pain, or from apprehenfions of what may happen to us after death: and in fome men thefe apprehenfions are fo terrifying, that they prefer exquifite pain to death. But the brute, having no idea of an hereafter, cannot fuffer any terror on account of death. To him prefent pain is the only evil; and prefent happinefs the only good; therefore, whilft he lives he has a right to happiness. And death, though it is to him the period of his prefent happiness of existence, (and fo far is a negative evil;) yet it is likewife the period to all his fears and future pain; and fo far as it removes him from the poffibility of future mifery from the cruelty

of