his fpecies, and an infult upon himfelf; yet the moral obligation of humanity to brutes has not, as I remember, been infifted upon from our pulpits fo forcibly, or fo frequently, as the importance of the duty requires. I was therefore extremely pleased to see the fubftance of two fermons, preached on a Shrove-Sunday, lately publifhed, with a view to inculcate the duty of clemency to brutes in general, and in particular to difcourage that fpecies of cruelty, which is annually practifed, to the difgrace of our country, and our fpecies, the throwing at cocks. The author proves that cruelty to brutes is finful, by feveral quotations from fcripture, and a feries of juft reafonings upon them, particularly from his text, A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast; which implies, that he who regards not the welfare of the creatures beneath him, is not righteous but wicked. The attention of that Being, whofe tender mercies are over all his works, to the irrational part of the fenfitive creation, appears from the following precepts: Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk, Ex. xxxiv. Thou shalt not kill a cow, or an ewe, and her young on the same day, Lev. xxii. If a bird's nest chance to be before thee, and the dam sitting upon the young, thou shall not take the dam with the young, Deut. xxii. Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox when he treadeth out the corn, Deut. xxvi. It appears too, from the fame divine revelation, that of the bounty of nature great part is intended for the fubfiftence and accommodation of brutes as well as of men. We are told that God fends the fprings which run among the hills into the vallies to give drink to every beast of the field, and that the wild asses may quench their thirst; that the fowls of heaven may have a habitation in the trees nourished by their moisture, and delight themselves with finging among the branches.' We are told also, that when God watereth the hills from his chambers, it is done to cause grafs to grow for the cattle, as well as corn, wine, and oil for the fervice of man.' The tender care of the divine Being over the brute creation is alfo evident from his expoftulation with Jonah, Should not I fpare Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than fix score thousand perfons that cannot difcern their right hand from their left hand, and also much cattle. Can it then be fuppofed that man may innocently mangle and torture the beings for whom God opens the fountains of the hills, compreffes the clouds of heaven into rain, cloaths the fields with verdure, and the foreft with fhade! If we are enjoined to be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful, mere negligence of the welfare of thofe animals for whom he careth, is not blamelefs; what guilt then must he contract who counterworks the benevolence of his Maker, and, with all the infolence of derifion, and the bafenefs of ingratitude, inflicts mifery in fport, and hears the groans which he extorts from nature, with laughter and merriment! That we are permitted to take the lives of animals is true, but it is as much for their fakes as for ours. If God had not appointed our lives to be fuftained by animal food, the animal which we kill to eat, would never have lived at all. This very ordination, therefore, is an argu03 ment the times we live in. Tis aftonishing that the world IT fhould continue fo bad, and even grow worfe and worse every day, when every individual in it has an infallible receipt to reform and improve it. ment of the divine goodness, not The folly of being dissatisfied with to man only, but in general. For it is manifeft, if the very food we eat is capable of happiness, and is actually happy till we eat it, that there is juft fo much more happiness produced upon the whole, than if our food confifted wholly of things infenfible; the happiness of the creatures we eat, feems, therefore, to be the very condition upon which we are allowed to eat them; and nothing can be more ridiculously abfurd, than to infer from our right to kill them for food, that we have a right to torture them for the moft diabolical purpofe, the pleasure of doing mifchief, and contemplating mifery. As our divines seem to have left the duty of general humanity, and, indeed, every duty of which neither God nor man is immediately the object, to moral writers, and tranfferred it from divinity to polite literature, this author expreffes an honeft and benevolent with, that fome perfon, whom providence has bleffed with riches, would found an annual lecture on the duty of clemency to brutes, and appoint an handfome falary for the preacher, upon condition that he fhould publith a certain number of copies of his fermon within a limited time. This, however, will be lefs neceffary if our clergy fhould take the hint, and make it a fubject of their difcourfes upon proper occafions, particularly at Shrove-tide, when the most inhuman and infamous practice of throwing at cocks ufually takes place, notwithstanding the laws by which it may be reftrained, arifing from the negligence of thofe who thould enforce them, and their inattention to the enormity of the crime. The perfon out of place, and who conféquently wants to be in place, does not wonder that things go fo ill, when people of a certam rank and character, of a certa age, dignity, and experience in tufinefs, are not called upon to fleer the public veffel; and when, on the contrary, it is left to the conduct of new and unexperienced men. It was not fo formerly, when certain people (exactly like himself; were called out to carry on the atduous affairs of the kingdom. He does not fay this from a defire of being, or a regret of not being, employed; but from a hearty and fincere affection for his dear coustry. Every body knows that he does not value nor want any employment, and that he defpifes the profits of one. But be that as it will, it is certain, that merit is not confidered in these days. The fublime author, who chufes to write in an unglazed garret, ir the benefit of the air, laments grievoufly the neglect of literary merit. It was not fo formerly; there were then your Dorfets and your Halifaxes, who were at once poets and patrons; who elicited merit out of its modeft obfcurity, and rewarded it with civil employments. This is the true way of giving luftre to a government. Auguftus and Mecenas, who he believes were as wife as fome folks, practifed this method, and owed their glory to it. But where are now the patrons of letters? For his part, he declares, that he only writes for amufement, and not for intereft. The unpreferred doctor of divinity, with a prominent cheft, and large fluttering fcarf, laments the deluge of vice, prophanenefs, and immorality, that overwhelms and difgraces the prefent age. But how fhould it be otherwife, when favour is the only road to preferment, inftead of found learning. As for the bishops, he will fay nothing of them; but that, confidering their revenues, he thinks they might afford to labour harder in the vineyard than they do. The veteran officer, who fays that he has had all his bones broken, though perhaps he has never ferved at all, bewails the decay of the true regular art of war. But how fhould it be otherwife, when boys are put at the head of armies! Wolfe took Louisbourg and Quebec, contrary to all the found rules of war; and, ftrictly speaking, he looks upon their taking, as blunders, and as null and void in themfelves. He compares Amherft and Wolfe to boys who rob orchards; and who do not take ladders and baskets with them, but moft irregularly climb over the walls, and fwarm up the trees, and carry off the fruit; not without manifeft danger of their Jives. There is an inferior fort of repairers of wrongs, and reformers of abuses, who fwarm in clubs and coffee-houfes, and are properly haberdashers of small wares. Thefe gentlemen inveigh with great acrimony againft the degeneracy of the times, and all those abuses in which they would, and cannot be fharers. The pilferings of clerks in offices, the combination of tradefmen, the want of police in the streets, and a thousand other irregularities; for every one of which, if they were but confulted, authorized, and, above all, employed and paid, they have infallible noftrums. But thefe are not times to hope for reformation, when people think only of their own intereft. For my own part, Sir, I admit that there are abufes which every boneft man must wish were corrected, but at the fame time I confess that I have no fpecific remedy to offer for their cure. By all I have read, both in facred and prophane hiftory, crimes and abufes have been coæval with human nature; their modes only have varied in different ages of the world, and perhaps there never was a period fince the creation, when crimes and vices were lefs atrocious and fhocking than in the prefent age. Manners, now polished and foftened, have improved morals. Self-intereft was always the ruling paflion of all mankind; the old way of gratifying it was by murdering and poifoning; the new fashion is by deceit; and I confefs that I would rather be deceived than affaffinated or poifoned. I will conclude with one word of advice to these unmerciful cenfurers of the prefent time, from the statemenders at St. James's, down to the reformers of abuf's in clubs and coffee-houfes, which, I hope, may mitigate their juft grief for the degeneracy of the prefent times. Let them begin at home, examine their own hearts, and root out from thence, if they can, the paflions of felf-love, pride, envy, hatred, and malice, the true and fecret motives of their cenfure; and when they have brought that about, they will fee things in a very different light, take the world as it is, and drink their wine, their coffee, their punch, or their ale, with infinitely more comfort than they do at prefent. vere without hard-heartedness; in trifles, tenacious; in friendships, blind and undifcerning; but little connected by the ties of blood, and oftentimes more willing to oblige a ftranger, than a relation; they are fincere without civility, and without Character of the English. From the unkindness morofe. In religion, T SCHEMER. O what folly and infatuation muft we impute this unsteady behaviour, that in no one article of their lives or manners are the Englith directed by the principles of reafon? It is because not one in a thoufand acts upon any principle at all. With hearts of republicans, they pen the flattery of flaves; with inward grumbling and difcontent, they raife fupplies for half the powers of Europe; and yet with fuch a bafe attention to private interelt, that near a fifth part is fquandered in lotteries and brokerage. In the fame day, they will greedily attend to the bittereft invectives against their allies, and fpoil all the furniture of their diningrooms with clay candlesticks and farthing lights, in honour of their victories. With a gloomy fullennefs, they put on the fashions of their volatile neighbours; and at the fame time univerfally condemn and practite the fopperies of France. Without any true and honeft regard to their country, without any real public fpirit, they are brave even to ranefs, and courageous beyond the example of the firmeft patriots. The leaft turn of affairs, the moft trivial lofs, will make them fearful of an enemy whom they daily deride and despifc. In private life, they are faucy without imperioufnefs, generous without kindness, fe with little or no communion or fellowship, they profefs to be members of one church. They believe in Chrift, and yet neglect his inftitu. tions. They acknowledge alfo two facraments in their church; that of baptifm they look upon as necessary, more because it gives them a name, than for any other reafon; and therefore the fponfors will give fecurity for the infant, without know, ing or attending to the queftions they are afked, or ever after examining the conduct and behaviour of the child committed to their charge. The other facrament, the Lord's fupper, is fuppofed very rightly to be a fervice which no one fhould engage in, that is not ferious in his duty; and for this reafon, not one in fifty ever goes near the communion-table; and by this behaviour confeffes to the world, that he is very willing to repent, or enter into a new course of life: fo that he would be thought a Chritian, without performing the fervices of the church of Chrift. By this I mean only thofe who are really churchmen; for take the whole kingdom throughout, any one Sunday in the year, and you will find twenty at church, fifteen at different fchifm fhops, and the rest of the hundred in ale-houfes, countinghoufes, parties of pleafure, or following the domeftic occupations of the families they belong to. I conceive this to be no partial eftimate of the manners of the Eng lith; and now we must examine, whence comes this hydra-headed evil, which thus univerfally fprouts forth in every member of the community. One popular author has referred it to effeminacy; but we must acknowledge him biaffed in his opinion, because the evil ftill continues, though that caufe hath in many inftances ceased. Another of lefs note attributes it to fear; but that cause is not fufficiently general to be the main fpring of fuch various actions. No, the bafis of all the inconfiftencies of this undifciplined, unprincipled, unenlightened nation, is a falfe appetite for liberty; which has, through an unreasonable pursuit, degenerated into licentioufnefs. Ye are in all things, O Britons, a licentious people! Ye act upon that noble principle, which your mafter Satan eftablished, when his refolute wit difcovered. fubjection to his Maker was fervile and difgraceful. Ye fay, ye are loyal fubjects: and yet the greatest courtiers among ye are the greateft republicans, nor will the greatest in your tribes refufe, in the fame hour to fing fongs of triumph in honour of your fovereign, and utter the indecent ribaldries of difgufted traitors. What fervile fubmiffion do ye expect from those members who are to reprefent you; and how well pleased are ye to level all authority, unto the dirt, even as low as yourfelves? Ye fay, ye have a value for your country, and yet how few are there among you that would not facrifice it to party or profit! How gay and loyal is the appearance of your tradefmen, yet inwardly how debafed by fmuggling, how cankered with debts! Public Stocks, and private loans, have filled near half your cities with idle gentlemen of pleafure, chiefly enlifted in the fervice of licentioufnefs. The retailed fcraps of difunited literature, which are jumbled together in every periodical paper, have made all the kingdom learned in every fcience; this teaches the mind to wander in uncertainty, and calls off the application which every individual should beftow folely upon his own business, into frivolous excurfions on the furface and fcum of learning. Drefs, fashion, and affectation, have put all upon an equality; fo that it is dif ficult to tell the milliner from her ladyfhip, the lord from the groom, or his grace in Pall-mall from the tallow-chandler at Wapping. Nor is there to be found any alteration of this general plan in private families, or domeftic life: children making a flavery of dependance and obedience; and, taking advantage of the law of their country, renouncing the authority of their parents, as foon as they are able to crawl alone; wives in breeches; husbands abroad; fervants in rullies; and the whole house anarchy and confufion. Nay, to fuch a pitch of impudence are thofe mean hirelings arrived who drudge in the party-coloured badge of fubmiffion, that they will fit in the cup of their master's friend if he be not liberal to excefs; give him water for wine; and turn him out of doors, as though they were letting out a pickpocket or a thief. But in religion the fcene is ftill worfe and worfe; there licentioufnefs breaks out into fwarms of indigefted fectaties, who will top off a branch from the mother trunk becaufe a tingle leaf is faded or fickly; fuch as are offended because I wear |