"Hark! the bee winds her small but mellow horn, Yes-blithe in the enjoyment of the munificence of nature, and happily unconscious that she is soon to be sacrificed on the altar of cruelty. What mind that is not " dull as the fat weed that grows on Lethe's wharf," but must admire this exquisitely beautiful little creature in her raiment of sable velvet, belted with gold, and borne on filmy wings transparent as the dew-drop; furnished with her fine pneumatic apparatus, which no science could improve, to exhaust the honey lodged in the nectary of flowers, and armed for her defence with a keen barb, which when provoked she wields with a power that a giant might dread, and a courage that the self-devoted champion of liberty might admire? But what are her external beauties, her furniture, her arms, compared to her mind, that particle, as some of the ancients thought, of the divine intelligence esse apibus partem divine mentis-that leads her to build her hexagonal ambrosial domes-a true El Dorado or city of gold, with a geometric skill which no Newton or La Place could excel-with a strength which, considering the fragility or tenuity of her materials, Vitruvius or Palladio might envy; and to form a government which no Lycurgus, Solon, or Numa could match-so perfect in its economy as never to require reformation— perpetuated from generation to generation, and amidst all the revolutions of empire unchanged? What shall we say of her care in elaborating a peculiar nutriment for her young-her providence in collecting the honied store in the season of plenty for consumption in the season of want-her unremitting toil from morn till eve -her prescience and avoidance of the coming stormher regular return to her well-remembered home, after far wanderings over the trackless mountain heath, a feat worthy of the mellifluous song of the Bard of Memory— her allegiance to the constituted authorities of her monarchy, for which she is ready to combat and to die? While pursuing her innocent occupation from flower to flower, and, as my Milesian countryman has sung, in a strain of originality all his own," perfuming the fields with music,"* * Is not this a fine exemplification of Horace's callida junctura? Quarterly Reviewers, perhaps, will have the kindness to inform me. The she is rudely struck down by the callous hand of a clown -callous as the hoof of the ass which he drives to watering, or by some vicious loggerhead of a school-boy who has played truant, and for the chance of finding a tiny drop of honey which she has laboriously collected, squeezed as in a vice, and deliberated mangled, and torn limb from limb! For such paltry indulgence of appetite are deeds of cruelty perpetrated, at which humanity stands aghast. The destruction of whole hives of bees for their honey, has long been a subject of regret to the humane, and different modes have been devised for committing the robbery without the murder; but none with such success as to ensure general adoption. "If man's convenience, health, or safety" requires the sacrifice, let it be made, but with as much expedition, and as little pain as possi"Convenience," by the way, is a word of great latitude, and multifarious application. Is it not often used when arbitrary pleasure, luxurious taste, or gluttonous appetite, would be more german to the subject? ble. "O man! tyrannic lord, how long, how long, Awaiting renovation? When obliged, Must you destroy? Of their ambrosial food Can you not borrow, and in just return, Afford them shelter from the wintry winds?"-THOMSON. The poor cockchaffer impaled on a pin, tied to a thread, and made to "spin," has not even an atom of honey to suggest an excuse for doing it such wrong. No; but it utters its agonies in a whirring sound which tingles as sweet music in the ear of the torturer! Not only the "lusts of the flesh," and the pomp and the "pride of life," seek and find gratification in cruelty, but also the desires of the eye and the ear. It is recorded of Parrhasius that he put a man to the torture, that he might more truly depict the agonies of his Prometheus. The Romans had mullets brought alive to their table that they might enjoy the beautiful variety of colours exhibited in their expiring moments. Among the moderns, many animals are robbed of their fair proportions, to correct nature, forsooth, and create beauty where she erred, from bad taste, in making them deformed! Some have their ears cropped, others their tails nicked and seared; and the eyes of birds are put out to increase the strength and sweetness of their song. Mr. Waterton, whom we have had occasion to quote more than once, deplores the fate of the poor chaffinch that has suffered this grievous deprivation, in a style which is honourable to his feelings. "Sad and mournful is the fate which awaits this harmless songster in Belgium and Holland, and in other kingdoms of the continent. In your visit to the towns in these countries you see it, outside the window, a lonely prisoner in a wooden cage, which is scarcely large enough to allow it to turn round upon its perch. It no longer enjoys the light of day. Its eyes have been seared with a red-hot iron, in order to increase its powers of song, which, unfortunately for the cause of humanity, are supposed to be heightened and prolonged far beyond their ordinary duration by this barbarous process." * * "O that the potentate, in whose dominions this little bird is doomed to such a cruel fate, would pass an edict to forbid the perpetration of this barbarous deed! Then would I exclaim, O king of men, thy act is worthy of a royal heart. That kind Being, who is a friend to the friendless, will recompense thee for this."-WATERTON'S Essays on Natural History. Since all creatures delight in liberty, and none more than birds accustomed to have the whole amplitude of the heavens for their range, their confinement in cages, unless of such as have been brought forth and reared in that state, must appear to every mind of common sensibility a grievous hardship. But what is this to the loss of the most delightful of the senses, and what must we think of those who have the heart to perpetrate or permit it? Many, it may be feared, who are among the last to whom cruelty in any form can be imputed directly, must, notwithstanding, be implicated in the charge of blamable inattention to a subject of such importance as this. If we hear or know of any existing cruelties, are we blameless if we do not endeavour to effect their extinction ? Can our kitchens, our larders, our festive boards testify nothing against us? We know them not-we hear them not. No; we take care to shut out from our eyes and our ears M whatever would offend. We dread the pain of having our sensibility wounded, and hence the evils we should be instrumental in redressing are allowed to grow and multiply. They who, in the days of the Prophet Amos, "lay on beds of ivory, and stretched themselves upon their couches, and eat of the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall, that chanted to the sound of the viol, ** and drank wine in bowls, and anointed themselves with the choicest unguents, grieved not for the affliction of Joseph." While we "eat the fat and drink the sweet," we never, for an instant, reflect on the animal sufferings which precede the banquet;-the barbed hook, the lacerating shot, the shrieks, the groans, and the dying agony. Such reflections would embitter the taste; therefore they are excluded as enemies of our peace; and cruelties continue to be perpetrated, not because we approve of them, but because we allow ourselves to become even unconscious of their existence. CAUSES OF CRUELTY. SECTION FOURTH. IGNORANCE AND FALSE PRETENCES. "While man exclaims, 'See all things for my use!' 'See man for mine!' replies a pamper'd goose."-POPE. "Man scruples not to say that he enjoyeth the heavens and the elements, as if all had been made, and still move only for him. In this sense, a gosling may say as much, and perhaps with more truth and justness."CHARRON. "The gasterophilus equi can subsist no where but in the stomach of the horse or ass; which animals, therefore, this insect might boast, with some show of reason, to have been created for its use rather than for ours, being to us useful only, but to it indispensable."-KIRBY'S and SPENCE'S Entomology, vol. I. p. 387. MUCH cruelty is committed through ignorance, and under false pretences. Though nothing is held so cheap as the lives of animals, yet, as if there were still some suspicion lurking in the mind, that they should not be gratuitously slaughtered, or without some sufficient reason, you may hear various motives assigned to excuse or justify the putting to death numberless creatures, that are harmless in their lives, and of little or no use when dead. Thus one creature is killed because it is beautiful, and its skin or its feathers may be ornamental to some trashery collection; a second is impaled or crushed to atoms under foot because it is ugly; a third is doomed to the same fate because it is neither beautiful nor ugly; a fourth because it is a cruel creature, and likes an insect or a bird for dinner, as much as an alderman loves a lobster and grouse; a fifth is not worthy to live, because the Creator in his infinite wisdom made it good for nothing! and a sixth must be destroyed-" for any other reason why"-qualibet altera causa. The wolf in the fable alleging impossible causes of quarrel with the lamb that he was determined to devour, is no bad representative of many an impaler of insects, of canicides and zootomists. To the admirer of beauty, and the connoisseur in ugliness, I would say, there is nothing so beautiful as cle-. mency, and, in the whole range of existence, nothing so ugly as a cruel man or woman. But who constituted you a judge of beauty and deformity, or allowed you to assume that either the one or the other is a sufficient cause for putting a creature to death? Whatever be its form and dress, God gave them, and you have no right to make his gifts a plea for its destruction. A wise man has said, "Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker." And we may add, agreeably to this sentiment, that he who destroys an animal because he deems it ugly, casts a reproach on the Creator who gave it the russet plumage or the coarse fur, the black shard, or the spiny shell, which he calls ugly. What would he think should some being of superior order, of superior taste too, and other ideas of beauty than his, insist on slicing off his nose, because it is not formed after the Grecian model, or on crushing his frame to jelly, because it cannot boast of the same grace and symmetry as the Apollo Belvidere ? There would be as much reason in the one case as in the other. But suppose the creature to be formed according to his own standard of beauty, with all the elegance of shape and magnificence of dress that he admires, would it be safe from injury? By no means. Whatever chance of pro |