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press his mind on paper under his present form, however famous he might have been for writing verses when he was in his original shape.

"To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esquire, Censor of GREAT-BRITAIN.

"The humble petition of Job Chanticleer, in behalf of himself, and many other poor sufferers in the same condition,

"Showeth,

From my Coop in Claremarket, Feb. 13, 1709.

"That whereas your petitioner is truly descended of the ancient family of the Chanticleers, at Cock hall, near Rumford, in Essex, it has been his misfortune to come into the mercenary hands of a certain ill-disposed person, commonly called an higler, who, under the close confinement of a pannier, has conveyed him and many others up to London; but hearing by chance of your worship's great humanity towards Robin-red-breasts and Tom-tits, he is emboldened to beseech you to take his deplorable condition into your tender consideration, who otherwise must suffer, with many thousands more as innocent as himself, that inhuman barbarity of a Shrove-Tuesday persecution *. We humbly hope,

that our courage and vigilance may plead for us on this occasion.

"Your poor petitioner most earnestly implores your immediate protection from the insolence of the rabble, the batteries of cat-sticks, and a painful lingering death.

And your Petitioner, &c."

Upon delivery of this petition, the worthy gentleman, who presented it, told me the customs of

The original date of this paper is "From Tuesday Feb. 11, to Thursday Feb. 16, 1709."

*

many wise nations of the East, through which he had travelled; that nothing was more frequent than to see a dervise lay out a whole year's income in the redemption of larks or linnets, that had unhappily fallen into the hands of bird-catchers; that it was also usual to run between a dog and a bull to keep them from hurting one another, or to lose the use of a limb in parting a couple of furious mastiffs. He then insisted upon the ingratitude and disingenuity of treating in this manner a necessary and domestic animal, that has made the whole house keep good hours, and called up the cook-maid for five years together. "What would a Turk + say," continued he, "should he hear, that it is a common entertainment in a nation, which pretends to be one of the most civilised of Europe, to tie an innocent animal to a stake, and put him to an ignominious death, who has perhaps been the guardian and proveditor of a poor family, as long as he was able to get eggs for his mistress?"

I thought what this gentleman said was very reasonable; and have often wondered, that we do not lay aside a custom, which makes us appear barbarous to nations much more rude and unpolished than ourselves. Some French writers have represented this diversion of the common people much to our disadvantage, and imputed it to natural fierceness and cruelty of temper; as they do some other entertainments peculiar to our nation: I mean those elegant diversions of bull-baiting and prize-fighting, with the like ingenious recreations of the beargarden. I wish I knew how to answer this reproach which is cast upon us, and excuse the death of so

*Disingenuousness.

The word Turk is used here to signify a savage, or a bar-` barian.

many innocent cocks, bulls, dogs, and bears, as have been set together by the ears, or died untimely deaths, only to make us sport.

It will be said, that these are the entertainments of common people. It is true; but they are the entertainments of no other common people. Besides, I am afraid, there is a tincture of the same savage spirit in the diversions of those of higher rank, and more refined relish. Rapin observes, that the English theatre very much delights in bloodshed, which he likewise represents as an indication of our tempers. I must own, there is something very horrid in the public executions of an English tragedy. Stabbing and poisoning, which are performed behind the scenes in other nations, must be done openly among us, to gratify the audience.

When poor Sandford was upon the stage, I have seen him groaning upon a wheel, stuck with daggers, impaled alive, calling his executioners, with a dying voice, "cruel dogs and villains!" and all this to please his judicious spectators, who were wonderfully delighted with seeing a man in torment so well acted. The truth of it is, the politeness of our English stage, in regard to decorum, is very extraordinary. We act murders, to show our intrepidity; and adulteries, to show our gallantry: both of them are frequent in our most taking plays, with this difference only, that the former are done in the sight of the audience, and the latter wrought up to such an height upon the stage, that they are almost put in execution before the actors can get behind the scenes.

I would not have it thought, that there is just ground for those consequences which our enemies draw against us from these practices; but methinks one would be sorry for any manner of occasion for such misrepresentations of us. The virtues of ten

derness, compassion, and humanity, are those by which men are distinguished from brutes, as much as by reason itself; and it would be the greatest reproach to a nation, to distinguish itself from all others by any defect in these particular virtues. For which reasons, I hope that my dear countrymen will no longer expose themselves by an effusion of blood, whether it be of theatrical heroes, cocks, or any other innocent animals, which we are not obliged to slaughter for our safety, convenience, or nourishment. When any of these ends are not served in the destruction of a living creature, I cannot but pronounce it a great piece of cruelty, if not á kind of murder.

No 135. SATURDAY, FEB. 18, 1709-10.

Quòd in hoc erro, quòd animos hominum immortales esse credam, libenter erro; nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo, extorqueri volo: sin mortuus, ut quidam minuti philosophi censent, nihil sentiam; non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum mortui philosophi irrideant. CICERO, De Senect. cap. ult. Ed. Verburgii. Vol. X. p. 3758.

"But if I err in believing that the souls of men are immortal, 1 willingly err; nor while I live would I wish to have this delightful error extorted from me: and if after death I shall feel nothing, as some minute philosophers think, I am not afraid lest dead philosophers should laugh at me for the error."

Sheer-lane, January 17.

SEVERAL letters, which I have lately received, give me information, that some well-disposed persons have taken offence at my using the word Free

thinker as a term of reproach. To set, therefore, this matter in a clear light, I must declare, that no one can have a greater veneration than myself for the Free-thinkers of antiquity; who acted the same part in those times, as the great men of the Reformation did in several nations of Europe, by exerting themselves against the idolatry and superstition of the times in which they lived. It was by this noble impulse that Socrates and his disciples, as well as all the philosophers of note in Greece, and Cicero, Seneca, with all the learned men of Rome, endeavoured to enlighten their contemporaries amidst the darkness and ignorance in which the world was then sunk and buried.

The great points, which these Free-thinkers endeavoured to establish and inculcate into the minds of men, were the formation of the universe, the superintendency of Providence, the perfection of the Divine Nature, the immortality of the soul, and the future state of rewards and punishments. They all complied with the religion of their country, as much as possible, in such particulars as did not contradict and pervert these great and fundamental doctrines of mankind. On the contrary, the persons who now set up for Free-thinkers, are such as endeavour, by a little trash of words and sophistry, to weaken and destroy those very principles, for the vindication of which, freedom of thought at first became laudable and heroic. These apostates from reason and good sense can look at the glorious frame of nature, without paying an adoration to Him that raised it; can consider the great revolutions in the universe, without lifting up their minds to that superior Power which hath the direction of it; can presume to censure the Deity in his ways towards men; can level mankind with the beasts that perish; can extinguish in their own minds all the pleasing hopes of a

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