reached his majority when he published his "Essay on Criticism,” a work not more distinguished by perfect command of all the resources of verse, than by acuteness in reasoning and soundness of judgment. His life presents few incidents; it was that of a popular and successful votary of the Muses. His time was spent in the pursuits of literature; his leisure was cheered by the conversation of literary friends; his society was courted by all parties, wits, poets, and nobles; and the money which he realized from his works enabled him to live in comfort, and even luxury, at his beautiful villa at Twickenham, where he died in 1744. His chief works are the " Essay on Criticism," Essay on Man," the "Rape of the Lock," "Dunciad," "Imitations of Horace," "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard," and the translations of the "Iliad and Odyssey." As a reasoner in verse, it is universally admitted that Pope has no equal in the language; and he gave to the English heroic couplet a roundness and melody which no other poet has been able to reach. His ability as a satirist is equally unrivalled. The grace and delicacy of his fancy will hardly be doubted by any one who has read the "Rape of the Lock;" and the "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard" abundantly shows his power over the deeper emotions. He is usually accused of being too much the poet of artificial life, and of showing in his works little sensibility to the beauties of nature; but some deduction must now be made from this charge, as it has been recently discovered that some of the finest descriptive parts of Thomson's "Seasons were suggested and improved by Pope. His prose writings consist chiefly of his "Letters," whose excellence has been always admitted: some prefaces, especially that to Shakspere; some essays contributed to periodicals, such as the "Tatler ;" and the "Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus," intended as a satire on the abuses of human learning, in which he was assisted by Swift and Arbuthnot, and which was never finished.

1. EDUCATION OF MARTIN SCRIBLERUS BY HIS FATHER CORNELIUS.1

Four years of young Martin's life having passed away, Mrs Scriblerus considered it was now time to instruct him in the fundamentals of religion, and to that end took no small pains in teaching him his catechism. But Cornelius looked on this as a tedious way of instruction, and therefore employed his head to find out more pleasing methods, the better to induce him to be fond of learning. He would frequently carry him to the puppet-show of the creation of the world, where the child, with exceeding delight, gained a notion of the history of the Bible. His first rudiments in profane history were acquired by seeing of raree-shows, where he was brought acquainted with all the princes of Europe. In short, the old gentleman so contrived it, to make everything contribute to the improvement of his knowledge, even to his very dress. He invented for him a geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some hints of that science, and likewise some knowledge of the commerce of different nations. He had a French hat with an African feather,

1 This was perhaps written by Dr Arbuthnot, mentioned in the above biography.

EDUCATION OF MARTIN SCRIBLERUS BY HIS FATHER.

273

Holland shirts and Flander's lace, English cloth, lined with Indian silk; his gloves were Italian, and his shoes were Spanish. He was made to observe this, and daily catechized thereupon, which his father was wont to call "travelling at home." He never gave him a fig or an orange but he obliged him to give an account from what country it came. In natural history he was much assisted by his curiosity in sign-posts, insomuch that he hath often confessed he owed to them the knowledge of many creatures which he never found since in any author; such as white lions, golden dragons, &c. He once thought the same of green men, but had since found them mentioned by Kercherus, and verified in the history of William of Newbury.

His disposition to the mathematics was discovered very early, by his drawing parallel lines on his bread and butter, and intersecting them at equal angles, so as to form the whole superficies into squares. But in the midst of all these improvements, a stop was put to his learning the alphabet; nor would he let him proceed to letter D till he could truly and distinctly pronounce c in the ancient manner, at which the child unhappily boggled for near three months. He was also obliged to delay his learning to write, having turned away the writing-master because he knew nothing of Fabius's waxen tables.1

Cornelius having read and seriously weighed the methods by which the famous Montaigne was educated, and resolving in some degree to exceed them, resolved he should speak and learn nothing but the learned languages, and especially the Greek, in which he constantly eat and drank according to Homer. But what most conduced to his easy attainment of this language, was his love of gingerbread, which his father observing, caused it to be stamped with the letters of the Greek alphabet; and the child, the very first day, eat as far as iota. By his particular application to this language above the rest, he attained so great a proficiency therein that Gronovius ingenuously confesses he durst not confer with this child in Greek at eight years old; and at fourteen he composed a tragedy in the same language as the younger Pliny had done before him. He learned the Oriental languages of Erpenius, who resided some time with his father for that purpose. He had so early relish for the eastern way of writing, that even at this time he composed, in imitation of it, the "Thousand-and-One Arabian Tales," and also the "Persian Tales," which have been since translated into several languages, and lately into our own with particular elegance by Mr Ambrose Philips. In this work of his childhood he was not a little assisted by the historical traditions of his nurse.

1 An allusion to the ancient mode of writing on waxen tablets with a sharp-pointed pen, called a stylus.

2 He was taught to speak Latin before he was taught his mother-tongue.

3 i. e., the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet.

S

2. ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.—(CONTRIBUTED TO THE “GUARDIAN.”)

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, cock-fighting, and the like. We should find it hard to vindicate the destroying of anything 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 on 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 'tis ominous or unlucky to destroy some sorts of birds, as swallows and 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, 't's 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

ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

275

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 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 contribute 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.

The excellent Plutarch (who has more strokes of good-nature 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."

There is a passage in the book of Jonas, when God declares His unwillingness to destroy Nineveh, where, methinks, that compassion of the Creator, which extends to the meanest rank of His creatures, is expressed with wonderful tenderness-"Should I not spare Nineveh, the great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons, and also much cattle?" And we have in Deuteronomy a precept of great good-nature of this sort, with a blessing in form

annexed to it in those words: "If thou shalt find a bird's nest in the way, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: but thou shalt in anywise let the dam go, that it may be well with thee, and that thou may'st prolong thy days."

This whole matter, with regard to each of these considerations, is set in a very agreeable light in one of the Persian fables of Pilpay, with which I shall end this paper.

A traveller passing through a thicket, and seeing a few sparks of a fire, which some passengers had kindled as they went that way before, made up to it. On a sudden the sparks caught hold of a bush in the midst of which lay an adder, and set it in flames. The adder intreated the traveller's assistance, who tying a bag to the end of his staff, reached it and drew him out; he then bid him go where he pleased, but never more be hurtful to men, since he owed his life to a man's compassion. The adder, however, prepared to sting him, and when he expostulated how unjust it was to retaliate good with evil, I shall do no more (said the adder) than what you men practise every day, whose custom it is to requite benefits with ingratitude. If you can deny this truth, let us refer it to the first we meet. The man consented, and seeing a tree, put the question to it, in what manner a good turn was to be recompensed? If you mean according to the usage of men (replied the tree), by its contrary. I have been standing here these hundred years to protect them from the scorching sun, and in requital they have cut down my branches, and are going to saw my body into planks. Upon this the adder insulting the man, he appealed to a second evidence, which was granted, and immediately they met a cow. The same demand was made, and much the same answer given, that among men it was certainly so; I know it, said the cow, by woful experience; for I have served a man this long time with milk, butter, and cheese, and brought him besides a calf every year; but now I am old, he turns me into this pasture, with design to sell me to a butcher, who will shortly make an end of me. The traveller upon this stood confounded, but desired of courtesy one more trial, to be finally judged by the next beast they should meet. This happened to be the fox, who, upon hearing the story in all its circumstances, could not be persuaded it was possible for the adder to get into so narrow a bag. The adder, to convince him, went in again; the fox told the man he had now his enemy in his power, and with that he fastened the bag, and crushed him to pieces.

3. DESCRIPTION OF AN OLD COUNTRY HOUSE.-(“LETTERS TO
LADY MARY W. MONTAGU."

LETTER VIII.)

DEAR MADAM,-I am fourscore miles from London, a short journey compared to that I so often thought at least of undertaking, rather than die without seeing you again. Though the place I am in is such as I would not quit for the town, if I did not value you more than any, nay, everybody else there; and you'll be convinced