his hives with wax and honey fill,
in vain whole summer days employ'd,
their stores are sold, the race destroy'd.
What tribute from the goose is paid!
does not her wing all science aid?
does it not lovers' hearts explain,
and drudge to raise the merchant's gain?
What now rewards this general use?
he takes the quills and eats the goose!—Gay.
There are animals which have the misfortune for no manner of reason, to be treated as common enemies, wherever they may be found. The conceit that a cat has nine lives, has cost at least nine lives in ten of the whole race of them; scarcely a boy in the streets but has in this point outdone Hercules himself, who was famous for killing a monster which had but three lives. Whether the unaccountable animosity against this domsetic may beany 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; tho' I am in inclined to believe the former; since I observe the sole reason alleged for the destruction of frogs is because they are like toads. Yet, amid all the misfortunes of these unfriended creatures, 't is some happiness that we have not yet taken a fancy to eat them: for should our countrymen refine on the French ever so little, 'tis not to be conceived to what unheard of torments, owls, cats, and frogs may be yet reserved.—Alex Pope.
How will man, that sanguinary tyrant, be able to excuse himself from the charge of innumerable cruelties inflicted on unoffending subjects committed to his care, formed for his benefit, and placed under his 2
