Man of War, on the Coast of Patagonia in 1740, pp. 9, 17, 2nd ed. 1768.

L. 215. “When reverent thanks." For grace before meat we have the example of the blessed Jesus himself,-Mat. xiv. 19. xv. 36. xxvi. 27. Mark xiv. 22, 23. Luke xxii. 17. That the custom was anterior to the coming of Christ, see 1 Sam. ix. 13. "The people will not eat until he Samuel "come, because he doth bless the

sacrifice, afterwards they eat that be bidden."

L. 221. "To bird, and insect, fish, and beast." That advocate of mercy to the inferior creatures, the Reverend Henry Crowe, Vicar of Buckingham, writes thus in Zoophilos: "I have known and yet know many men possessing true principles of benevolence, and moral obligation, who join, and with keenness, in the sports of the field. Yet I must be allowed to say, that this is done during the slumber of reason, and that on these occasions they disregard or suppress those feelings which mature

reflection would excite. This effect is, I suspect, especially produced by the eagerness of the chace, the animating scene of hounds and horn, and the presence of cheerful, gay society: all which gratifications are doubtless supplied by this species of amusement. But when these emotions are past, let them ask themselves calmly, whether such diversion be in a moral light justifiable, or will bear the test of serious and unprejudiced retrospect. I then would leave the answer to their own sincerity

and good sense. The empta dolore voluptas' would, I think, here be found applicable in a twofold sense." "The occupation of a butcher is blameless, is of manifest utility and necessity; but the horrid and offensive scene of slaughter is generally, and very properly, removed from our sight. I cannot easily imagine any one so grossly unfeeling, as to take a gratification in beholding it. If he did, his conduct probably would be reprobated by universal indignation: yet, to say the truth, I

cannot help tracing (even if unjustly) some similitude between him and a sportsman."

66

By way

of a salvo to the humanity, of which he " the poet Thomson" would never be thought to lose sight, he begins his instructions with dissuading us from baiting with worms, but to use the artificial fly. He then describes all the pleasures of the sport at large: observes that if we catch a fish too small to be of any use, a worthless prey' as he says, we should throw it into the water again,

I