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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1660-1785] Enlightenment » James Thomson

James Thomson

Seasons

[1726-46] James Thomson, The Seasons [Winter, Spring, Summer & Autumn, First published separately (London, 1726-1730) with additions through 1746; collected Seasons first published, (London, 1730)]; Critical Edition (London, 1908;Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks).

To [James Thomson], the author of the Seasons belongs the especial merit of having been the poet, among the moderns, in any very appreciable degree, to protest against the infinite variedly of wrong inflicted upon the subject species, and particularly, against the unnaturalness and inhumanity of the slaughterhouse. The especially humanitarian passages of this truly charming poem are the admiral perfection of the description of the snow-storm (in Winter), the eloquent contrast of the vegetable and flesh diets (in Spring); the graphic pictures of the hunted deer and hare, and of amateur butchery, followed by the instructive scene of the drunken revels of the 'sportsmen' (Autumn); and the reprobation of the selfish custom of caging the winged songsters in (narrow) prisons. The allusion to the hunting and atrocious slaughter of the elephant, pursued and tortured by 'cruel avarice,' or forced to take part in hideous battle,—'astonished at the madness of mankind' (in Summer) exhibits, also, the poet's juster feeling."—Howard Williams, "James Thomson," in Ethics of Diet (1883; London, 1896; Online at Animal Rights History).