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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1785-1837] Romantic Age » James Leigh Hunt

James Leigh Hunt

Conversation of Pope: On Cruelty to Animals

New Monthly Magazine

[1825] James Leigh Hunt, "Conversation of Pope [On Cruelty to Animals]," The Family Journal—No. VII. New Monthly Magazine 9 (1825 Jan-Jun): 548-555; Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks.

The talk fell upon cruelty to animals; upon which Mr. Pope made some excellent observations. He began by remarking how strange it was, that little or nothing had been said of it in books—I have a curious book in my library, written by one Isaac Walton, an old linendraper in the time of Charles the Second.…This man piques himself on humanity; and yet the directions he gives on the subject of angling (for the book is written on the art) are full of such shocking cruelty, that I do not care to repeat them before the ladies. He wrote the lives of Donne, Hooker, and others, all anglers, and good religious men. Yet I suppose they were all as cruel. It is wonderful how the old man passes from pious reflections to the tortures of fish and worms, just as if pain were nothing. Yet what else are the devil and his doings made of.… I know not what right we have to continue putting our fellow creatures to pain, for the sake of avoiding it ourselves. Besides, there is a pain that exalts the understanding and morals, and is not unallied with pleasure; which can not be said of putting hooks into poor creatures' jaws and bowels.…We must give our fellow-creatures the benefit of our knowledge, and our ignorance too. if we cannot abolish evil, we may diminish it, or divide it better; and Nature incites us to do so by putting the thought in our heads. It is fancied by some, and I dare say anglers fancy it, that animals ,differ from us in their organization, do not feel as we do. I hope not. it is at least a good argument for consolation, when we can do nothing to help them; but as we are not sure of it, it is an argument not to be acted upon, when we c an. They must have the benefit of our certainty. (548- 550)