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Alexander Pope
1688-1744
 1713-May 21 | Alexander Pope, "[Against Barbarity to Animals] No. 61, Thursday, May 21," The Guardian (London:1713) 61: (1713 May 21) 261-267; Online at Animal Rights History, 2003.
Against Barbarity to Animals
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.
1713 | Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, 3rd Edition (London, 1720); Online at Google Books..
Windsor Forest
See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.
Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah ! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,
His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?
Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,
The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny:
To plains with well-bred beagles we repair,
And trace the mazes of the circling hare.
(Beasts taught by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,
And learn of man each other to undo.)
With slaught'ring guns th' unweary'd fowler roves,
When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves;
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade,
And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;
Strait a short thunder breaks the frozen sky.
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clam'rous plovers feel the leaden death:
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in the air.
The plumage of the dying pheasant may be over-elaborated; still, it is distinctly pleasing to find a recognition that other of God’s creatures besides man have a right to enjoy themselves on this earth. (The Cambridge History of English and American Literature (1907-1921) Volume IX, "Pope, Windsor Forest")
1733-1734 | Alexander Pope, "Epistle I—Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to the Universe," "Epistle III—Of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to Society" and "Epistle IV—Of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to Happiness" in Essay on Man in Four Epistles [First Published: 1733-1734] in English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray, vol. XL in The Harvard Classics (New York, 1909-14; Bartleby.com, 2001).
Essay on Man
Epistle I—Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to the Universe (Lines 81-4; 117-8.)
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust.
Epistle III—Of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to Society (Lines 22-6; 151-64; 170-9; 256-66; 294-301.)
One all-extending, all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast;
All serv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade,
The same his table, and the same his bed;
No murder cloth'd him, and no murder fed.
In the same temple, the resounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest:
Heav'n's attribute was universal care,
And man's prerogative, to rule, but spare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live, the butcher, and the tomb;
Who, foe to nature, hears the gen'ral groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
Thus then to man the voice of nature spake
'Go, from the creatures thy instruction take:
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind.
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust;
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide;
And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride.
Then sacred seem'd th' ether'al vault no more;
Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:
Then first the flamen tasted living food;
Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood.
Such is the world's great harmony, that springs
From order, union, full consent of things:
Where small and great. where weak and mighty, made
To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade;
More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,
And in proportion as it blesses, blest;
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord or king.
Epistle IV—Of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to Happiness (Lines 357-73.)
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence:
Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,
And height of bliss but height of charity.
God loves from whole to parts: but human soul
Must rise from individual to the whole.
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre mov’d, a circle strait succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next, and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take ev'ry creature in, of ev'ry kind;
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast.
1744 | John Spence, "Conversation with Alexander Pope, 1744," in "Spence's Anecdotes, Section VII, 1743-44" in Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men, Collected from the Conversation of Mr Pope, and other Eminent Persons of His Time [First Edition: London, 1820; Excerpts from the 2nd Edition] (London, 1858); Online at Google Books.
Conversation with John Spence
[Spence]—I shall be very glad to see Dr. Hales; and always love to see him, he is so worthy and good a man. [Pope]—Yes, he is a very good man; only I'm sorry he has his hands so much inbrued in blood. [Spence]—What, he cuts up rats? [Pope]—Ay, and dogs too!—[Spence] (With what emphasis and concern he spoke it.)—[Pope] Indeed, he commits most of these barbarities, with the thought of being of use to man: but how do we know, that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above as dogs, for our curiosity, or even for some use to us?
[Spence]—I used to carry it too far; I thought they had reason as well as we. [Pope]—So they have to be sure—all our disputes about that, are only disputes about words. Man has reason enough only to know what is necessary for him to know; and dogs have just that too. [Spence]—But then they must have souls too; as unperishable in their nature as ours? [Pope]—And what harm would that be to us?
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