Humanity Against Cruelty to Animals in Historical Literature, Timeline of Animal Rights History

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1713 | 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. (Alexander Pope, The Guardian No. 61 [1713], "Against Barbarity to Animals")

1713 | 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 shiming 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 toil 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 loney woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.
He lifts his tube, and levels his eye;
Strait a short thunder breaks the frozen sky.
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in the air.
(Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest [1713])

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")

1733-34 | Essay on Man

The lamb the riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle I, Lines 81-84)

Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust;
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle I, Lines 117-8)

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.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle III, Lines 22-6)

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:
Heaven'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,
Muders their species, and betrays his own.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle III, Lines 152-64)

Thus then to man man the voice of nature spake
Go, from the creatures thy instruction take:
Learn from the birds what food the tickets 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.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle III, Lines 170-9)

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.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle III, Lines 256-66)

Such is the world's great harmony, that springs
From order, union, full consent of things:
Where small and great and weak and mighty, made:
To serve, not suffer, stengthen, not invade;
More powerful 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.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle III, Lines 294-301)

Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence:
Happier as kinder, in what'er degree,
And the 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, the o'erflowings of the mind
Take every creature in, of every kind;
Earth smiles around, with bounty blest,
And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast.
(Alexander Pope, Essay on Man [1733-34], Epistle IV, Lines 257-73)

1744 | 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! (And with what emphasis and concern he spoke it.) Indeed, he commits most of these barbarities with the thought of its being of use to man; but how do we know, that we have a right to kill creatures that 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]—They have to be sure— And all our disputes about that, are only disputes about words. Man hads 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 ?"—[Pope]—And what harm would that be to us? (John Spence, Anecotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men, "Conversation with Alexander Pope, 1744")

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1713-May 21 | Alexander Pope, "[Against Barbarity to Animals] No. 61, Thursday, May 21," The Guardian (London:1713) 61: (1713 May 21) 261-267 [AnimalRightsHistory.Org, 2003]

1713 | Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, 3rd Edition (London, 1720; Digitized by Google, 2007).

1733-1734 | Alexander Pope, Essay on Man in Four Epistles [First Published: 1733-1734] in English Poetry I: From Chauncer to Gray, Vol. XL in The Harvard Classics (New York, 1909-14; Bartleby.com, 2001).

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; Digitized by Google, 2007).

"Pope, Bibliography" in Vol IX of The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes (1907-1921; Bartleby.com).

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