I think this vein
may be further opened; Peter Pindar hath very prettily apostrophized a
fly; Burns hath his mouse and his louse; Coleridge, less successfully,
hath made overtures of intimacy to a jackass,--therein only following at
unresembling distance Sterne and greater Cervantes. Besides these, I
know of no other examples of breaking down the partition between us and
our "poor earth-born companions." It is sometimes revolting to be put in
a track of feeling by other people, not one's own immediate thoughts,
else I would persuade you, if I could (I am in earnest), to commence a
series of these animal poems, which might have a tendency to rescue some
poor creatures from the antipathy of mankind. Some thoughts come across
me: for instance, to a rat, to a toad, to a cockchafer, to a
mole,--people bake moles alive by a slow oven-fire to cure consumption.
Rats are, indeed, the most despised and contemptible parts of God's
earth, I killed a rat the other day by punching him to pieces, and feel
a weight of blood upon me to this hour. Toads, you know, are made to
fly, and tumble down and crush all to pieces. Cockchafers are old sport;
then again to a worm, with an apostrophe to anglers,--those patient
tyrants, meek inflictors of pangs intolerable, cool devils; [1] to an
owl; to all snakes, with an apology for their poison; to a cat in boots
or bladders.
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