"If an eel had the wisdom of Solomon, he could not help himself in
the ill-usage that befalls him; but if he had, and were told, that
it was necessary for our subsistence that he should be eaten, that
he must be skinned first, and then broiled; if ignorant of man's
usual practice, he would conclude that the cook would so far use
her reason as to cut off his head first, which is not fit for
food, as then he might be skinned and broiled without harm; for
however the other parts of his body might be convulsed during the
culinary operations, there could be no feeling of consciousness
therein, the communication with the brain being cut off; but if
the woman were immediately to stick a fork into his eye, skin
him alive, coil him up in a skewer, head and all, so that in the
extremest agony he could not move, and forthwith broil him to
death: then were the same Almighty Power that formed man from the
dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call
the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he
had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which
man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines
him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that
men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such
insignificant creatures could be lessened: that eels were not the
only sufferers; that lobsters and other shell fish were put into
cold water and boiled to death by slow degrees in many parts of
the sea coast; that these, and many other such wanton atrocities,
were the consequence of carelessness occasioned by the pride of
mankind despising their low estate, and of the general opinion
that there is no punishable sin in the ill-treatment of animals
designed for our use; that, therefore, the woman did not bestow
so much thought on him as to cut his head off first, and that
she would have laughed at any considerate person who should have
desired such a thing; with what fearful indignation might he
inveigh against the unfeeling metaphysician that, like a cruel
spirit alarmed at the appearance of a dawning of mercy upon
animals, could not rest satisfied with opposing the Cruelty
Prevention Bill by the plea of possible inconvenience to mankind,
highly magnified and emblazoned, but had set forth to the vulgar
and unthinking of all ranks, in the jargon of proud learning, that
man's obligations of morality towards the creatures subjected to
his use are imperfect obligations!"
The poem "The Beggar-Man," in _Poetry for Children_, 1809 (see Vol.
III.), was also from John Lamb's pen.
Page 85, asterisks. _Society for the Relief of_--Distrest Sailors,
says Lamb's Key.
Page 86, last line of essay. "_Through the green plains of pleasant
Hertfordshire_." This line occurs in a sonnet of Lamb's written many
years before the essay (see Vol. IV.). Probably, however, Lamb did
not invent it, for (the late W.J. Craig pointed out) in Leland's
_Itinerary_, which Lamb must have known, if only on account of the
antiquary's remarks on Hertfordshire, is quoted a poem by William
Vallans (_fl._ 1578-1590), "The Tale of the Two Swans," containing
the line--