tyranny which Custom usurps over us, that men of any tolerable
good nature could never be reconciled to the killing of so many
animals for their daily food, so long as the bountiful Earth so
plentifully provides them with varieties of vegetable dainties. I
know that Reason excites our compassion but faintly, and therefore
I do not wonder how men should so little commiserate such imperfect
creatures as cray-fish, oysters, cockles, and, indeed, all fish in
general, as they are mute, and their inward formation, as well as
outward figure, vastly different from ours: they express themselves
unintelligently to us, and therefore ’tis not strange that their
grief should not affect our understanding which it cannot reach;
for nothing stirs us to pity so effectually as when the symptoms of
misery strike immediately upon our senses, and I have seen people
moved at the noise a live lobster makes upon the spit who could
have killed half a dozen fowls with pleasure.
“But in such perfect animals as Sheep and Oxen, in whom the heart,
the brain, and the nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom
the separation of the spirits from the blood, the organs of sense,
and, consequently, feeling itself, are the same as they are in
human creatures, I cannot imagine how a man not hardened in blood
and massacre, is able to see a violent death, and the pangs of it,
without concern.
“In answer to this [he continues], most people will think it
sufficient to say that things being allowed to be made for the
service of man, there can be no cruelty in putting creatures to the
use they were designed for,[136] but I have heard men make this
reply, while the nature within them has reproached them with the
falsehood of the assertion.
“There is of all the multitude not one man in ten but will own
(if he has not been brought up in a slaughter-house) that of all
trades he could never have been a _butcher_; and I question whether
ever anybody so much as killed a chicken without reluctancy the
first time. Some people are not to be persuaded to taste of any
creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with while they
were alive; others extend their scruples no further than to their
own poultry, and refuse to eat what they fed and took care of
themselves; yet all of them feed heartily and without remorse on
beef, mutton, and fowls when they are bought in the market. In this
behaviour, methinks, there appears something like a _consciousness
of guilt_; it looks as if they endeavoured to save themselves from
the imputation of a crime (which they know sticks somewhere) by
removing the cause of it as far as they can from themselves; and I
discover in it some strong marks of primitive pity and innocence,
which all the arbitrary power of Custom, and the violence of
Luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.”[137]
XVIII.
GAY. 1688-1732.
The intimate friend of Pope and Swift is best known by his charming
and instructive _Fables_. He was born at Barnstaple, in Devonshire,
and belonged to the old family of the Le Gays of that county. His
father, reduced in means, apprenticed him to a silk mercer in the
Strand, London, in whose employment he did not long remain. The first
of his poems, _Rural Sports_, appeared in 1711. In the following year
he became secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and he served for a
short time as secretary to the English embassy in Hanover. His next
work was his _Shepherd’s Week, in Six Pastorals_, in which he ridicules
the sentimentality of the “pastorals” of his own and preceding age. It
contains much naturalness as well as humour, and it was the precursor
of Crabbe’s rural sketches. In 1726 he published the most successful of
his works, the _Beggars’ Opera_--the idea of which had been suggested
to him by the Dean of St. Patrick’s. It was received with unbounded
applause, and it originated the (so-called) English opera, which for a
time supplanted the Italian.
The _Fables_ first appeared in 1726. They were supplemented afterwards
by others, and the volume was dedicated to the young Duke of
Cumberland, famous in after years by his suppression of the Highland
rising of 1745. Gay’s death, which happened suddenly, called forth the
sincere laments of his devoted friends Swift and Pope. The former, in
his letters, frequently refers to his loss with deep feeling; and Pope
has characterised him as--
“Of manners gentle, of affections mild--
In wit a man, simplicity a child.”
Of his _Fables_--the best in the language--one of the most interesting
is the well-known _Hare and Many Friends_, in which he seems to record
some of his own experiences. _The Court of Death_, suggested probably
by Milton’s fine passage in the _Paradise Lost_, is one of his most
forcible. When the principal Diseases have severally advanced their
claims to pre-eminence, Death calls upon _Intemperance_:--
“All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand.
Now expectation hushed the band,
When thus the monarch from the throne:
Merit was ever modest known--
What! no physician speak his right!
None here? But fees their toils requite.
Let then Intemperance take the wand,
Who fills with gold their jealous hand.
You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest
(Whom wary men as foes detest)
Forego your claim. No more pretend--
Intemperance is esteemed a friend.
He shares their mirth, their social joys,
And as a courted guest destroys.
The charge on him must justly fall
Who finds employment for you all.”
It is in the following fable that Gay especially satirises the
sanguinary diet:--
“Pythagoras rose at early dawn,
By soaring meditation drawn;
To breathe the fragrance of the day,
Through flow’ry fields he took his way.
In musing contemplation warm,
His steps misled him to a farm:
Where, on the ladder’s topmost round,
A peasant stood. The hammer’s sound
Shook the weak barn. ‘Say, friend, what care
Calls for thy honest labour there?’
“The clown, with surly voice, replies:
‘Vengeance aloud for justice cries.
This kite, by daily rapine fed,
My hens’ annoy, my turkeys’ dread,
At length his forfeit life hath paid.
See on the wall his wings displayed,
Here nailed, a terror to his kind.
My fowls shall future safety find,
My yard the thriving poultry feed,
And my barn’s refuse fat the breed.’
“‘Friend,’ says the Sage, ‘the doom is wise--
For public good the murderer dies.
But if these tyrants of the air
Demand a sentence so severe,
_Think how the glutton, man, devours;
What bloody feasts regale his hours!
O impudence of Power and Might!_
Thus to condemn a hawk or kite,
When thou, perhaps, carnivorous sinner,
Had’st pullets yesterday for dinner.’
“‘Hold!’ cried the clown, with passion heated,
‘Shall kites and men alike be treated?
When heaven the world with creatures stored,
Man was ordained their sovereign lord.’
‘Thus tyrants boast,’ the Sage replied,
‘Whose murders spring from power and pride.
Own then this man-like kite is slain
_Thy greater luxury to sustain_--
For petty rogues submit to fate
That great ones may enjoy their state.’”[138]
This is not the only apologue in which the rhyming moralist exposes
at once the inconsistency and the injustice of the human animal who,
himself choosing to live by slaughter, yet hypocritically stigmatises
with the epithets “cruel” and “bloodthirsty” those animals whom Nature
has evidently _designed_ to be predaceous. In _The Shepherd’s Dog and
the Wolf_ he represents the former upbraiding the ravisher of the
sheepfolds for attacking “a weak, defenceless kind”:--
“‘Friend,’ says the Wolf, ‘the matter weigh:
Nature designed _us_ beasts of prey.
As such, when hunger finds a treat,
’Tis necessary wolves should eat.
If, mindful of the bleating weal,
Thy bosom burn with real zeal,
Hence, and thy tyrant lord beseech--
To _him_ repeat thy moving speech.
A wolf eats sheep but now and then--
_Ten thousands are devoured by men_!
An open foe may prove a curse,
But a pretended friend is worse.’”
In _The Philosopher and the Pheasants_ the same truth is conveyed with
equal force:--
“Drawn by the music of the groves,
Along the winding gloom he roves.
From tree to tree the warbling throats
Prolong the sweet, alternate notes.
But where he passed he terror threw;
The song broke short--the warblers flew:
The thrushes chattered with affright,
And nightingales abhorred his sight.
All animals before him ran,
To shun the hateful sight of man.
‘Whence is this dread of every creature?
Fly they our figure or our nature?’
As thus he walked, in musing thought,
His ear imperfect accents caught.
With cautious step, he nearer drew,
By the thick shade concealed from view.
High on the branch a Pheasant stood,
Around her all her listening brood:
Proud of the blessings of her nest,
She thus a mother’s care expressed:--
‘No dangers here shall circumvent;
Within the woods enjoy content.
Sooner the hawk or vulture trust
Than man, of animals the worst.
In him ingratitude you find--
A vice peculiar to the kind.
The Sheep, whose annual fleece is dyed
To guard his health and serve his pride,
Forced from his fold and native plain,
Is in the cruel shambles slain.
The swarms who, with industrious skill,
His hives with wax and honey fill,
In vain whole summer days employed--
Their stores are sold, their race destroyed.
What tribute from the Goose is paid?
Does not her wing all science aid?
Does it not lovers’ hearts explain,
And drudge to raise the merchant’s gain?
What now rewards this general use?
He takes the quills and eats the Goose!’”
* * * * *
In another parable Gay, in some sort, gives the victims of the Shambles
their revenge:--
“Against an elm a Sheep was tied:
The butcher’s knife in blood was dyed--
The patient flock, in silent fright,
From far beheld the horrid sight.
A savage Boar, who near them stood,
Thus mocked to scorn the fleecy brood:--
‘All cowards should be served like you.
See, see, your murderer is in view:
With purple hands and reeking knife,
He strips the skin yet warm with life.
Your quartered sires, your bleeding dams,
The dying bleat of harmless lambs,
Call for revenge. O stupid race!
The heart that wants revenge is base.’
‘I grant,’ an ancient Ram replies,
‘We bear no terror in our eyes.
Yet think us not of soul so tame,
Which no repeated wrongs inflame--
Insensible of every ill,
Because we want thy tusks to kill--
Know, _those who violence pursue
Give to themselves the vengeance due_,
For in these massacres they find
The two chief plagues that waste mankind--
Our skin supplies the wrangling bar:
It wakes their slumbering sons to war.
And well Revenge may rest contented,
Since drums and parchment were invented.’”[139]
XIX.
CHEYNE. 1671-1743.
One of the most esteemed of English physicians, and one of the first
medical authorities in this country who expressly wrote in advocacy of
the reformed diet, descended from an old Scottish family. He studied
medicine at Edinburgh--then and still a principal school of medicine
and surgery--where he was a pupil of Dr. Pitcairn. At about the age of
thirty he removed to London, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,
and took his M.D. degree, commencing practice in the metropolis.
The manner of life of a medical practitioner in the first half of
the last century differed considerably from the present fashion. Not
only personal inclination, but even professional interest, usually
led him to frequent taverns and to indulge in all the excesses of
“good living;” for in such boon companionship he most easily laid the
foundation of his practice. Cheyne’s early habits of temperance thus
gave way to the double temptation, and soon by this indulgence he
contracted painful disorders which threatened his life. An enormous
weight of flesh, intermittent fevers, shortness of breath, and lethargy
combined to enfeeble and depress him.
His first appearance in literature was the publication of his _New
Theory of Fevers_, written in defence and at the suggestion of his old
master Dr. Pitcairn, who was at war with his brethren on the nature of
epidemics. The author, while in after life holding that it contained,
though in a crude form, some valuable matter, wisely allowed it to fall
into oblivion. The Mechanical or _Iatro-Mathematical_ Theory, as it was
called, of which Cheyne was one of the earliest and most distinguished
expounders, by which it was attempted to apply the laws of Mechanics to
vital phenomena, had succeeded to the principles of the old Chemical
School. On the Continent the new theory had the support of the eminent
authority of Boerhaave, Borelli, Sauvages, Hoffman, and others. The
natural desire to discover some definite and simple _formulæ_ of
medical science lay at the root of this, as of many other hypotheses.
Cheyne, himself, it is right to observe, ridiculed the notion that all
vital processes can be explained on mechanical principles.
In 1705 he published his _Philosophical Principles of Natural
Religion_, a book which had some repute in its day, apparently, since
it was in use in the Universities. Between this and his next essay in
literature a long interval elapsed, during which he had to pay the
penalty of his old habits in apoplectic giddiness, violent headaches,
and depression of spirits. Happily, it became for him the turning-point
in his life, and eventually rendered him so useful an instructor of
his kind. He had now arrived at a considerable amount of reputation
in the profession. He seems to have been naturally of agreeable
manners and of an amiable disposition, as well as of lively wit which,
improved by study and reading, made him highly popular; and amongst his
scientific and professional friends he was in great esteem. He had now,
however--not too soon--determined to abandon his _bon-vivantism_, and
speedily “even those who had shared the best part of my profusions,”
he tells us, “who, in their necessities had been relieved by my false
generosity, and, in their disorders, been relieved by my care, did now
entirely relinquish and abandon me.” He retired into solitude in the
country and, almost momentarily expecting the termination of his life,
set himself to serious and earnest reflection on the follies and vices
of ordinary living.
At this time it seems that, although he had reduced his food to
the smallest possible amount, he had not altogether relinquished
flesh-meat. He repaired to Bath for the waters and, by living in the
most temperate way and by constant and regular exercise, he seemed to
have regained his early health. At Bath he devoted himself to cases
of nervous diseases which most nearly concerned his own state, and
which were most abundant at that fashionable resort. About the year
1712, or in the forty-second year of his age, his health was fairly
re-established, and he began to relax in the milk and vegetable regimen
which he had previously adopted.
His next publication was _An Essay on the Gout and Bath Waters_ (1720),
which passed through seven editions in six years. In it he commends the
vegetable diet, although not so radically as in his latest writings.
His relaxation of dietetic reform quickly brought back his former
maladies, and he again suffered severely. During the next ten or
twelve years he continued to increase in corpulency, until he at last
reached the enormous weight of thirty-two stones, and he describes his
condition at this time as intolerable.[140] In 1725 he left Bath for
London, to consult his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, whose advice probably
renewed and confirmed his old inclination for the rational mode of
living. At all events, within two years, by a strict adherence to the
milk and vegetable regimen his maladies finally disappeared; nor did he
afterwards suffer by any relapse into dietetic errors.
In the preceding year had appeared his first important and original
work--his well-known _Essay of Health and a Long Life_. In the preface
he declares that it is published for the benefit of those weakly
persons who
“are able and willing to abstain from everything hurtful, and to
deny themselves anything their appetites craved, to conform to
any rules for a tolerable degree of health, ease, and freedom
of spirits. It is for these, and these only,” he proceeds, “the
following treatise is designed. The robust, the luxurious, the
pot-companions, &c., have here no business; their time is not yet
come.”
It is generally acknowledged to be one of the best books on the
subject. Haller pronounced it to be “the best of all the works bearing
upon the health of sedentary persons and invalids.” It went through
several editions in the space of two years, and in 1726 was enlarged by
the author and translated by his friend and pupil John Robertson M.A.
into Latin, and three or four editions were quickly exhausted in France
and Germany. In this book, while reducing flesh-meat to a _minimum_,
and insisting upon the necessity of abstinence from grosser food and of
the use of vegetables only, at the morning and evening meals, he had
not advanced as yet so far as to preach the truth in its entirety. He
arrived at it only by slow and gradual conviction. Expatiating on the
follies and miseries of _bon-vivantism_, he proceeds to affirm that--
“All those who have lived long, and without much pain, have lived
abstemiously, poor, and meagre. Cornaro prolonged his life and
preserved his senses by almost starving in his latter days; and
some others have done the like. They have, indeed, thereby, in some
measure, weakened their natural strength and qualified the fire
and flux of their spirits, but they have preserved their senses,
weakened their pains, prolonged their days, and procured themselves
a gentle and quiet passage into another state.... All the rest
will be insufficient without this [a frugal diet]; and this alone,
without these [medicines, &c.], will suffice to carry on life as
long as by its natural flame it was made to last, and will make the
passage easy and calm, as a taper goes out for want of fuel.”
While the _Essay of Health_ added greatly to his reputation with all
thinking people, it also exposed him (as was to be expected) to a storm
of small wit, ridicule, and misrepresentation:--
“Some good-natured and ingenious retainers to the Profession,” he
tells us, “on the publication of my book on _Long Life and Health_,
proclaimed everywhere that I was turned mere enthusiast, advised
people to turn monks, to run into deserts, and to live on roots,
herbs, and wild fruits! in fine, that I was, at bottom, a mere
leveller, and for destroying order, ranks, and property, everyone’s
but my own. But that sneer had its day, and vanished into smoke.
Others swore that I had eaten my book, recanted my _doctrine_ and
_system_ (as they were pleased to term it), and was returned again
to the devil, the world, and the flesh. This joke I have also
stood. I have been slain again and again, both in prose and verse;
but, I thank God, I am still alive and well.”
His next publication was his _English Malady: or, a Treatise of Nervous
Diseases of all kinds_, which was also well received, going through
four editions in two years. The incessant ridicule with which the
_gourmands_ had assailed his last work seems to have made him cautious
in his next attempt to revolutionise dietetics; and he is careful to
advertise the public that his milk and vegetable system was for those
in weak health only. Denouncing the use of sauces and provocatives
of unnatural appetite, “contrived not only to rouse a sickly stomach
to receive the unnatural load, but to render a naturally good one
incapable of knowing when it has enough,” he asks, “Is it any wonder
then that the diseases which proceed from idleness and fulness of meat
should increase in proportion?” He is bold enough by this time to
affirm that, for the cure of many diseases, an entire abstinence from
flesh is indisputably necessary:--
“There are some cases wherein a vegetable and milk diet seems
absolutely necessary, as in severe and habitual gouts, rheumatisms,
cancerous, leprous, and scrofulous disorders; extreme nervous
colics, epilepsies, violent hysteric fits, melancholy, consumptions
(and the like disorders, mentioned in the preface), and towards the
last stages of all chronic distempers. In such distempers _I have
seldom seen such a diet fail of a good effect at last_.”
Six years later, in 1740, appeared his _Essay on Regimen: together
with Five Discourses Medical Moral and Philosophical, &c._ Since his
last exhortation to the world Cheyne had evidently convinced himself,
by long experience as well as reflection, of the great superiority of
the vegetable diet for all--sound as well as sick; and, accordingly,
he speaks in strong and clear language of the importance of a general
reform. As a consequence of this plain speaking, his new book met with
a comparatively cold reception. Perhaps, too, its mathematical and
somewhat abstruse tone may have affected its popularity. As regards its
moral tone it was a new revelation, doubtless, for the vast majority of
his readers. He boldly asserts:--
“The question I design to treat of here is, whether animal or
vegetable food was, in the original design of the Creator, intended
for the food of animals, and particularly of the human race. And I
am almost convinced it _never was intended, but only permitted as
a curse or punishment_.... At what time animal [flesh] food came
first in use is not certainly known. He was a bold man who made the
first experiment.
_Illi robur et æs triplex
Circa pectus erat._
To see the convulsions, agonies, and tortures of a poor
fellow-creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to
gratify luxury, and tickle callous and rank organs, must require a
rocky heart, and a great degree of cruelty and ferocity. I cannot
find any great difference, _on the foot of natural reason and
equity only, between feeding on human flesh and feeding on brute
animal flesh, except custom and example_.
I believe some [more] rational creatures would suffer less in being
fairly butchered than a strong Ox or red Deer; and, in natural
morality and justice, the _degrees of pain_ here make the essential
difference, for as to other differences, _they are relative only_,
and can be of no influence with an infinitely perfect Being. Did
not use and example weaken this lesson, and make the difference,
reason alone could never do it.”--_Essay on Regimen, &c._ 8vo.
1740. Pages 54 and 70.
Noble and courageous words! Courageous as coming from an eminent member
of a profession--which almost rivals the legal or even the clerical,
in opposition to all change in the established order of things. In Dr.
Cheyne’s days such interested or bigoted opposition was even stronger
than in the present time. From the period of the final establishment of
his health, about 1728, little is known of his life excepting through
his writings. Almost all we know is, that he continued some fifteen
years to practise in London and in Bath with distinguished reputation
and success. He had married a daughter of Dr. Middleton of Bristol by
whom he had several children. His only son was born in 1712. Amongst
his intimate friends was the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, a Scotchman like
himself, and we find him meeting Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead at the
bedside of his friend and relative Bishop Burnet. Both Dr. Arbuthnot
and Sir Hans Sloane, we may remark in passing, have given evidence
in favour of the purer living. His own diet he thus describes in his
_Author’s Case_, written towards the end of his life:--
“My regimen, at present, is milk, with tea, coffee, bread and
butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds of all kinds, with
tender roots (as potatoes, turnips, carrots), and, in short,
_everything that has not life_, dressed or not, as I like it, _in
which there is as much or a greater variety than in animal foods_,
so that the stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine nor any
fermented liquors, and am rarely dry, most of my food being liquid,
moist, or juicy.[141] Only after dinner I drink either coffee
or green tea, but seldom both in the same day, and sometimes a
glass of soft, small cider. The thinner my diet, the easier, more
cheerful and lightsome I find myself; my sleep is also the sounder,
though perhaps somewhat shorter than formerly under my full animal
diet; but then I am more alive than ever I was. As soon as I wake I
get up. I rise commonly at six, and go to bed at ten.”