palate, whether their blood can impurple the pall of his pride, or their spoils add a feather to the wings of his vanity: and while agonizing nature is tortured by his ambition, while to supply the demands of his perverse appetite she bleeds at every pore, this imperial animal exclaims, 'Ye servile creatures! why do ye lament? why vainly try, by cries akin to the voice of human woe, to excite my compassion? Created solely for my use, submit without a murmur to the decrees of Heaven, and to the mandates of me; of me, the Heaven deputed despot of every creature that walks, or creeps, or swims, or flies; in air, on earth, or in the waters.' Thus the fate of the animal world has followed the progress of man from his sylvan state to that of civilization, till the gradual improvements of art, on this glorious pinnacle of independence, have at length placed him free from every lovely prejudice of nature, and an enemy to life and happiness through all it's various forms.—Oswald.
Proud of his superiority in the scale of existence, imperious man looks down with silent contempt oncertain animals which he deems inferior and meaner objects. Sovereign despot of the world, Lord of the life and death of every creature, with the slaves of his tyranny he disclaims the ties of kindred. He subdues by art and cunning the ferocious lion, the tyger, and the wolf, and is tributary to their dead bodies for his accoutrements of war. In this instance he acts without disguise and is consistent. His brutal ferocity returns, disdainful of the habit and controul of refinement. He prowls malignantly the woods; destroys the carnivorous animal of the desert; with the spoil he renders his person formidable to his fellows; and becomes also a murderer, by profession, of the human race. Were the ferocity of man thus
