The hunting tribes of air and earth Respect the brethren of their birth; Nature, who loves the claim of kind, Less cruel, chase to each assigned. The falcon, poised on soaring wing, Watches the wild-duck by the spring; The slow-hound wakes the fox's lair; The greyhound presses on the hare; The eagle pounces on the lamb; The wolf devours the fleecy dam: Even tiger fell and sullen bear Their likeness and their lineage spare. Man, only, mars kind Nature's plan And turns the fierce pursuit on man; Plying war's desultory trade, Incursion, flight, and ambuscade, Since Nimrod, Cush's mighty son At first the bloody game begun.] CHAPTER CCXXVIII. RATS.—PLAN OF THE LAUREATE SOUTHEY FOR LESSENING THEIR NUMBER.—THE DOCTOR'S HUMANITY IN REFUSING TO SELL POISON TO KILL VERMIN, AFTER THE EXAMPLE OF PETER HOPKINS HIS MASTER.—POLITICAL RATS NOT ALLUDED TO.—RECIPE FOR KILLING RATS. I know that nothing can be so innocently writ, or carried, but may be made obnoxious to construction; marry, whilst I bear mine innocence about me, I fear it not. BEN JONSON. The Laureate Southey proposed some years ago in one of his numerous and multifarious books, three methods for lessening the number of rats, one of which was to inoculate some of these creatures with the small pox or any other infectious disease, and turn them loose. Experiments, he said, should first be made, lest the disease should assume in them so new a form, as to be capable of being returned to us with interest. If it succeeded, man has means in his hand which would thin the hyenas, wolves, jackals and all gregarious beasts of prey. Considering the direction which the March of his Intellect has long been taking, it would surprise me greatly if the Laureate were now to recommend or justify any such plan. For setting aside the contemplated possibility of physical danger, there are moral and religious considerations which ought to deter us from making use of any such means, even for an allowable end. Dr. Dove, like his master and benefactor Peter Hopkins before him, never would sell poison for destroying vermin. Hopkins came to that resolution in consequence of having been called as a witness upon a trial for poisoning at York. The arsenic had not been bought at his shop; but to prevent the possibility of being innocently instrumental to the commission of such a crime, he made it from that time a rule for himself, irrevocable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, that to no person whatever, on any account, would he supply ingredients which by carelessness or even by unavoidable accident might be so fatally applied.