“One ancient Hen she took Delight to feed
The plodding Pattern of this busy Dame,
Which ever and anon as she had need
Into her School begirt with Chickens came.”
Indeed, Mrs. Margery surpasses Æsop and Tommy Trip in her manner of pressing Beasts and Birds into the service of Education.
Locke, whose imagination had stopped short at pictures of animals, would have detected the insidious workings of romance in a school where the ushers were birds, where a dog acted as door-keeper and a pet lamb carried home the books of the good children in turn.
Yet in another place, the youthful Dame shows herself a mistress of utilitarian argument:
“Does not the Horse and the Ass carry you and your burthens? Don’t the Ox plough your Ground, the Cow give you Milk, the Sheep cloath your Back, the Dog watch your House, the Goose find you in Quills to write with, the Hen bring Eggs for your Custards and Puddings, and the Cock call you up in the Morning——? If so, how can you be so cruel to them, and abuse God Almighty’s good Creatures?”
Thus the creatures are protected chiefly for their services; Nature, as yet, is no more than a useful and necessary background. It is still Humanity that counts.