So little mercy shows, who needs so much!
Does Law—so jealous in the cause of Man[?]—
Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.”[198]
XXXIII.
OSWALD. 1730–1793.
AMONGST the less known prophets of the new Reformation the author of the Cry of Nature—one of the most eloquent appeals to justice and right feeling ever addressed to the conscience of men—deserves an honourable place. Of the facts of his life we have scanty record. He was a native of Edinburgh. At an early age he entered the English army as a private soldier, but his friends soon obtained for him an officer’s commission. He went to the East Indies, where he distinguished himself by his remarkable courage and ability. He did not long remain in the military life; and, having sold out, he travelled through Hindustan to inform himself of the principles of the Brahmin and Buddhist religions of the peninsula, whose dress as well as milder manners he assumed upon his return to England.
During his stay in this country he uniformly abstained from all flesh meats, and so great, we are told, was his abhorrence of the Slaughter-House, that, to avoid it or the butcher’s shop, he was accustomed to make a long détour. His children were brought up in the same way. In 1790, like some others of the more enthusiastic class of his countrymen, he espoused the cause of the Revolution, and went to Paris. By introducing some useful military reforms he gained distinction amongst the Republicans, and he received an important post. He seems to have fallen, with his sons, fighting in La Vendée for the National Cause.
The author, in his preface, tells us that—
“Fatigued with answering the inquiries and replying to the objections of his friends with respect to the singularity of his mode of life, he conceived that he might consult his ease by making, once for all, a public apology for his opinions.... The author is very far from entertaining a presumption that his slender labours (crude and imperfect as they are now hurried to the press) will ever operate an effect on the public mind; and yet, when he considers the natural bias of the human heart to the side of mercy,[199] and observes, on all hands, the barbarous governments of Europe giving way to a better system of things, he is inclined to hope that the day is beginning to approach when the growing sentiment of peace and goodwill towards men will also embrace, in a wide circle of benevolence, the lower orders of life.
“At all events, the pleasing persuasion that his work may have contributed to mitigate the ferocities of prejudice, and to diminish, in some degree, the great mass of misery which oppresses the lower animal world, will, in the hour of distress, convey to the author’s soul a consolation which the tooth of calumny will not be able to empoison.”
A noble and true inspiration nobly and eloquently used! The arguments, by which he attempts to reach the better feeling of his readers, are drawn from the deepest source of morality. Having given a beautiful picture of the tempting and alluring character of Fruits, he exclaims in his poetic-prose:—