INHUMANITY OF ANGLING. 193 



pathy with unmerited suffering. This it is, my lord-mayor 

 and gentlemen of the corporation, which induces me to 

 remonstrate with reference to the barbarous process by 

 which certain animals are prepared for the luxurious 

 palates of the princely merchants of this metropolis. I am 

 not about to detain your lordship, and the gentlemen of 

 the corporation, with the well-known cruelty of crimping 

 cod ; because that practice has been already powerfully 

 denounced by the pen of Mrs. Hannah More. But I do 

 think, that the cases of the oyster and the lobster are 

 eminently deserving of attention. Nor can I doubt that 

 such attention being once directed to the subject, many 

 gentlemen, aldermen, and others, will perceive the pro- 

 priety of coming to a definitive arrangement, whereby 

 persons of poetical sensibility may be relieved from the 

 painful necessity of sitting down to a feast for which the 

 most heartless cruelty has manifestly catered. In the hope 

 of realising so laudable an object I have written the two 

 following poems ; and I doubt not, my lord -mayor and 

 gentlemen of the corporation, that if you peruse them 

 carefully, a very palpable change will take place in the 

 nature of those preparations to which luxurious feeders 

 are now so discreditably indebted. I will only add, that 

 if one case of cruelty is prevented by my poetry, I shall 

 be amply rewarded for the intellectual exhaustion always 

 experienced, in a greater or less degree, by the enthusiastic 

 votaries of the muse.' 3 



Not to weaken the force of this spirited appeal by any 



17 



