"Reptiles" n 



Or take Cowper's lines in the " Task : " 



41 1 would not enter on my list of .friends 

 (Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense, 

 Yet wanting sensibility) the man 

 Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 

 An inadvertent step may crush the snail 

 That crawls at evening in the public path ; 

 But he that has humanity, forewarn'd, 

 Will tread aside and let the reptile live. 

 The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, 

 And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, 

 A visitor unwelcome, into scenes 

 Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, 

 The chamber, or refectory, may die : 

 A necessary act incurs no blame. 

 Not so, when held within their proper bounds, 

 And guiltless of offence, they range the air, 

 Or take their pastime in the spacious field : 

 There they are privileged, and he that hunts 

 Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, 

 Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm, 

 Who, when she formed, designed them an abode." 



That a man living in the country should be so indifferently 

 informed, and though of a poetical turn of mind so unsym- 

 pathetic, is almost unintelligible. What manner of thing 

 does Cowper mean by " creeping vermin, loathsome to the 

 sight, and charged perhaps with venom " ? The poet 

 means the toad, which " the vulgar " believe to be poisonous. 

 But every gardener knows that it is a most useful little 

 creature, and it is not vermin in any sense of that word. 

 Anyhow, I cannot admire the " sensibility " of the poet who 

 confesses that he approves of killing toads because they 

 come into "the alcove," nor the "humanity" that draws a 

 line between the needful and the needless treading on worms. 

 To kill a toad simply because it comes into a summer- 

 house is stupid cruelty. 



