admitted to see them; for nothing gave him greater entertainment than to
behold those beautiful wild beasts, brought out of their native woods,
where they had reigned as kings, and here tamed and subjected by the
superior art of man. It was a triumph of human reason, which could not
fail to afford great pleasure.

'Not to us, I assure you, Sir,' replied Miss Mancel, 'when reason
appears only in the exertion of cruelty and tyrannical oppression, it is
surely not a gift to be boasted of. When a man forces the furious steed
to endure the bit, or breaks oxen to the yoke, the great benefits he
receive from, and communicates to the animals, excuse the forcible
methods by which it is accomplished. But to see a man, from a vain
desire to have in his possession the native of another climate and
another country, reduce a fine and noble creature to misery, and confine
him within narrow inclosures whose happiness consisted in unbounded
liberty, shocks my nature. There is I confess something so amiable in
gentleness, that I could be pleased with seeing a tiger caress its
keeper, if the cruel means by which the fiercest of beasts is taught all
the servility of a fawning spaniel, did not recur every instant to my
mind; and it is not much less abhorrent to my nature, to see a venerable
lion jumping over a stick, than it would be to behold a hoary
philosopher forced by some cruel tyrant to spend his days in whipping a
top, or playing with a rattle. Every thing to me loses its charm when it
is put out of the station wherein nature, or to speak more properly, the
all-wise Creator has placed it. I imagine man has a right to use the
animal race for his own preservation, perhaps for his convenience, but
certainly not to treat them with wanton cruelty, and as it is not in his
power to give them any thing so valuable as their liberty, it is, in my
opinion, criminal to enslave them in order to procure ourselves a vain
amusement, if we have so little feeling as to find any while others
suffer.'

'I believe madam,' replied Lamont, 'it is most advisable for me not to
attempt to defend what I have said; should I have reason on my side,
while you have humanity on yours, I should make but a bad figure in the
argument. What advantage could I expect from applying to the
understanding, while your amiable disposition would captivate even
reason itself? But still I am puzzled; what we behold is certainly an
inclosure, how can that be without a confinem