st! She will draw you to her, instead of pushing you from her: no
longer, with unsheathed claws, will she resist you; but, like a pretty,
playful, wanton kitten, with gentle paws, and concealed talons, tap your
cheek, and with intermingled smiles, and tears, and caresses, implore
your consideration for her, and your constancy: all the favour she then
has to ask of you!--And this is the time, were it given to man to confine
himself to one object, to be happier every day than another.

Now, Belford, were I to go no farther than I have gone with my beloved
Miss Harlowe, how shall I know the difference between her and another
bird? To let her fly now, what a pretty jest would that be!--How do I
know, except I try, whether she may not be brought to sing me a fine
song, and to be as well contented as I have brought other birds to be,
and very shy ones too?

But now let us reflect a little upon the confounded partiality of us
human creatures. I can give two or three familiar, and if they were not
familiar, they would be shocking, instances of the cruelty both of men
and women, with respect to other creatures, perhaps as worthy as (at
least more innocent than) themselves. By my soul, Jack, there is more of
the savage on human nature than we are commonly aware of. Nor is it,
after all, so much amiss, that we sometimes avenge the more innocent
animals upon our own species.

To particulars:

How usual a thing is it for women as well as men, without the least
remorse, to ensnare, to cage, and torment, and even with burning
knitting-needles to put out the eyes of the poor feather'd songster [thou
seest I have not yet done with birds]; which however, in proportion to
its bulk, has more life than themselves (for a bird is all soul;) and of
consequence has as much feeling as the human creature! when at the same
time, if an honest fellow, by the gentlest persuasion, and the softest
arts, has the good luck to prevail upon a mew'd-up lady, to countenance
her own escape, and she consents to break cage, and be set a flying into
the all-cheering air of liberty, mercy on us! what an outcry is generally
raised against him!

Just like what you and I once saw raised in a paltry village near
Chelmsford, after a poor hungry fox, who, watching his opportunity, had
seized by the neck, and shouldered a sleek-feathered goose: at what time
we beheld the whole vicinage of boys and girls, old men, and old women,
all the furrows and wrinkles of