“ ‘Ill customs by degrees to habits rise, Ill habits soon become exalted vice: What more advance can mortals make in sin, So near perfection, who with blood begin? Deaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife, Looks up, and from her butcher begs her life; Deaf to the harmless kid, that, ere he dies, All methods to procure thy mercy tries, And imitates in vain thy children’s cries? Where will he stop, who feeds with household bread, Then eats the poultry which before he fed? Let plough thy steers, that when they lose their breath, To nature, not to thee, they may impute their death. Let goats for food their loaded udders lend, And sheep from winter cold thy sides defend; But neither springes, nets, nor snares employ, And be no more ingenious to destroy. Free as in air, let birds on earth remain, Nor let insidious glue their wings constrain; Nor opening hounds the trembling stags affright, Nor purple feathers intercept his flight; Nor hooks conceal’d in baits for fish prepare, Nor lines to heave them twinkling up in air.