About this period or a little earlier, Philippe Hecquet, a French physician, published his _Traité des Dispenses du Carême_ (“Treatise on Dispensations in Lent”), 1709, in which he gave in his adhesion to the principles of Vegetarianism--at all events, so far as health is concerned. He is mentioned by Voltaire, and is supposed to be the original of the doctor Sangrado of Le Sage.[149] If this conjecture have any truth, the author of _Gil Blas_ is open to the grave charge of misrepresentation, of sacrificing truth to effect, or (what is still worse and still more common) of pandering to popular prejudices.[150]
In the long and terrible series of the Ages the distinguishing glory of the eighteenth century is its _Humanitarianism_--not visible, indeed, in legislation or in the teaching of the ordinarily-accredited guides of the public faith and morals, but proclaimed, nevertheless, by the great prophets of that era. As far as ordinary life was concerned, the last age is only too obnoxious to the charge of selfishness and heartlessness. Callousness to suffering, as regards the non-human species in particular, is sufficiently apparent in the common amusements and “pastimes” of the various grades of the community.
Yet, if we compare the tone of even the common-place class of writers with that of the authors of quasi-scientific treatises of the preceding century--in which the most cold-blooded atrocities on the helpless victims of human ignorance and barbarity are prescribed for the composition of their medical _nostrums_, &c., with the most unconscious audacity and ignoring of every sort of feeling--considerable advance is apparent in the slow onward march of the human race towards the goal of a true morality and religion.
To the author of _The Seasons_ belongs the everlasting honour of being the first amongst modern poets earnestly to denounce the manifold wrongs inflicted upon the subject species, and, in particular, the savagery inseparable from the Slaughter-House--for Pope did not publish his _Essay on Man_ until four years after the appearance of _Spring_.
James Thomson, of Scottish parentage, came to London to seek his fortune in literature, at the age of 25. For some time he experienced the poverty and troubles which so generally have been the lot of young aspirants to literary, especially poetic, fame. _Winter_--which inaugurated a new school of poetry--appeared in March, 1726. That the publisher considered himself liberal in offering three guineas for the poem speaks little for the taste of the time; but that a better taste was coming into existence is also plain from the fact of its favourable reception, notwithstanding the obscurity of the author. Three editions appeared in the same year. _Summer_, his next venture, was published in 1727, and the (Four) _Seasons_ in 1730, by subscription--387 subscribers enrolling their names for copies at a guinea each.