The germs of misery, death, disease and crime.
No longer now the winged habitants.
That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man, . . .
••••••••••
All things are void of terror; man has lost
His terrible prerogative, and stands
An equal amidst equals. Happiness
And science dawn though late upon the earth;
Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame.
Lord Byron evidently believed that flesh eating excites men to war and bloodshed; thus he testifies in 'Don Juan' (Canto II.):
That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle.
To make the Cretans bloodier in battle.
For we all know that English people are
Fed upon beef—I won't say much of beer
Because 'tis liquor only, and being far
From this my subject, has no business here:
We know, too, they are very fond of war,
A pleasure—like all pleasures—rather dear;
So were the Cretans—from which I infer.
That beef and battles both were owing to her.
The beginning of the modern vegetarian movement is usually dated from the publication of an essay entitled: 'Return to nature, or defence of vegetable régime' by I. Newton (London, 1811). To the influence of this, the formation of the first vegetarian society by Joseph Simpson in Manchester, England, in 1847, is ascribed; and so far as I am aware the word vegetarian was coined at this time. A similar society is reported to have been formed in the United States in 1850. The use of a vegetable diet had, however, been advocated and practised over a century before, as the following extract from Benjamin Franklin's autobiography testifies. Referring to about the year 1722 he said:
