CHAP. I.: Of Men and Animals, with respect to Multiplication of their Species.

DELIGHT of human kind, Dryden’s Lucr. ^†233 and Gods above;
Parent of Rome, propitious queen of love;
* * * * * * * * *
For when the rising spring adorns the mead,
And a new scene of nature stands display’d;

When teeming buds, and cheerful greens appear,
And western gales unlock the lazy year;
The joyous birds thy welcome first express,
Whose native songs thy genial fire confess:
Then savage beasts bound o’er their slighted food,
Struck with thy darts, and tempt the raging flood:

All nature is thy gift, earth, air, and sea,
Of all that breathes, the various progeny
Stung with delight, is goaded on by thee.
O’er barren mountains, o’er the flow’ry plain,
The leafy forest, and the liquid main,
Extends thy uncontroul’d and boundless reign.

Thro’ all the living regions thou dost move,
And scatter’st where thou go’st the kindly seeds of love.

The females of brutes have an almost constant fecundity. But in the human species, the manner of thinking, the character, the passions, the humour, the caprice, the idea of preserving beauty, the pain of childbearing, and the fatigue of a too numerous family, obstruct propagation a thousand different ways.