If the support of great and good men, famous throughout Christendom, will avail to justify a cause, then indeed we who would utterly abolish the torture of animals by vivisection can never be put out of countenance. Difficult would it be indeed to bring together the authority of so many resounding reputations against any other act of man, since slavery was abolished. The poets, philosophers, saints and seers of England have united to anathematise it as an abomination, and as a deed only possible

The seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. From an engraving by W. J. Edwards after Frederick Sandys The seventh Earl of Shaftesbury consecrated a long life, and dedicated a great position to the service of the poor, the weak and the lost.  His life and work were one of the chief glories of the nineteenth century.  From early youth to venerable age his hand was outstretched to assuage the miseries of the helpless and to deal a blow at cruelty and selfishness wherever he discerned it. By his efforts w

Miss Frances Power Cobbe was the original organiser and founder in December, 1875, of the National Anti-Vivisection Society which until 1898 bore the Title of the Victoria Street Society for the protection of animals from vivisection. Many years before, in 1863, there lived at Florence a man who trafficked in torture named Schiff; “among the inferior professors of medical knowledge,” says Dr. Johnson, “is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by varieties of cruelty,” and such an one w

Cardinal Manning was among the early supporters of the Anti-Vivisection movement, and was a Vice-President of the National Anti-Vivisection Society till his death. He occasionally attended meetings of the committee at my request to assist the deliberations with his good counsel, and I remember one occasion when Lord Shaftesbury came and took the chair, and both the Cardinal and my father and the Bishop of Oxford were present to assist in an important decision. I frequently went to the Archbishop

Robert Browning. From a painting by Samuel Laurence in the collection of John Lane Towards the end of 1874, as I have already remarked, Miss Cobbe prepared a petition to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of which the chief paragraph ran as follows:— It is earnestly urged by your memorialists that the great and influential Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may see fit to undertake the task (which appears strictly to fall within its province) of placin

Lord Coleridge, Chief Justice of England I hope that my inclusion of my father in these articles on the first supporters of the anti-vivisection movement will not be thought unbecoming.  I see no reason why I should not testify in these pages to the unswerving adhesion he brought to the cause of humaneness both towards men and women as well as towards animals, and the wise counsel he afforded to the pioneers of the fight against vivisection. It is perhaps now long forgotten that he initiated, dr

No one who has ever read a line of Ruskin could doubt on which side his mind and heart would be ranged in the controversy over vivisection. Here was a lord of language who was also one of the great moral teachers of the world.  To him the torture of a helpless animal for a scientific purpose was a defiance of religion and an insult to God.  Such pursuits he declared “were all carried on in defiance of what had hitherto been held to be compassion and pity, and of the great link which bound togeth

Of all the Masters of letters that have adorned and elevated the speech of our race Dr. Johnson is in many ways the most lovable.  The son of a poor bookseller in Lichfield [40] with an uncouth figure and an undistinguished countenance, he rose by the massive force of his character and the tireless persistence of his industry to an unchallenged supremacy in the literary world of his age, displaying in his whole life the truth of his own dictum that “few things are impossible to diligence and ski

The world of letters and of ethics has hardly yet settled whether much of the teaching of the Sage of Chelsea should be the subject of praise or blame. In the advocacy of fine principles of conduct set forth for us in language of surpassing eloquence and earnest conviction in many a page of “Sartor Resartus,” and scattered through innumerable pamphlets, Carlyle commands the fervent adhesion of the honest, the brave, and the good; while in other parts of his writings his infatuated admiration of

Tennyson. From an unpublished photograph in the possession of Charles Bruce Locker Tennyson, C. M. G. Tennyson, as was inevitable with a man of such nobility of mind and life, regarded the torture of animals for the sake of knowledge with “the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn.” If authority be cited in great moral questions here is one that must compel reverence from all but the poor trifler with his “hollow smile and frozen sneer.” He looked modern Science in the eye, perceived whither its aggr

Cardinal Newman. From the portrait by Jane Fortescue, Lady Coleridge It is difficult perhaps for students of the younger generation to realise the immense influence exercised among his contemporaries by Cardinal Newman, nor will a study of his writings adequately explain it to them. He has hardly survived as a standard author, though he wrote a pure and lucid prose.  Those who leave the bulk of their literary work behind them in the form of sermons are inviting the world to neglect it. Moreover,

I have already recorded in these pages the strenuous opposition to vivisection displayed by the two greatest representatives of the Church of Rome that arose in England in the last century; and to all who adhere to that Church the authority of the two illustrious Cardinals Newman and Manning must be decisive. The most famous dignitaries of the English Church in the great Victorian age were also as firm in their condemnation of vivisection as were the great Cardinals. When I was a young man Dean

Queen Victoria has given her name to a period which has no parallel in magnificence since the days of the great Elizabeth. The galaxy of great poets, teachers, and philosophers that flourished in the Victorian age cannot be matched in any similar series of years in all the history of the modern world. With her departure exhaustion seems to have come upon the world of letters for a time, and to the classic glories of the nineteenth century there has succeeded an usurpation of journalists without

Among the eminent men and women of England whose names are not to be regarded as world famous in the sense that applies to those dealt with in the foregoing chapters, but who nevertheless in their place and time were recognised by their contemporaries and are still recognised by those now living as persons of authority and ability, there can be cited a distinguished array who consistently condemned vivisection as permitted and as practised in this country as immoral.  Among religious leaders may

From this great cloud of witnesses I have omitted all those leaders of thought and morals, “friends of the wise and teachers of the good” supporters of this great cause who are living.  I followed a like reserve in my “Memories,” making in them none but passing allusions to famous persons still alive.  I do not share the modern journalistic habit of uninvited public intrusion upon living people who may very well be unwilling at the moment to be dragged into controversy or exposed to insult; and

Crown 8 vo , 5 s. net . SOME PRESS OPINIONS. Times .—“Mr. Coleridge is a leading champion of the anti-vivisection cause, and he here presents a reasoned indictment of the practice.  He is a very able advocate, who generally gets the better of his opponent in a dialectical bout, and this book is written with great skill and force.” Western Mail .—“One cannot fail to be interested and impressed by the forensic power and ability in this book and by the humane spirit which has led to its compilation

Crown 8 vo. 3 s. 6 d. net . Daily News .—“These songs and poems are intensely and sincerely felt . . . they have the fine, careful, literary coldness of some of the lyrics of Landor or of the more serious work of Peacock.  It is the poetry of a refined and knightly nature . . . and it deserves to be studied and remembered . . . its mood is austere and its temper noble.” Globe .—“Excellent verses, easy, melodious, and charming.” Tribune .—“All lovers of poetry will be grateful for Mr. Stephen Col

With Twelve Illustrations .  Demy 8 vo. 7 s. 6 d. net . Observer .—“Mr. Coleridge has furnished ‘The Dictionary of National Biography’ (or the Victorian part of it) with a supplement of wit and conversation.  And one hardly knows at which to marvel most, the number of celebrities he hauls up in his net, of the number of laughs he gets out of them.  His book is rich in fresh anecdote and the best light elements of personality.” Mr. James Douglas in the Star .—“The best book of reminiscences I hav

Crown 8 vo. 3 s. 6 d. net . Guardian .—“A charmingly desultory set of essays, generous in appreciation, and not afraid to explore comparatively unbeaten tracks.” Quarterly Review .—“Every moment is one of pure literature.  He quotes his favourite poets freely, giving us not a line or two but often a whole poem. . . .  There is many a racy criticism, and the humanitarian peeps out from not a few of them.  It is a volume full of lovely verse, and one that will not only give unalloyed pleasure, but