Oh! hear a pensive captive's prayer, For liberty that sighs; And never let thine heart be shut Against the prisoner's cries. - Anna Laetitia Barbauld

So when destruction lurks unseen, Which men like mice may share, May some kind angel clear thy path, And break the hidden snare.

If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd, And spurn'd a tyrant's chain, Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.

Let us confess a truth, humiliating perhaps to human pride;—a very small part only of the opinions of the coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning; the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought directed to a particular track through some accidental association—in short, by prejudice.