VICE
IN ITS
PROPER SHAPE;
OR, THE
Wonderful and Melancholy
TRANSFORMATION
OF SEVERAL
Naughty Masters and Misses
INTO THOSE
Contemptible Animals which they most
resemble in Disposition.
Printed for the Benefit of all good Boys
and Girls.
The FIRST WORCESTER Edition.
Printed at Worcester, Massachusetts,
By ISAIAH THOMAS,
Sold at his Bookstore, and by Thomas
and Andrews in Boston.
MDCCLXXXIX.
INTRODUCTION.
It was the opinion of the wise Pythagoras, and of some otherphilosophers, that the souls of men, women, and children, after theirdeath, are sent into other human bodies, and sometimes into those ofbeasts and birds, or even insects; and that they hereby change theirresidence either to their advantage or disadvantage, according to theirgood or ill behaviour in their preceding state of existence. Thissingular opinion still prevails in some part of the Eastindies; andthat to such a degree that they make it criminal to put any animal todeath: "For how do you know, say they, but in killing a sheep, a bird,or a fish, you murder your father, or your brother, or some otherdeceased friend or relation, whose soul may inhabit the body of theanimal you so wantonly destroy?" An officer in the service of theEastindia Company, and a particular friend of mine, had like to havelost his life by not paying a proper deference to this whimsicalnotion; for being some time in that part of the country, and happeningto shoot a heron, he was immediately arrested and prosecuted for it byone of the natives. The man insisted that the heron was inhabited bythe soul of his father; and supported his point so much to thesatisfaction of the court, that had it not been for the friendlyassistance of a Jew, who appeared as the captain's advocate, he wouldcertainly have been condemned. The Jew, allowed that what the plaintiffhad asserted was strictly true, but pleaded in behalf of his client,that the soul of his, the said client's grandmother, resided in thebody of a fish, which the said client had often seen and knew perfectlywell; and that at the time when the heron was killed, the said heronwas going to dart upon the said fish to devour it; so that the saidclient being strongly moved thereunto by his natural affection,instantly shot the said heron purely to save the life of hisgrandmother. This plea was admitted, and the captain was immediatelydischarged by order of the court. It is well for the reader that thecaptain escaped as he did: for if he had been hanged for murdering theheron, it is more than probable that it would have been out of hispower to have returned to England with that curious little treatisewhich I have now taken the pains to translate into English for theamusement of the little masters and misses of Great Britain.
It contains a diverting account of several naughty boys and girls, who,after their death (which was generally owing to their own folly) weredegraded into such animals as they most r