In 1773 Anna Laetitia Barbauld published a poem called “The Mouse’s Petition.” The poem was written from the point of view of a mouse who had been captured in the home of her friend, the renowned natural philosopher Joseph Priestley. The mouse was placed in a cage in Priestley’s laboratory as he intended to use the animal in one of his experiments the next day. Barbauld’s poem was a plea for mercy, and she slipped in to Priestley’s lab to affix it to the cage so that he would see it prior to beginning his experiment on the mouse.

The poem begins with the following lines:

O hear a pensive prisoner’s prayer,
    For liberty that sighs;
And never let thine heart be shut
    Against the wretch’s cries!

For here forlorn and sad I sit,
    Within the wiry grate;
And tremble at the’ approaching morn,
    Which brings impending…