510 BRITISH SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 



The fellow is not so egregiously ignorant on some points. At p. 

 206, for instance, he favours the country gentlemen with the follow- 

 ing capital definition : " FOX-HUNTER, s. a man whose chief am- 

 bition is to shew his bravery in hunting foxes" This is candid a 

 concession for which we cannot be sufficiently grateful, for it makes 

 out at least one half of the position we have assumed against our 

 gallant British sportsmen. What a poor pitiful thing must he be 

 whose chief ambition is to shew his bravery in riding at the tail 

 of twenty couple of hounds, after one fox ! And yet here we have 

 the fact broadly stated in a big bouncing book, " compiled from the 

 best authorities," expressly for the country gentlemen. Truly this 

 great sporting lexicographer beats Mrs. Candour hollow. He is the 

 finest specimen we have ever met with of that maledicted class of 

 " good-natured friends" from whom every man cries, " the Lord 

 preserve me." 



But let us collect a few more of his beauties of the words which 

 he deems it necessary, in a Book of Sports and Pastimes, to explain : 

 " CURRICLE, s. an open two-wheeled chaise, made to be drawn by 

 two horses abreast." This is truly a most benevolent and correct 

 piece of information. Of course, no British sportsman could con- 

 ceive what " curricle" meant, before the publication of this patri- 

 otic work. " DIG, s. to work with a spade." In our last Number, 

 we earnestly recommended fox-hunters, who followed the hounds 

 for the sake of exercise, to achieve their object by digging in some 

 poor cottager's garden j and this definition is doubtless given in order 

 that gentlemen may know what digging is. " DOCK, s. to cut off a 

 tail ; to cut any thing short/' Would that the compiler had cut this 

 thing short ! But is this all ? Nothing about the operation the 

 docking knife the modus operandi the cure ? Not a syllable. 

 " DRENCH, s. physic for a brute." We beg to suggest an adden- 

 dum, " The Field Book." " EMMET, s. an ant, a pismire." How 

 kind this is ! " Fives, s. a kind of play with a ball." As a matter 

 of course, it will be supposed that the rules of the game, the mode of 

 playing it, &c. &c. follow. Oh, dear no ! The book is not got up on any 

 such low, paltry, pains-taking principle. Racket is thus dismissed: 

 ff a fine manly game, in which a small ball and cat-gut instrument are 

 used." At p. 230, the compiler seems to have sat for his own picture ; 

 and this is the result : " GOSLING, .9. a young goose, a goose not yet full 

 grown." " GREENFINCH, s. a small bird." How particularly copious 

 and satisfactory ! Here is a splendid sample of research of elabo- 

 rate compilation compressed ! What could the most inquiring mind 

 wish to know about the greenfinch, that is not contained in these 

 three comprehensive words " a small bird ?" About a hundred 

 pages back, we are benevolently informed that the chaffinch is a bird 

 so called, because it delights in chaff! " GREEDY, s. ravenous, vora- 

 cious, hungry, eager." This, and a multitude of similar definitions, 

 are gratuitously thrown in among the sports and pastimes not as a 

 make- weight to the book by no means but because it may reason- 

 ably be presumed, that no country gentleman possesses a copy of 

 Johnson's Dictionary, or knows any thing about the commonest terms 

 of the language in which he speaks. " GRIMALKIN, s. a cat." For 



