116 The Game Lares. QFEB. 



lifies may be equally in " lands" or " tenements j" and under the value 

 of 1007. a year though a man's whole property lay in wood-land 

 "estate" forms no qualification at all. So that, the proprietor of sixty acres of 

 corn land in Surrey, worth 99/. a year, must not touch a single feather of the 

 birds, that his own land is rearing and feeding ; and those same birds 

 may be shot by the proprietor of a pawnbroker's shop (being worth 100/. 

 a year) in High-street, St. Giles's who never contributed so much as 

 a crumb to a sparrow (so far as any claim can accrue out of assistance 

 and expenditure towards the maintenance of the game) in the whole 

 course of his existence ! 



If the claim of land, founded on its service of production, receives 

 little attention from this law of estate, the claim of wealth, and general 

 interest in the state, is negatived entirely. The merchant, who freights 

 twenty ships a year to Spain or India, is not of that virtue in the empire 

 that he may have leave to shoot a partridge. The fundholder, with an 

 income of 5,000/. a year, who has lent 100,000/. to the country, is in 

 the same situation. Neither of these persons may kill a hare or a phea- 

 sant, though bred upon their own land, without subjecting themselves 

 to be dragged before a magistrate, and mulcted in a penalty : nor even 

 taste such a delicacy (bred no matter where) at their tables 

 but by the bounty and allowance of some " qualified" person ; of whose 

 possible condition in life, and claims to such pre-eminence, we shall say 

 a word hereafter. 



The most extended possessions in landed property, meet with very 

 little more consideration. The possessor of an estate containing a thou- 

 sand acres, with fifty thousand head of game upon it, if he be not an 

 " esquire," cannot authorize his sons to shoot a single bird.* Although 

 he have the degree of esquire, yet, if he had twenty sons, not one of 

 them is permitted to kill game except the eldest. And even a peer, 

 although the whole of his sons are " qualified," cannot offer a day's 

 shooting to an " unqualified" friend who may be visiting him. Lord 

 Lonsdale, with five thousand pheasants, at a guinea each, prime cost, in 

 his preserves, could not give a morning's sport to Mr. Southey, the poet 

 laureate without subjecting the bard probably to the chance of an 

 " information," with " three months' imprisonment," in default of " goods" 

 to pay the penalty, at the hands of the very gamekeeper that might be 

 deputed to attend him.t 



But the most singular part of the whole system, and that to which all 

 that we have described, seems cool, and moderate, and reasonable, by 

 the comparison, is when we come to look at the law of " qualification 

 by descent'Wto observe the class of persons, in whose favour, and for 

 whose benefit, the rights of every other order in the state seem to be 

 curtailed or set aside ! That any man, having the fear of Bedlam 

 before his eyes, should be able to venture to rise in the House of Com- 



* This is a case of every day's occurrence ; as no extent of property makes a man an 

 esquire. 



-f- In fact, this particular statute (the statute of Anne) would be a very mild one to pro- 

 ceed under. For, by an act still in force, the 4th and 5th of William and Mary, any person 

 not duly qualified, in whose possession any game [again including pigeons] shall be found, 

 not giving, in convenient time, to be named by the j ustice, a good account how he became 

 possessed of the same, is to forfeit 20s., to be levied, under warrant of the justice, by dis- 

 tress ; and for want of distress, to be committed to the house of correction for a time not 

 exceeding one mouth, there to be whipped, and kept to hard labour. 



