New Publications. 401 



barbarism and mental degradation, in the ratio of the pursuit. 

 Like Cornelius Agrippa, they view venation in genere as the 

 worst occupation of the worst of mankind ; and say with Philip 

 Stubes, that " Esau was a great hunter, but yet a reprobate ; 

 Ismael, a great hunter, but a miscreant; Nemrode, a great 

 hunter, but yet a reprobate, and a vessel of wrath ;" and bid uS; 

 in the poetic badinage of die poet of Cyrene, leave of coursing : 



" ov^ia. fioinciirSai to Ss x:-v vooxk hoi Xxyuo) 



Swearing with the iTielancholy Jaques, 



" That we 

 Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's ^arse, 

 To fright the animals, and kill them up, / 

 In their assign'd and native dwelling-plarce." 



' As You Like It. 



But if " some habites and customes of delight" are allowable 

 and indispensable to the " contentment" of the human mind, and 

 " men of exceeding strickt lives and severity of profession," have 

 indulged in rural diversions, why need we regard the severe re- 

 flections of the sensitive Monsieur Paschal, or his modern pla- 

 giarists ? Why think that wisdom loves not the courser's sport ? 

 Or that man is degraded before the tribunal of sound reason, by 

 estimating aright the instinct of any of the creatures around 

 him ? Or made sinful in the eyes of his Creator, by availing 

 himself of the adapted powers of the lowliest of the brute race, 

 for the subjugation of such wild animals as were originally de- 

 signed by a bountiful Creator for the sustenance and recreation 

 of man ? " Canum vero tam incredibilis at investigandum sa- 

 gacitas narium, tanta alacritas in venando, quid significat aliud 

 nisi se ad hominum commoditates esse generatos." — Cicero, de 

 Nat. Deor. 1. ii. c. 63. 



The inference in regard to the chases, and field sports gene- 

 rally, is surely just, " that man, by co-operating with such ani- 

 mals, employs both his and their faculties on the purposes for 

 which they were partially designed, tending thereby to complete 

 the bounteous scheme of Providence, the happiness and well- 

 being of all his creatures. 



their health preserved, and they better enabled (as a bow intended for shoot- 

 ing) to the discharging of their weighty charges imposed upon them." 



