2o8 g RrRAL Sports. [Part II. 



sport are necessarily at a distance from cities and 

 towns. This is another great consideration ; for though 

 great talents are wanted to be employed in the hives of 

 men, they are very rarely acquired in these hives : the 

 surrounding objects are too numerous, too near the 

 eye, too frequently under it, and too artificial. 



374. For these reasons 1 have always encouraged 

 my sons to pnrsue these sports. They have, until the 

 age of 14 or 15, spent their time, by day, chiefly 

 amongst horses and dogs, and in the fields and farm- 

 yard ; and their candlelight has been spent chiefly in 

 reading books about hunting and shooting anJ about 

 dogs and horses. I have supplied them plentifully 

 •with books and prints relating to these matters. They 

 have draxcn horses, dogs, and game themselves. These 

 things, in which they took so deep an interest, not only 

 engaged their attention and wholly kept them I'rom all 

 taste for, and even all knowledge of cards and other 

 senseless amusements ; but, they led them to read 

 and xcrite of their oicn accord; and, never in my life 

 have I set them a copy in writing nor attempted to teach 

 them a word of reading. They have learnt to read 

 by looking into books about dogs and game ; and they 

 have learnt to write by imitating my writing, and by 

 writing endless letters to me, when I have been from 

 home, about their dogs and other rural concerns. While 

 the Borough-tyrants had me in Newgate for two years, 

 with a thousand pounds fine, for having expressed my 

 indignation at their flogging of Englishmen, in the heart 

 of England, under a guard of Hanoverian sabres, 1 re- 

 ceived volumes of letters from my children ; and, I have 

 fhem now, from the scrawl of three years, to the neat 

 and beautiful -hand of thirteen. I never told them of 

 any err^s in their letters. All was well. The best 

 evider^ of the utility of their writing, and the strongest 

 encouragement to write again, was a very clear answer 

 from me, in a very precise hand, and upon very nice 



?aper, which they never failed promptly to receive, 

 "hey have all written to me before they could form a 

 single letter. A little bit of paper, with some ink- 

 marks on it, folded up by themselves, and a wafer 

 stuck in it, used to be sent to me, and it was sure to 



