Chap, XII.] Rural Sports. 20d 



bring the writer a very, very kind answer. Tlius have 

 they gone on. So far from being a trouble to me, they 

 have been all pleasure and advantage. For many 

 years they have been so many secretaries. I have 

 dictated scores of registers to them, which have gone 

 to the press without my ever looking at them. I dictated 

 registers to them at the age of thirteen, and even of 

 tu-elve. They have, as to trust-v:oi'thiness, been groAvn 

 persons, at eleven or twelve. I could leave my hoii.se 

 and affairs, the paying of men, or the going from home 

 on business, to them at an age when boys in England, 

 in general, >vant servants to watch them to see that 

 they do not kill chickens, torment kittens, or set the 

 buildings on fire. 



375. Here is a good deal of boasting; but, it will 

 not be denied, that 1 have done a great deal in a short 

 public lite, and I see no harm in telling my readers of 

 any of tlie means, that 1 have employed ; especially as 

 I know of few greater misfortunes than that of breeding 

 up things to be school-bogs all their lives. It is not, 

 that 1 have so many wonders of the world : it is that 

 I have pursued a rational plan of education, and one 

 that any man may pursue, if he will, with similar 

 effects. I remember, too, that I myself had had a 

 sportsman-education. 1 ran after the hare-hounds at 

 the age o( nine or ten. I have many and man>' a day 

 left the rooks to dig up tlie wheat and peas, while I 

 followed the hounds ; and have returned home at dark- 

 night, Mith mv legs full of thorns and my belly empty 

 to go supperless to bed, and to congratulate myself if 

 I escaped a flogging. 1 Mas sure of these consequences ; 

 but that had not the smallest effect in restraining me. 

 All the lectures, all the threats, vanished from my mind 

 in a moment upon hearing the first cry of the hounds, 

 at which my heart used to be ready to bound out of my 

 body. I remembered a\\ this. I traced to this taste my 

 contempt for card-play irig and for all childish and 

 effeminate amusements. And, therefore, I resolved to 

 leave the same course freely open to my sons. This 

 is my plan of education : others may follow what plau 

 they please. 



370. This Chapter will be a head without a body j 



