SEPTEMBER. 319 



that such are his feelings, and therefore, not- 

 withstanding that his pursuit cannot be totally 

 exempt from the charge of cruelty, it is im- 

 possible not to sympathize with him. Yet, to 

 my thinking, shooting is, of all field-sports, the 

 least cruel; the brutal mind will exhibit its 

 ferocity in every thing, and in nothing has that 

 brutality been more evinced than in that whole- 

 sale butchery which many gentlemen have, of 

 late years, thought fit to boast of in the news- 

 papers, deeming it an honour to slaughter some 

 hundred brace of birds in a day ; but the humane 

 and practised sportsman, led on, not by a blood- 

 thirstiness worthy of a Cossack, nor by vanity 

 worthy of an idiot, nor by the pleasure of 

 seeing an unfortunate animal run gasping before 

 the jaws of its enemies, and suffer at every step 

 a death of fear, but by the desire of a healthful 

 recreation, will single out his victim and destroy 

 it in a moment. The shooter in truth enjoys 

 to the utmost what is here said of 



THE HUNTER. 



High life of a hunter ! he meets on the hill 

 The new-wakened daylight, so bright and so still ; 

 And feels, as the clouds of the morning unroll, 

 The silence, the splendour, ennoble his soul. 



