RURAL SPORTS 



effeminate. Besides, the scenes of rural sport are necessarily 

 at a distance from cities and towns. This is another great con 

 sideration ; 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 I have always encouraged my sons to 

 pursue 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 candle-light has been spent 

 chiefly in reading books about hunting and shooting and about 

 dogs and horses. I have supplied them plentifully with books 

 and prints relating to these matters. They have drawn horses, 

 dogs, and game themselves. These things, in which they took 

 so deep an interest, not only engaged their attention and wholly 

 kept them from all taste for, and even all knowledge of, cards and 

 other senseless amusements ; but, they led them to read and zvrite 

 of their own 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 English 

 men, in the heart of England, under a guard of Hanoverian sabres, 

 I received volumes of letters from my children ; and, I have them 

 now, from the scrawl of three years, to the neat and beautiful hand 

 of thirteen. I never told them of any errors in their letters. All 

 was well. The best evidence of the utility of their writing, and the 

 strongest encouragement to write again, was a very clear anszver 

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

 they never failed promptly to receive. They 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 bring the 

 writer a very, very kind answer. Thus 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 twelve. They have, as to 

 trust-worthiness, been grown persons, at. eleven or twelve. I 

 could leave my house and affairs, the paying of men, or the going 

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

 in general, want 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 I have done a great deal in a short public life, and I see no 



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