The Hunt in Literature 23 



other rustic gambols, were sufficient to justify the 

 well-known appellation of " Merry Sherwood," and 

 in like manner, we may apply the phrase to Merry 

 England. . . . 



The English also excel, or are not excelled in 

 wiring a hare, in stalking a deer, in shooting, fishing, 

 and hunting. England to this day boasts her Robin 

 Hood and his merry men, that stout archer and 

 outlaw and patron-saint of the sporting-calendar. 

 What a cheerful sound is that of the hunters 

 issuing from the autumnal wood and sweeping over 

 hill and dale ! 



— a cry more tuneable 

 Was never halloo'd to by hound or horn.* 



What sparkling richness in the scarlet coats of the 

 riders, what a glittering confusion in the pack, what 

 spirit in the horses, what eagerness in the followers 

 on foot, as they disperse over the plain, or force 

 their way over hedge and ditch ! Surely, the 

 coloured prints and pictures of these, hung up in 

 gentlemen's halls and village alehouses, however 

 humble, as works of art, have more life and health 

 and spirit in them, and mark the pith and nerve 

 of the national character more creditably than the 

 mawkish, sentimental, affected designs of Theseus 

 and Pirithous and ^neas and Dido, pasted on foreign 

 salons a manger, and the interior of country houses. 

 If our tastes are not epic, nor our pretensions lofty, 

 they are simple and our own ; and we may possibly 

 enjoy our native rural sports and the rude remem- 

 brances of them, with the truer relish on this account, 

 that they are suited to us and we to them. 



IVilliam Hazlitt. 



^ From Midsummer Night's Dreamy an instance of Hazlitt's 

 frequent inexactitude in quotation. It should read — 

 "Was never hoUa'd to, nor cheer'd with horn." 



