SPORTING LITERATURE. 9 



health of body, and, since he is never idle, 

 health of soul too. The joy of being on a horse, 

 the gallant fellowship of hounds, the exultation 

 of reporting to his lord the harbouring of some 

 noble stag, and of hearing the company say : 

 Lo, here is a great hart and a deer of high 

 meating or pasturing; go we and move him; 

 these are great joys. Every incident of the 

 chase is pleasurable, from the getting up of the 

 hunter early on a clear and bright morning and 

 hearing the song of birds and seeing the dew 

 on twigs and grasses; until he comes home in 

 the evening, weary but triumphant, sups well 

 on the neck of the hart with good wine or ale, 

 and before going to bed takes the cool air of the 

 evening for the great heat that he has. 

 Occupied continually on work which he loves, 

 healthy in mind and body, always in close 

 contact with nature, the hunter lives a joyful 

 and virtuous life and goes straight to Paradise 

 when he dies. 



Such is the Prologue to the Master of Game. 

 It holds the very distilled essence of sport, and 

 in addition is exquisite prose. No one can read 

 it and then turn to the Treatise of Fishing with 

 an A ngle without seeing the similarity between 

 the two. The Treatise differs only because it 

 deals with a new sport just differentiated. The 

 Master of Game proves that the life of sport is 

 best of all : the Treatise that the fisher's life is 

 best of all lives devoted to sport. That is all. 

 When we read Dame Juliana's epilogue on the 



