LETTER I 



Bristol Hot-Wells, March 20, 1779. 



YOU could not, my friend, have chosen a better season than the present, 

 to remind me of sending you my Thoughts on Hunting; for the 

 accident that brought me hither is likely to detain me some time : besides, 

 I have no longer a plea for not obeying your commands. Hitherto, indeed, 

 I had excused myself, in hopes that some publication on the subject might 

 have rendered these Letters needless; but since nothing of the kind, 

 although so much wanted, has appeared ; as I am now sufficiently unoc- 

 cupied to undertake the task, I shall not think it a trifling subject, if you 

 think it a necessary one : and I wish that my own experience of the diver- 

 sion may enable me to answer the many questions which you are pleased 

 to propose concerning it. 



Knowing your partiality to rhyme, I could wish to send you my thoughts 

 hi verse ; but as this would take up more time, without answering your 

 purpose better, I must beg you to accept them hi humble prose, which, hi 

 my opinion, is better suited to the subject. Didactic essays should be as 

 little clogged as possible : they should proceed regularly and clearly : 

 should be easily written, and as easily understood ; having less to do with 

 words than things. The game of crambo is out of fashion, to the no small 

 prejudice of the rhyming tribe ; and before I could find a rhyme to 'porringer, 

 I should hope to finish a great part of these Letters. I shall, therefore, 

 without further delay, proceed upon them : this, however, I must desire 

 to be first understood between us that when, to save trouble to us both, 

 I say a thing is, without tacking a salvo to the tail of it, such as, in my 

 opinion to the best of my judgment, etc., etc. you shall not call my humility 

 in question, as the assertion is not meant to be mathematically certain. 

 When I have any better authority than my own, such as Somerville, for 

 instance (who, by the bye, is the only one that has written intelligibly on 

 this subject), I shall take the liberty of giving it you in his own words, to 

 save you the trouble of turning to him. 



You may remember, perhaps, that when we were hunting together at 

 Turin, the hounds having lost the stag, and the piqueurs (still more at fault 

 than they) being ignorant which way to try, the king bid them ask Milord 

 Anglois : nor is it to be wondered at, if an Englishman should be thought 

 to understand the art of hunting, as the hounds which this country produces 



1 i 



