152 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



may, that I have not made use of a French word, but when I could not 

 have expressed my meaning so well by an English one. It is only an 

 unnecessary and affected application of a foreign language, that is deserving 

 of censure. 



To those who may think the danger which attends upon hunting a 

 great objection to the pursuit of it, I must beg leave to observe, that the 

 accidents which are occasioned by it are very few. I will venture to say, 

 that more bad accidents happen to shooters in one year, than to those 

 who follow hounds in seven. You will remind me, perhaps, of the death 



of T k, and the fall of D 1 ; but do accidents never happen on 



the road ? The most famous huntsman and boldest rider of his time, 

 after having hunted a pack of hounds for several years, unhurt, lost his 

 life at last by a fall from his horse, as he was returning home. A surgeon 

 of my acquaintance has assured me, that, in thirty years' practice in a 

 sporting country, he had not once an opportunity of setting a bone for a 

 sportsman, though ten packs of hounds were kept in the neighbourhood. 

 This gentleman, surely, must have been much out of luck, or hunting 

 cannot be so dangerous as it is thought : besides, they are all timid animals 

 that we pursue ; nor is there any danger in attacking them : they are 

 not like the furious beast of the Gevaudan, which, as a French author 

 informs us, an army of twenty thousand French chasseurs went out in 

 vain to kill. 



If my time in writing to you has not been so well employed as it might 

 have been, you at least will not find that fault with it : nor shall I repent 

 of having employed it in this manner, unless it were more certain than 

 it is, that I should have employed it better. It is true, these Letters are 

 longer than I first intended they should be : they would have been shorter, 

 could I have bestowed more time upon them. Some technical words have 

 crept in imperceptibly, and with them, some expressions better suited 

 to the field than to the closet : nor is it necessary, perhaps, that a sports- 

 man, when he is writing to a sportsman, should make excuses for them. 

 In some of my Letters you have found great variety of matter : the variety 

 of questions contained in yours, made it sometimes unavoidable. I know 

 that there must be some tautology. It is scarcely possible to remember 

 all that has been said in former Letters : let that difficulty, if you please, 

 excuse the fault. I fear there may be some contradictions for the same 

 reason ; and there may be many exceptions. I trust them all to your 

 candour ; nor can they be in better hands. I hope you will not find that 

 I have at different times given different opinions ; but, should that be 

 the case, without doubt you will follow the opinion which coincides most 

 with your own. If on any points I have differed from great authorities, 

 I am sorry for it. I have never hunted with those who are looked up 

 to as the great masters of this science ; and, when I differ from them, 



