128 SHOOTING. 



every day shots as those, who attain their rapid exe- 

 cution on a slow and good principle. 



Others potter on, in the old way, all their lives, and 

 offer to shoot with any man in England, because they 

 can cock an eye, and kill twenty slow shots running! 

 Such adagio sportsmen take care never to fire random 

 shots, as they call all, that are the least intercepted, or 

 confined to time; but usually point, and then take down 

 their guns a practice, that is seldom admissible. Such 

 is my opinion of a slow poking shot, that I would rather 

 see a man miss in good, than kill in bad, style. For 

 instance, if I saw one man spring a covey of birds close 

 to his feet, and keep aiming at one till the covey had 

 flown thirty or forty yards, and even bring down his 

 bird dead, and another man miss both barrels, within 

 the same distance, I should say perhaps the latter, if in 

 good nerve, may be a good shot, but I was quite sure 

 that the former never could be one, because he was an 

 hundred years behindhand in the art of using a gun. 

 I know many old pokers who would feel sore at this 

 assertion ; but this I cannot help : it is my humble 

 opinion, and therefore I have a right to give it. 



There are few of my young readers, I dare say, that 

 have not, at some time or other, met with a man, who, 

 wishing to show off his shooting, has never fired but 

 when he was pretty sure of killing, and whose pride 

 was to be able to boast after dinner, that he had bagged 

 so many birds without having missed a shot the whole 

 morning. But before we give this person credit for the 

 name to which he aspires, let us ask him whether, in so 

 doing, he brought home as much game as he ought to 

 do? or whether, in order to bag a dozen head of game 

 without missing, he has not refused at least twenty shots, 



