FINISHING ADVICE. 



and that the first salutation, after the knock at his bed- 

 chamber door, in the morning, is, " A wet day, sir!" 

 and, instead of being able to pursue his sport, either 

 after breakfast, or at noon (the most usual time for the 

 iveailier to clear up, if it clears up at all), he is con- 

 signed a close prisoner to the pothouse ; looking al- 

 ternately to the windward clouds, and the plastered 

 walls of the room ; hearing, through a thin partition, 

 the discordant merriment of drunken fellows ; and in- 

 haling the breezes of a smoky wood fire, with the fumes 

 of their shag tobacco ! In such a predicament, then, 

 how can I prescribe for him? and in this predicament, I 

 believe, there are very few sportsmen that have not often 

 been. Why here again, then, I will endeavour to give him 

 a little advice, though I hope he will not think I am be- 

 ginning to write a sermon. I shall now first observe, that, 

 of all things on earth, to make a man low spirited, un- 

 happy, or nervous, is to get into a habit of idleness: and, 

 although there are many young people that would pay 

 little attention, and perhaps laugh at me, if I told them 

 that " idleness " was the " root of all evil," yet some, 

 among those very persons, might listen most earnestly, 

 when I remind them, that being nervous or low spirited 

 is of all other things the most likely to put even a crack 

 sportsman off his shooting-; or to make a young angler 

 whip off his flies; or be too eager, and therefore unskilful, 

 in killing his flsh. Always, therefore, let him be employed, 

 and think no more of the weather, till his man comes, 

 with a smiling face, and says, " Sir, it will do again 

 now!" when, if he is a man of genius, and has proper 

 resources, Ke could almost have wished for another 

 hour's rain, in order to complete that in which his 



