PUEl'ACE. 29 



personal experience in these healthful pursuits with his own 

 immortal pen ; and affording an example to scholars in all ages, 

 that they should not disdain to refresh their vigour, and renew 

 their animation, by allowing the unharnessed faculties to 

 recreate themselves freely in country sports, and exercise 

 themselves agreeably in country business." 



O would men stay aback frae courts, Burns, " The 



* > 1 .1 1 ■' . t Twa Dogs." 



An please themselves \vi counlra sports, ° 



It wad for every ane be better, 

 The laird, the tenant, an' the cotter ! 



I wish it were in our power to enrol the name of the accom- 

 plished Athenian among the first patrons of our particular 

 branch of field-sports ; but the greyhound was unknown to the 

 son of Gryllus. We may, however, place the honour of the 

 leash under the early patronage of his celebrated namesake : 

 whose talents, as a military chief, were distinguished in the 

 age in which he lived ; whose works, as a philosopher and 

 historian, have been transmitted with reputation to posterity, 

 and continue to attract sufiicient attention from the literary 

 world, to embolden us in directing the notice of such of 

 our opponents as consider the courser in a state of de- 

 graded existence, to the younger Xenophon, in his twofold 

 capacity of a man of literature, and a patron of the leash. 

 And we may conclude from the latter having been considered 

 worthy the illustration of his pen, that coursing was not then 

 classed with the " servilia officia" of rural life. 



Before I proceed to the reasons which have induced me to 

 lay before the public the following translation, t cannot resist 

 availing myself of the opportunity, which a defence of the 



