THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 39 



ciple of action. For this reason, I imagine that men of 

 education, or, in the common acceptation of the term, 

 gentlemen, who devote themselves to any of the several 

 exercises or accomphshments, such as riding or driving, 

 boxing or fencing, shooting, cricket,* &c., are generally 

 found far to excel, in proportion to their number, the 

 rest of the world, who, in inferior station, have adopted 

 any of these walks of life from necessity rather than 

 choice. " In divinity, physic, or law," the highest orna- 

 ments have been, with few exceptions, the most finished 

 gentlemen; and I have no doubt that a gentleman 

 farmer would, instead of too often furnishing matter for 

 a joke, prove the best of agriculturists, if he would farm 

 less as an amateur, and bring his own deductions to the 

 assistance of the general rules of practice. I see, myself, 

 no other objection to the gentleman hmitsman but this, 

 that he would not, could not, consistently with the 

 maintenance of any society, abandon himself to the 

 labour, if of the field, certainly not of the kennel ; and 

 I hold it a sine qua non, that a huntsman should be 

 jierpetuaUy with his hounds, for reasons which will be 

 apparent in my definition of the essentials in his cha- 

 racter. I will maintain, that in ninety-nine cases out 

 of a hundred, — I might safely say in every case, — 

 where not only mental, but an exertion of physical 



* Perhaps the plaijers may be able to beat the gentlemen in this game ; 

 but it is their fault if such is the case. 



