42 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



impressed with a due sense of the responsibility which 

 must be vested in him, and entertain a corresponding 

 idea of liis own importance, sufficient to ensm^e the 

 respect and attention to which he is entitled from those 

 under his command, without any affectation or conceit 

 to render him ridiculous. A low-lived blackguard, who 

 will swear like a trooper, and drink himself into a state 

 of madness, constituting his qualification, and his one 

 redeeming point, (probably the only merit he will be 

 found to share, in common with other fools,) that of 

 " riding like the devil" will never keep things straight in 

 the departments subject to his regulation. His mind, 

 being brutalized, will be incapable of appreciating the 

 dignity of his station ; he will be wholly unsusceptible of 

 any but the grosser elements of his vocation ; and he 

 will be utterly destitute of that pure enjoyment and 

 delight in his duty, which may be so truly said to make 

 toil a pleasure, where a huntsman is characterised by 

 the reverse of these degrading attributes, and stands as a 

 pattern of happiness and contentment in the state of 

 life to which he has been called. For the honour of 

 the craft, for our own honour, I am happy to state that I 

 could name many who might say with the poet, 



" Tlie labour we delight in physics pain ;" 



whose example will, I trust, descend to all ages : but it 

 would, of course, be invidious here to mention them: 



