46 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



anytliing; will not stoop to any scent during the first 

 season, and are still slack at entering, even in the 

 second ; but, ultimately, are distinguished at the head 

 of the pack : and such, I have always observed, last 

 some seasons longer than the more precocious of the 

 same litter. Others have an almost inveterate pro- 

 pensity to run anything and everything, by scent or by 

 view, and act altogether upon the voluntary principle as 

 soon as they are emancipated from their couplings. A 

 love of hare will descend, in particular blood, through 

 generations, and will, occasionally, demonstrate itself, 

 especially on bad scenting days, when a hound that is 

 at any time unsteady must, and will, run sometliing ; but 

 the same hound, when settled to a fox, may be invincible. 

 In contending with these and many other difficul- 

 ties of Nature, it is absurd to imagine that one universal 

 system of discipline would be found to answer, any better 

 than it would for school-boys. It has been said of men : 



" Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore, 

 Oderunt peccare mali, formidine pcenae :" 



w^hich (as, perhaps, less common, or Latin grammar-like, 

 than some of my classical quotations) I may, for the 

 benefit of country gentlemen, thus freely translate : 



" The good, for goodness' sate, will fear to falter; 

 The bad, keep good, — because they fear a halter." 



And thus, w ith hounds, some will require no inducement 

 to do right ; others will only be restrained, by fear of 



