THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 143 



shake the dew-drop from the thorn, — these are the 

 welcome materials constituting the prospect of a 

 hunting morning. Rightly to enjoy such a morning, 

 you must be in a frame of mind to exclaim with 

 Romeo : — 



" My bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne, 

 And all this day an unaccustomed spirit 

 Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts." 



If the half of earthly joys consist in anticipation, the 

 sportsman is half way towards his seventh heaven, 

 when, bounding on his covert hack, time and space 

 appear annihilated, by the rapidity of his progress 

 towards the scene in which his very soul is centred : — 

 I speak of sportsmen ;— nothing can be further from my 

 thoughts, than the presumption that such trash as 

 this can meet with anything but the most unqualified 

 contempt from the man who hunts, for fashion, or 

 relief from enmd. What has he to do with the beauty 

 of Nature ? 



" What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ?" 



The different sentiments with which men may 

 wend their way, each ostensibly intent upon the same 

 object— the different sensations which the being out 

 upon a hunting day may create in different breasts, always 

 remind me, most forcibly, of Lord Byron's exhibition of 



