144 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



a true seaman's feelings upon his element, contrasted 

 with those of one incapable of sharing them : — 



" Scay, who can tell — not thou luxurious slave, 

 Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave ; 

 Not thou, vain lord of indolence and ease, 

 Whom slumber soothes not, pleasure cannot please : 

 Say, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried. 

 And danc'd in triumph o'er the waters wide, 

 The exulting sense, the pulse's madd'ning play, 

 That thrills the ivanderer of that trackless way." 



Thus it is with hunting. — On the mere steeple-chaser, 

 or on the man who rises discontented from a feverish 

 bed, to curse the custom which prevents the more 

 protracted indulgence of sloth ; and still more, on him 

 who inwardly laments that no interposition of a friendly 

 frost had spared him the necessity of " doing as others 

 do at Rome," would any word upon the details of the 

 science, and what thereto appertains, be other than utterly 

 wasted. It is by the real sportsman, by the true admirer 

 of Nature and of Nature's God, by the man fraught with 

 a lively sense of the boon of existence, of thankfulness 

 for the health and happiness he is permitted to enjoy, 

 by the man at peace with himself, and in charity with 

 all men, that the exhilarating inspirations of a hunting 

 morning will be felt and appreciated. 



But we are at the place of meeting; we have no 

 business to inquire into the motives of any one ; all 

 have a right to hunt to please themselves, and as long 

 as they do no mischief, may take the country as it comes. 



