THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 243 



middle of the night solely with the hope of availing 

 ourselves of its moisture. 



I must not be supposed, in these comments upon 

 The Diary of a Huntsman, to be actuated by any 

 desire of detracting from its manifold merits. In the 

 notice which I must necessarily take of a contemporary 

 authority, it would be misplaced courtesy towards the 

 writer, injustice to my own work, and to the purpose to 

 which it is devoted, if I shrank from contesting opinions 

 to which I could not conscientiously subscribe. 



Totally divested of any invidious and unworthy feel- 

 ing, utterly regardless of the channel through which any 

 new ideas might flow, looking to the interests of " the 

 Noble Science," and to the practical utility of any infor- 

 mation upon the subject, I halted in the course of 

 my own task, and scanned the Diary, in the hope of 

 finding that supply of novelty already before the public, 

 which I felt myself unable to communicate. Of a verity, 

 that novelty have I found in divers shapes ; but such 

 novelty is useless if it be past man's understanding. I 

 say this in a general sense, because I cannot impute to 

 myself a more than common share of isolated stupidity, 

 in being unable to discover the meaning of phrases, 

 which I find equally unintelligible to others. 



It is not my intention to make allusion to any discre- 

 pancies unconnected with the immediate subject of my 



