THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 257 



and keeping up of the country is suffered to devolve 

 upon him. 



" Horses sound, hounds healthy, 

 Earths well stopped, and foxes plenty," 



are indispensable requisites, " which nobody can deny ;" 

 but after finding effective horses, and hounds, &c., the 

 master has also, literally, to find every fox, in the most 

 comprehensive sense of the word; and why is this? 

 Why, because, simply because, "what is everybody's 

 business, is nobody's ;" because every one likes to know 

 that the country is kept up, and no one cares how this 

 is brought to pass. A liberal subscription to the hounds 

 is thought to include everything that can be required, 

 from the body of the country, towards the maintenance 

 of fox-hunting; more particularly, when the rights of 

 country are firmly established upon such foundations, as 

 the hearty concurrence of the landed proprietors, and 

 their expressed resolution to preserve foxes, according 

 to their ability. And, pray, will some one ask, is 7iot 

 that enough ? Does not such a system work well, and 

 what more would you have ? Granting that the system 

 does work well — with all my desire to leave well alone, 

 with all my anti-revolutionary principles, I would be 

 reformer enough to wish a total change in the funda- 

 mental parts of the constitution of many hunting coun- 

 tries. If such a jubilee could be accorded to some 

 provincials, as was most prudently given for three years 

 2l 



