284 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



experience. My only motive for offering any estimate 

 of the funds requisite for carrying on the war in our 

 provincial, is the hope that it may not, at some future 

 day, be found wholly useless to my successors, long after 

 the rest of my lucubrations may have been forgotten. Any 

 account of expenses actually incurred, must be far pre- 

 ferable to the best estimate of those which may be 

 (however reasonably) anticipated ; at the same time, a 

 faithful extract from my own accounts, for one year, 

 would be but fallible, unless I could arrogate a discretion 

 in their disposition to which I have no claim. The 

 rule must not be taken, either from a want of capacity 

 for economy on the one hand, or from (that which is far 

 from my case) the affluence which causes indiffer- 

 ence to items on the other. It is a duty which we owe, 

 not only to ourselves, and to the proper use of means 

 with which we are entrusted, but to the cause, to steer 

 a middle course, avoiding equally parsimony and pro- 

 fusion. " Waste not, want not," should be the ruhng 

 principle. If I have not been able to bring down my own 

 expenditure within the compass of the following sche- 

 dule, I can vouch for its accuracy, as a calculation of 

 all expense absolutely requisite, and inevitably contin- 

 gent upon an effective establishment, for three days per 

 week, or seven days per fortnight, in Herts ; of course, 

 entirely exclusive of the personal concerns of a master 

 of hounds, with regard to his own hunting. 



