THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 241 



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 not 

 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 

 to Leicestershire, when, finding, from the scarcity of 

 foxes, that the country was almost worn out, Mr. 

 Meynell removed the whole of his establishment, pro 

 tempore, to the borders of Huntingdonshire and Bed- 

 fordshire — hunting the countries in occupation of Lord 

 Fitzwilliam, and the Cambridgeshire— then might such 

 reformations be securely effected ; but under no other 

 than such circumstances, would it be prudent to ven- 

 ture upon anything of the kind, or attempt to disturb 

 the existing stability of things, wholly dependent upon 

 the sufferance of so many conflicting interests. Though 

 last of the requisites enumerated in the doggrel dis- 

 tich I have quoted, — the " foxes plenty," is by no 



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