14 ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPORTS. 



ing harraffed by mortal affrights, and tortured, 

 torn, and mangled to death by piecemeal ? I 

 know, from the analogy of inftinft in the 

 hound, it will here be faid, we are following 

 nature ; but it is brute nature, uninformed and 

 unillumined by reafon, which is the foul, and 

 ought to be the diredor of nature. It is fure- 

 ly enough that thefe innocents forfeit their 

 lives, to pamper our appetites, and nourifh our 

 bodies ; the gun and the knife afford them a 

 fpeedy and unexpe6led exit, and they are en- 

 titled to the privilege of an undifturbed life, 

 and an eafy death, by every law of reafon and 

 humanity. I never hear an epicure praifing 

 the fuperior gout of a hunted hare, without 

 having my appetite fpoiled by reflefting upon 

 the tortures the poor animal may have fuf- 

 fered ; and this refleftion always brings to my 

 mind, not indeed a comparative, but a much 

 more horrid cruelty of the bullock-hunters in 

 South America, who, when they have noofed 

 a beaft, leave him faft bound, to expire in ago- 

 nies, that his convulfive throes may fo difen- 

 gage the fkin, as to occafion them lefs trouble 

 in the flaying ! 



Hunting the Fox, which is a beaft of 

 prey, greedy of blood, a robber prowling 

 about, feeking what creature he may devour, 

 is not liable to a fmgle one of the preceding 

 objeftions ; nor indeed to any one, in a moral 



view. 



