LETTER XXV. 275 



six days a week ; in that case I should suppose society 

 must suffer considerably; but a thrice or four days a 

 week man may not only give a dinner party occasionally 

 at his own house, without allowing the fish to be spoilt 

 before he makes his appearance in the drawing room, 

 but he may also favour his neighbours with his company, 

 if very desirable, at least three days in the week. Al- 

 though not a very gay man in my day, I have danced all 

 night at two balls in a week, dined out two, and hunted 

 three days. That I did not feel particularly fresh at the 

 end of it must be admitted ; but on account of my hunt- 

 ing propensities, the chair allotted to me at my neighbour's 

 table was not often vacant. That it is not indispensable 

 for a gentleman huntsman always to feed his own hounds 

 I think I have brought evidence to prove in the case of 

 Mr. Assheton Smith. I therefore may conclude that 

 Mr. Delme Ratcliffe, having heard me on this point, will 

 admit my argument to have some little weight. That 

 we both agree in other respects there is no doubt, " that 

 a gentleman huntsman ought to be the best huntsman.'* 



Although I have often stated that the management of 

 a pack of foxhounds is a business of itself, yet I have 

 nowhere said that it should be the only business of a 

 man's life. Hunting in moderation is a rational amuse- 

 ment ; as such, and such only, can it be considered, when 

 it does not materially interfere with other and more 

 important avocations. When this is the case it becomes 

 at once an irrational amusement; he who devotes six 

 days out of the seven in a week to hunting alone, makes 

 it then the business of his life, or at least the greater 

 part of it, reckoning the hunting season from the begin- 

 ning of September to the end of April. Men labour six 



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