i 3 8 THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



Raby well, and surely a person of his high literary 

 attainments, and great personal accomplishments, and 

 living in such good London society, must think very 

 lightly of all such pursuits. I have, indeed, heard him 

 say as much as that he wished both his nephews to 

 distinguish themselves at Oxford, if not to carry honours 

 (which you know was his own case), and then to assume 

 high stations in the senate (which you know was, un- 

 fortunately, not his case, not from want of ability, but 

 from a natural and insuperable indolence) when they 

 make their appearance in the world. As to my valued 

 friend, Lady Charlotte, I am quite sure she is much 

 pained at the accounts she hears of Frank's hunting and 

 riding j and Andrew told my daughter Jane, the other 

 day, that he has already been in scrapes, connected with 

 them, at Oxford." 



" All very fine theory of yours, my dear madam," said 

 the gouty old gentleman, "but doings and sayings are 

 wide apart. No one knows Beaumont Raby much better 

 than I do, and no one esteems some parts of his character 

 more. All know his literary, as well as his personal, 

 accomplishments to be of the first order; at the same 

 time, where can we find, in proportion to his means, a 

 much more useless member of society ? It is true, he 

 sends his money to Italy, to enrich a country which owns 

 him not as her son, and thereby may be said to encourage 

 the fine arts ; but, with the exception of the benefit 

 arising from the necessary disbursement of his fine 

 income, what good does he do for his own ? With talents 

 which might have made him one of the resources of his 

 country, he sits by, and looks on at the difficulties that 

 oppose it, all his energies being relaxed and absorbed in 

 what may be called the effeminacy of refinement. But 

 why all this ? Merely because he was averse, from his 

 youth, to those manly pursuits which you condemn, and 

 which he now finds out, though too late, would have 

 saved him as they have his brother from those almost 

 insupportable bodily inconveniences he at this time endures. 

 Then look at my own case. My wife entreated me to 

 leave off hunting with my friend Raby's harriers, on two 

 accounts : first, she feared I should break my neck, 

 emphatically reminding me that the key of the cupboard 

 was in my pocket ; and, secondly, that, as a clergyman, 

 it was improper in me to hunt or shoot. It was in vain 



