376 HUNTING. 



Vandals, as the Grecians and other nations had 

 before been to themselves ; and, in the decline of 

 the Republic, the few victories which they gained 

 were achieved but by the terror of their name. 

 Minor poets have also made sporting their theme. 

 Gratius wrote a poem on coursing. He was con- 

 temporary with Ovid, and a sportsman, as the 

 knowledge of his subject denotes. Nemesianus also, 

 three centuries afterwards, wrote some poems on 

 hunting, though they have not been so highly es- 

 teemed. But the sports of the field are alluded to 

 by innumerable classic writers, and made the ground- 

 work of their most beautiful allegories and fables, 

 both in verse and prose ; and perhaps, after all, the 

 greatest compliment that can be paid to them, as 

 well as the best answer to the assertion that any 

 man can make a sportsman, is to be found in the 

 last-named department of literature. We allude 

 to the letters of that accomplished country gentle- 

 man and scholar, Pliny the consul, in which he 

 speaks of his prowess in the chase. In one ad- 

 dressed to Tacitus the historian, boasting of a fa- 

 mous day's sport he had been enjoying, he also 

 boasts of the good effect it had had on his mind, 

 telling him that Minerva accompanied Diana on 

 the hills ; and in the eighteenth letter of the fifth 

 book he goes a point beyond this : — " As for my- 

 self,'' says he to his friend Macer, " I am employed 

 at my Tuscan villa in hunting and studying, some- 

 times alternately, and sometimes both together ; 

 hut I am not yet able to determine in which of those 

 pursuits it is most difficult to succeed.'''' 



