ALLEGED CRUELTY OF FIELD SPORTS. 385 



Hand that furnished these creatures with such 

 tuneful notes to assemble their fellows, and give 

 tidings to their masters, with such an amazing art 

 to unravel the various windings of the fugitive, 

 with so relentless fury to pursue her to the death." 

 But our sensibilities towards the sufferings of 

 animals are limited, not only in wisdom, but in 

 mercy (for, increase our sensibilities, and who could 

 live ?) and let us not charge a sportsman with 

 cruelty because he is the destroyer of that part of 

 the brute creation which was evidently intended 

 should be destroyed by some one. Sportsmen have 

 existed, and must for ever exist, from necessity. 

 They have extirpated some animals, and culled out 

 such as are serviceable to man, and submit to his 

 will and government. Those that will submit are 

 his friends, those that will not are his foes ; and so 

 it w^as intended to be since the charge was given to 

 Adam, and the subsequent commission to Noah. 

 The sports of the field, indeed, as now followed, are 

 generally allowed to have a tendency to improve 

 and promote a free and generous conduct, as well 

 as that manly spirit which is the very reverse of 

 cruelty ; and, in the harmless exercise of our ima- 

 gination, looking at that law of nature which en- 

 joins the destruction of one animal for the good of 

 another, so far from passing a hard sentence on the 

 sportsman, we think with the poet, that 



" His life is pure, who wears no fouler stain !" 



No great satisfaction would arise from a refer- 

 ence to the practices of the ancients in the field. 

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