GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 257 



men (that take out certificates too) who declare, they 

 would rather assist, than be the means of prosecuting, 

 a poacher; and that this is the general feeling I have 

 no hesitation in asserting. 



It must be allowed, that many of these great men 

 will, on being asked, give permission for a gentleman 

 to shoot one day in the season on their manors; yet 

 there is something so disagreeable and repugnant in 

 the idea of soliciting permission for what a person 

 conceives (after paying three pounds four shillings for 

 a licence) he has already a right to, that many will 

 not deign to solicit it. The trouble too which fre- 

 quently attends obtaining permission is not sufficiently 

 remunerated by one day's diversion. There is a sort 

 of punctilious etiquette necessary perhaps to be ob- 

 served in waiting on great men; but this, in respect 

 to game, is often converted into fastidious etiquette; 

 and I must confess, that I scarcely every reflect on 

 this subject, but a train of ideas leads my imagina- 

 tion up the Little streams to the great Norman foun- 

 tain. Many of the very rigorous game preservers are 

 radically Norman ; and it would seem as if the free 

 air of Britain had not completely purified their blood. 

 I am confident, that as long as the present system 

 is practised of invidiously bringing actions for tres- 

 pass, trying qualifications, and the various other me- 

 thods of torturing the sportsman of small fortune, so 

 long will poachers abound, and numerous keepers 

 with their assistants will in vain be employed to pro- 

 ject the game from nocturnal (and also diurnal) de- 



