i8o VEGETATING-PROCESS. aj/ 



minor gcnilemen of his neighbourhood. And for 

 what advantage ? A mere childifh gratification — 

 a toy. — The child has its bird of pith, the 

 fchool-boy his daws and magpies, ladies their 

 aviaries, and gentlemen their kept-covers -, — 

 merely for the fake of fhevving off the pretty 

 creatures •, or of faying that they have got them 

 in their pofftilion. 



In point of real diverfion, kept-covers are 

 utter enemies* What hounds can hunt in 

 covers with a thoufand hares in them ? And 

 the diverfion of lliooting pheafants in a kept- 

 cover, is juft equivalent to that of lliooting 

 fmall-birds in a rick-yard, or poultry at a barn- 

 door. 



Thefe obfervations do not arife from an anti- 

 pathy to rural diverfions, nor, I flatter myfelf, 

 from an overweening fondnefs for rural econo- 

 my. I have profeffed myfelf upon a former 

 occafion, and ftill profefs myfelf, a friend to 

 both; and as fuch I beg leave to intimate to 

 gentlemen of large eftates, that if, inftead of 

 laying wafte the lands immediately round their 

 refidences, they would Icattcr fmall covers over 

 different parts of liieir eftates ; more efpecially 

 by the fides of rivulets in which water-creiTes 



abound j 



