14 CHIEF OBJECT IN 



others like to be dictated to ; so both find their 

 account in it. You will not let this mislead 

 you : you will dare to think for yourself. Nor 

 will you believe every man who pretends to 

 know what you like better than you do your- 

 self. There is a degree of coxcombry, I be- 

 lieve, in every thing. You have heard, I make 

 no doubt, that greyhounds are either black, or 

 white, or black and white ; and if you have 

 any faith in those who say they know best, they 

 will tell you there are no others.* Prejudice, 

 however, is by far too blind a guide to be de- 

 pended on. 



I have read somewhere that there is no book 

 so bad, but a judicious reader may derive some 

 advantage from the reading of it : I hope these 

 Letters will not prove the only exception. 

 Should they fall into the hands of such as are 

 not sportsmen, I need not, I think, make any 

 excuses to them for the contents, since the title 

 sufficiently shows for whom they were designed. 

 Nor are they meant for such sportsmen as need 

 not instruction, but for those that do ; to whom, 



* There is a fashion in greyliounds : some coursers even 

 pretend, that all not being of the fashionable colour, are 

 curs, and not greyliounds. Greyhound seems to be a cor- 

 ruption from some other word ; most probably from gaze- 

 hound. 



