THEORY OF HUNTING. d 



You may remember, perhaps, when we were 

 hunting together at Turin, and the hounds had 

 lost the stag, and the piqueurs (still more in fault 

 than they) knew not which way to try, the king 

 bid them ask Milord Anglois ; — nor is it to be 

 wondered at if an Englishman should be thought 

 to understand the art of hunting, when the 

 hounds this country produces are universally 

 allowed to be the best in the whole world, — 

 from which I think this inference may be drawn, 

 that although every man who follows this diver- 

 sion may not understand it, yet that it is extra- 

 ordinary of the many that do, that one only of 

 any note should have written on the subject. It 

 is rather unfortunate for me that the ingenious 

 sportsman should have preferred writing an ele- 

 gant poem to an useful lesson ; since if he had 

 pleased, he might easily have saved me the trou- 

 ble of writing these Letters. Is it not strange 

 that in a country where the press is in one con- 

 tinued labour with opinions of almost every kind, 

 from the most serious and instructive to the most 

 ridiculous and trifling j a country, besides, so fa- 

 mous for the best hounds, and the best horses to 

 follow them, whose authors sometimes hunt, and 

 whose sportsmen sometimes write, that only the 

 practical part of hunting should be understood ? 

 B 2 



