THOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. 133 



LETTER X. 



THOUGHT that I had been writing all this 

 time to a fox-hunter ; and hitherto my letters 

 liave had no other objecft. I now receive a let- 

 ter from you, full of queftions about hare-hunt- 

 ing ; to all of which you expe6l an anfwer. I 

 mufl tell you, at the fume time, that though I 

 kept harriers many years, it was not my inten- 

 tion, if you had not afkcd it, to have written on 

 the fubje6t. By inclination, I was never a hare- 

 hunter ; I followed this diveriion more for air and 

 exercife, than amufement ; and if I could have 

 perfuaded myfelf to ride on the turnpike road to 

 Vne three-mile flone, and back again, I fliould 

 have thought that I had had no need of a pack 

 of han'iers. — Excufe me, brother hare-hunters ! 

 I mean not to offend ; I fpeak but relatively to 

 my own particular lituation in the country, where 

 hare-hunting is fo bad, that it is more extraor- 

 dinary I fliould have perfevered in it fo long, than 

 that I flioyld forfake it now. I refpecft hunting 

 in whatever fhape it appears ; it is a manly, and 

 a wholelbme exercife, and feems, by nature, de- 

 ligned to be the amufernent of a Briton. 



You afk, how many hounds a pack of har- 

 riers fhould confift of ? and what kind of hound 



K 3 is 



