3l6 THOUGHTS irPON HUNTING,, 



With regard to its peaceful ftate, according to a 

 modern poet ; 



No fierce unruly fenate threatens here, 

 No axe, or fcafFold to the view appear, 

 No envy, difappointnient, and defpair. 



} 



And for the contentment which is fuppofed to 

 accompany a country Ufe, we have not only the 

 befl authority of our own time to fupport it, but 

 even that of the befl poets of the Augullan age. 

 Virgil furely felt what he wrote, when he faid, 

 *' fortuna 7um'mm Jiuit'i fi bona norint, agricolce {"^ 

 and Horace's famous ode, "^ Beatus ille qui procui 

 *' nego/iis,'" feems not lets to come from the heart 

 of a man, who is generally allowed to have had 

 a perfc6l knowledge of mankind ; and this, even 

 at the time when he was the favourite of the 

 grcateft emperor, and in the midfl: of all the 

 magnificence of the greatetl city in the world. 



The elegant Pliny alfo, in his epiftle to Minu- 

 tius Fundanus, which is admirably tranflated by 

 the Earl of OiTery, v>'hilft he arraigns the life he 

 leads at Rome, fpeaks with a kind of rapture of 

 a country life: "Welcome," fays he, ^' thou 

 *' life of integrity and virtue ! welcome fweet 

 *' and innocent amufement ! Thou ih^t art al- 

 " moft preferable to bufincfs and employment of 

 *' every kind." Aud it was hre, we are told, 



that 



