THOUGHTS UPON HUNTING. 29 



there are no others*. Prejudice, however, Is by far too 

 blind a guide to be depended 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 : 1 hope these Letters will not prove the 

 only exception. Should they fall into the hands of such 

 as are not sportsmen, 1 need not, Ithink, make any ex- 

 cuses to them for the contents, since the title sufficiently 

 shews for whom they were designed. Nor are they meant 

 for such sportsmen as need not instruflion, but for those 

 that do ; to whom, I presume, in some parts at least, they 

 may be found of use. Since a great book has been long 

 looked upon as a great evil, I shall take care not to sin 

 that way at least j and shall endeavour to make these Letters 

 as short as the extent of my subjedl will admit. 



You will rally me, perhaps, on the choice of my 

 frontispiece ; but why should not hunting admit the 



* There is a fashion in greyhounds ; some coursers even pretend, that 

 all not being of the fashionable colour, are curs, and not greyhounds. 

 Greyhound seems to be a corruption from some other word j most pro- 

 bably from gaze-hound. 



