MK. BETHELS HOUNDS 37 



from Hull ; but upon their arrival they refused to 

 remain at their new quarters, and actually found their 

 way back by land as far as Lincoln, where they were 

 taken up, having accomplished more than two-thirds of 

 the distance home. 



I shall now conclude this chapter, with the sincere 

 hope that with the rising generation of British sports- 

 men, this manly and soul-stirring amusement may ever 

 continue to hold the high rank that it does amongst 

 our numerous national sports ; nor may the murderous 

 and selfish system of preserving game, nor the quarrel- 

 breeding, mob-collecting, and cruel exhibition of the 

 steeple-chase, supplant that noble pursuit, which 

 affords recreation to all classes of society, Beckford 

 says, with great truth, that " Hunting is the soul of a 

 country life ; it gives health to the body and content- 

 ment to the mind ; and is one of the few pleasures we 

 can enjoy in society, without prejudice either to our- 

 selves or our friends." It not only finds employment 

 for numerous hands in nearly all our trades and manu- 

 factures, but amongst the higher ranks, it is an 

 effectual security against the intrusion of idleness and 

 spleen ; it affords to the man of property ample scope 

 for the display of generous and social feelings, and far 

 better supplies the place of the more fashionable and 

 expensive amusements of the metropolis, which only 

 tend to excite, and not to satisfy our fancied and arti- 

 ficial wants. 



