Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 143 



beftowed on his Cyrus, that he was a hunter of 

 wild beafts. Hunting trains up the younger 

 nobility to the ufe of manly exercifes in their 

 riper age. What more manly exercife than hunt- 

 ing the wild boar, the flag, the buck, the fox, or 

 the hare ? How doth it preferve health and in- 

 creafe ftrength and activity !" And once more : 

 " What mufic doth a pack of dogs then make to 

 any man, whofe heart and ears are fo happy as to 

 be fet to the tune of fuch inftruments I" 1 When 

 Jupiter implanted an evil nature in beafts which 

 were at firft harmlefs, fays the Latin poet : 



" Tarn laqueis captare feras et fallere vifco 

 Inventum, et magnos canibus circumdare faltus." 2 



In the golden age men had no knowledge of 

 agriculture ; nor were they careful to heap up 

 riches or to be thrifty in the ufe of what they 

 poflefled : 



" Sed rami atque afper vidlu venatus alebat." 3 



When civilization began, the hunting exiftence 

 gave way to the paftoral ftate, and that to the 

 fettled mode of living implied by the cultivation 

 of land. And when pleafure and luxury abound 

 in a ftate, men revert for amufement to what their 

 anceftors had been compelled to practise from 

 neceffity. In old days man hunted for his dinner ; 

 now he hunts in order to gain an appetite for it. 



Horace held in high eftimation hunting, and the 



1 "The Compleat Angler," i. I. 



2 Virgil, "Georg.," i. 139, 140. 



3 "^En.," viii. 318. 



