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The uninspired reader, who has not been 

 smitten with the sport, and whose bosom hath 

 never thrilled in sympathy with his dog, at the 

 challenge of to ho! may smile at my starting 

 the question, whether to an eager youth just 

 fleshed on game, to retain the power of getting 

 up with any tolerable decency to a point; to 

 keep his mouth shut under the rattle of a rising 

 covey; and to remain, as in duty bound, fixed 

 to the spot, when the first bird falls to his gun, 

 be not a greater trial of nerve, than the awful 

 moment which precedes a first advance to 

 charge under the roar of a battery? But I am 

 perfectly serious in saying, that it is a situation 

 in which a man will sooner lose possession of 

 himself. " Fleas are not lobsters," as the poet 

 saith ; neither are swallows snipes : and in exact 

 proportion as a man shall feel the ferment of a 

 sportsman's blood within his veins, in such pro- 

 portion will he be liable to have himself scared 

 by the whirring of a partridge out of his five 

 wits. Let not my young friend, however, be 

 dismayed by these early stumbles of his ambi- 

 tion; even if, in the first instance, he should 

 have caught himself banging off the contents 

 of his barrel before the birds have measured a 

 dozen times its length in distance from him, 

 and with his eyes in such a quiver as to produce 



