160 ONCE A HUNTSMAN, ALWAYS A HUNTSMAN. 



a fair time of probation before taking a man for 

 better or for worse during the whole term of 

 Kfe. 



" Once a huntsman, always a huntsman," is, 

 however, strictly true of any zealous sportsman 

 who has ever undertaken to hunt his own hounds. 

 He becomes naturally attached to them, as they 

 are to him, and could not see them transferred to 

 another's control without a feeling of deep regret. 

 Persons of kind and humane dispositions will 

 make pets of some animals — pet dogs, pet horses, 

 pet birds, and I once heard of a lady who made a 

 pet of a toad ! so that there is nothing extraor- 

 dinary in a huntsman making darlings of his 

 hounds. However fond of horses and hounds, or 

 enthusiastically addicted to field sports, I never yet 

 did say, nor do I intend to insinuate, that fox-hunt- 

 ing ought to be, or might be made innocently, the 

 sole business of a man's life ; but the same observa- 

 tion applies equally to eveiy other pursuit which 

 is undertaken without reference to those duties 

 which, as rational beings and heirs of Immortality, 

 we owe to God and our fellow -creatures. The 

 man whose whole faculties and time are engaged 

 in money -making — the author or poet who labours 

 and writes for fame only — the statesman whose sole 

 aim is ambition — the literary man who devotes 



