ATTACHMENT OF MASTER 115 



salt with a man before she accepted him," which would 

 take much less time than may appear likely. We eat 

 salt in bread, butter, bacon, cheese, tongues, spiced meat, 

 salt with eggs, cold fowl, or game for breakfast, and with 

 all kinds of viands at dinner, so that a peck of salt may 

 be computed to be consumed by one person in less than 

 a twelvemonth, which is a fair time of probation before 

 taking a man for better or for worse during the whole 

 term of life. 



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

 strictly true of any zealous sportsman who has ever under- 

 taken 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 extraordinary in a hunts- 

 man 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-hunting ought to be, or might be made 

 innocently, the sole business of a man's life ; but the 

 same observation applies equally to every 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 his time to reading — all whose 

 object is self -gratification, are amenable to the charge of 

 misemploying talents committed to their keeping. The 



