2 REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



physical exercise. Their history proves that athletic sports 

 may strongly influence the character of a nation. 



While the lovers of the chase require no social nor philo- 

 sophical motives to bespeak their attention, this considera- 

 tion may induce even those who are only familiar with fox- 

 hunting by description to look with favour on the following 

 memoir. The manly amusement of fox-hunting is entirely, 

 and in its perfection, exclusively British. Its pursuit gives 

 hardihood, and nerve, and intrepidity to our youth, while it 

 confirms and prolongs the strength and vigour of our ijaan- 

 hood ; it is the best corrective to those habits of luxury and 

 those concomitants of wealth which would otherwise render 

 our aristocracy effeminate and degenerate ; it serves to retain 

 the moral influence of the higher over the lower classes of 

 society, and is one of the strongest preservatives of that 

 national spirit by which we are led to cherish, above all 

 things, a life of active energy, independence, and freedom. 

 It might be added that, in a political point of view, its 

 beneficial effects are not small as regards the employment 

 of labour, the market of home-grown produce, and the 

 maintenance of our superior breed of horses, most valuable 

 for the purposes either of war or peace. 



Addison, who was a Secretary of State as well as a cele- 

 brated essayist, thus advocates the healthful benefits of the 

 chase when the Spectator pays a visit to Sir Roger de 

 Coverley : " For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a 

 week during my stay with Sir Roger ; and shall prescribe 

 the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends 

 as the best kind of physic for mending a bad constitution 

 and preserving a good one." 



The physician Galen also recommends hunting as one of 

 the healthiest of diversions ; and Cervantes, in his " Don 

 Quixote," thus emphatically upholds the pursuit : "Hunting," 

 said the Duke to Sancho Panza, " is an image of war ; in it 

 there are stratagems, artifices, and ambuscades, to overcome 

 your enemy, without hazard to your person" (he is speaking 



