INTRODUCTION. 27 
stop a cock in a July brake, or land a four-pounder, with- 
out a gaff, on a single gut. 
It is a fact undeniable, and there be many yet alive, 
beside myself, who know it, that, when T. Cypress, jun., 
was inditing those exquisite bits of natural and sporting 
humorism, his Fire-island-ana, and other similar morsels 
of unsurpassed simplicity and art, which and which alone 
have made his name to be remembered; it was under the 
strictest seal of secrecy that he communicated his produc- 
tions to the favored few, who were allowed to introduce 
them to the world,—it was in fear and trembling, in some 
sort, that he saw himself in print; and with a firm con- 
viction that, if it should be once discovered, that he, a 
practising counsellor of high standing in New York, was 
actually guilty of the authorship of genre sketches, on 
sporting subjects, second, if second only—as I think not 
second, but superior—to Elia Lamb’s best Essays, “ Othel- 
lo’s occupation” were done for ever. That to be an author 
first, and then a lover of field-sports, must be the “ deep 
damnation” of any New York lawyer, though he were 'a 
Blackstone himself, and a Coke upon him. 
At that time no man, however fine a scholar, however 
brilliant an artist, was held altogether reputable as an 
associate, or entirely right in his mind, if he were not 
wholly and solely devoted to business; and the only 
business, which was esteemed business, in the eyes of the 
wise men of Gotham, was that of making and hoarding 
money. 
In many respects matters have mended since that 
time. It has been discovered that there are other uses for 
