14 
AUTNTYEESAEY ADDEESS BY THE 
labour has impaired. There are not wanting instances, indeed I 
have known them myself, of the fairer sex apportioning their lives 
between the sports of the field and works of mercy and charity. 
These have I often seen “witching the world with noble horse¬ 
manship,” and holding the pride of place in the hunting-field with 
all comers; and who shall say that their ministrations to the sick 
and needy were not the tenderer, their zest for the labour of love 
the greater, for occasional indulgence in the sport which is graced 
by their presence ? I have seen soldiers, sailors, statesmen, lawyers, 
artists, and poets, upon whom the mantle of Nimrod has fallen. 
Who can deny that their intellect is the sharper, their wit the 
clearer and keener, by a seasonable following of the noble craft ? 
Those who “ sit at home at ease ” perhaps hardly recognize that 
there is a certain amount of danger inseparable from the crossing 
of a strongly-enclosed country, but with a well-bred, well-bitted, 
well-conditioned horse the danger may be reduced to a minimum 
even where the ox-fence grins, the bull-finch is black, thick, and 
forbidding, and the brook broad and unfathomable; but it is this 
very element of danger which lends an additional charm to the 
chase. I remember once a famous sportsman, the scion of a noble 
house celebrated in sporting annals, telling me he should not care 
for hunting unless it were dangerous. Surely then to encounter 
and successfully to overcome danger must count for something in 
influence on character. Surely the powers of endurance both in 
man and beast which it is necessary to put forth are not without 
a lesson which may be taken to heart under other circumstances. 
In a neighbouring hunt I used to see once a week a small boy on a 
small donkey, and however long and severe the run, however 
spacious the pastures and formidable the fences, both boy and 
beast invariably turned up, more power to Ihem both, at the termi¬ 
nation of the hunt. Is not this a token of character and deter¬ 
mination which must make its mark upon the youth’s life and 
career ? He must have been one of those— 
To whom nought comes amiss— 
One horse or another, that country or this ; 
Who through falls and bad starts undauntedly still 
Bide up to the motto, “ Be with them I will.” 
The Spartans of old used to expose their children on the moun¬ 
tains to test their hardiness, and to secure the “ survival of the 
fittest,” and so to perpetuate a sturdy, stalwart, healthy race. In 
these latter days the sons and daughters of England strive to attain 
the same end by passing a large portion of their lives out of doors, 
