A whole day most delightfully passed a hare-hunting, with a pretty pack of hounds kept here by Messrs. Palmer. They put me upon a horse that seemed to have been made on purpose for me, strong, tall, gentle and bold; and that carried me either over or through everything. I, who am just the weight of a four-bushel sack of good wheat, actually sat on his back from daylight in the morning to dusk (about nine hours) without once setting my foot on the ground. Our ground was at Orcop, a place about four miles' distance from this place. We found a hare in a few minutes after throwing off; and in the course of the day we had to find four, and were never more than ten minutes in finding. A steep and naked ridge, lying between two flat valleys, having a mixture of pretty large fields and small woods, formed our ground. The hares crossed the ridge forward and backward, and gave us numerous views and very fine sport.--I never rode on such steep ground before; and really, in going up and down some of the craggy places, where the rains had washed the earth from the rocks, I did think, once or twice, of my neck, and how Sidmouth would like to see me.--As to the _cruelty_, as some pretend, of this sport, that point I have, I think, settled in one of the Chapters of my "_Year's Residence in America_." As to the expense, a pack, even a full pack of harriers, like this, costs less than two bottles of wine a day with their inseparable concomitants. And as to the _time_ thus spent, hunting is inseparable from _early rising_: and with habits of early rising, who ever wanted time for any business? _Oxford, Saturday, 17 Nov._