The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the FieldTaplin, William
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The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field
Taplin, William
Hunting -- Dictionaries; Sports -- Dictionaries
Without the most distant intent of endeavouring to depreciate the noble,
exhilarating, delightful, and universally admitted excellence of
FOX-HUNTING, (of which, by the bye, no adequate description can issue
from the pen,) such few remarks may be made, as will display the sport
of STAG-HUNTING in a different point of view to that in which the writer
just mentioned has been pleased to place the picture; and probably
rescue it from any little stigma of _disgrace_, or _inferiority_, which
his promulgated opinion may have stamped upon the canvass. There is
positively no instance in which the philosophic decision of SIR ROGER DE
COVERLEY ("much may be said on both sides") could have been more
strictly applicable, or more truly verified, than upon the present
occasion. The candid, judicious and experienced sportsman will readily
admit, that each retains its attractions too powerful to resist, as well
as some inconveniencies impossible to remove: these, however, are
reconcileable to the modification of those whose motives induce them to
engage in either.
Previous to the recital of a chase with the STAG-HOUNDS, a few
preparatory and comparative remarks are due to the observations already
quoted from the justly popular work of MR. DANIEL. That there are but
"few establishments" of the kind is certainly true, and for a most
substantial reason; if they were numerous, the question would instantly
present itself, from _whence_ are they to be supplied with GAME? The
idea of "the KING'S giving the preference to FOX-HUNTING, if he had once
seen a fox well _found_, and _killed_ handsomely," is an entire new
thought; and affords immediate mental reference to the degradation of
MAJESTIC DIGNITY, should it ever be found making its _dreary way_
through the _bushy brambles_ of a BEECHEN WOOD two or three miles in
length, following the chase by the reverberating sounds of distant
holloas! but without the _sight_ or _sound_ of a single hound. This is a
constantly occurring trait in FOX-HUNTING, constituting no small
drawback on its boasted _perfection_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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