CHASE
.—The chase, as well as other pleasures of equal attraction, has had its most inveterate opponents, as well as its equally determined devotees. Various and vehement have been the declamations against it; equally numerous, and equally energetic, have been the expostulations in its defence. That it was practised, and enthusiastically enjoyed, by the ancients, as perseveringly pursued by the moderns, and will be continued to the end of time, (in opposition to every species of puritanical rigidity,) will not admit of the least contrariety in opinion. The CHASE, taken in a general point of view, includes the chase of every description, and implies a pursuit of GAME (or vermin) found in a state of natural liberty, with a body (called a pack) of hounds, who follow the object, whatever it may be, by the scent left on the ground, (from which an effluvia exhales,) so soon as the game thus found may have broke from their view. Upon the subject of scent, its origin, its duration, and its evaporation, innumerable conjectures have been sported by literary theorists; in opposition to the animadversion upon which, much more might be introduced; but as it must unavoidably terminate, like all other matters of hypothesis, to which no criterion of certainty can be produced, very little entertainment, and no positive information, can be derived from the investigation.
The CHASE, in this its most comprehensive meaning, implies hunting of every kind, whether STAG, FOX or HARE, (with either or all of which, the otter is not of sport or magnitude sufficient to be put in competition.) These three different kinds of chase afford equal sport, but in a more distinct and different way from each other; most admirably adapted to the different inclinations, dispositions, and personal sensations, of the various admirers who enter into its spirit, according to the different stages of life and gradations of age. Fox hunting, it must be admitted, is most applicable and exhilarating to the fire and impetuosity of unrestrained juvenility, or manhood more matured; where, perhaps, the pleasure is enhanced only in proportion to the difficulties of the day, upon the military principle of "the more danger, the more honor."
Stag hunting may probably be more adapted to the taste or prudence (or more appropriate to the wishes) of the SPORTSMAN, who having past the meridian of life, has long since discovered the value of time, and knows how to appreciate its loss: he wishes to insure a chase of two or three hours to a certainty, without employing perhaps double that time before the game is found; with the additional chance of exploring a dull and dreary journey of fifteen or twenty miles home, in a dirty country, with no other consolation, than a great deal of riding, but a blank day.
Hare hunting is, in the estimation of the sporting world, held in a certain degree inferior to the other two, (so far as hard riding and personal courage is concerned;) because the exercise is not so violent, nor is the chase of equal duration. Indeed, strong advocates for STAG and FOX hunting hold this sport exceedingly cheap, and satirically say, "it is better calculated for the initiation of juveniles, the entertainment of women, and the amusement of those gentlemen in the more advanced stages of life, who, like the old woman in the farce, is highly pleased with the sound of the fiddle, though no longer able to dance." Hare hunting, however, though not so attracting to those who wish to recount the difficulties, the toils and vicissitudes of the day, after a long chase, yet to the contemplative mind of reflection, much more of the minutiæ of hunting, and the instinct of animals, is to be enjoyed than in either of the other two: of this most probably ample proof will be adduced, when they come to be separately enlarged upon under their different heads.