FOX-HUNTING
—has been for time immemorial a favourite sport with the natives of this kingdom, particularly in the prime of life; the pleasing exercise, and bodily exertion, contributing greatly to the PRESERVATION of HEALTH; but the fatigue and danger render it but ill-adapted to the AGED, the INFIRM, and the VALETUDINARIAN. The persevering speed and fortitude of the GAME, the constantly improving high mettled excellence of the HOUNDS, the invincible spirit of the HORSES, and the unrestrained ardour of their RIDERS, have given it a decided superiority over every other FIELD SPORT ever yet known to the people of this country. Its salutary effect upon both the BODY and MIND, has established its enjoyment upon a basis too broad ever to be shaken, even by time itself: the superlative pleasure of every scene, the diversities of the aggregate, and the extacy with which the whole is embraced by its infinity of devotees, have reduced the sport to a system of perfection never before known; and in this some of the most LEARNED, the most EMINENT, and the most OPULENT characters are principally and personally engaged in nearly every county, from one extremity of the kingdom to the other.
Fox-hunting seems to be possessed of a charm, or magical inspiration, within itself, that even the most serious, the most cynical, and the most singular, cannot, with all the firmness of their resolves, summon resolution to withstand. It is the very kind of rapturous gratification to which every effort of the pen becomes inadequate in its attempts at description; it must be seen to be understood; it must be FELT to be ENJOYED. A FOX-HUNTING ESTABLISHMENT consists, in general, of what it has done for the last century past, at least with those PACKS most celebrated for the EMINENCE and OPULENCE of their OWNERS. The principal and second HUNTSMAN, the first and second WHIPPER-IN, three horses kept for each of the first, and two each for both the last; from TWENTY-FIVE to THIRTY-FIVE couple of HOUNDS, terriers, helpers, earth-stoppers, dog-feeders, and a long list of et ceteras, too numerous for minute description. Those who wish to acquire a systematic knowledge of the SPORT, (so far as it can be obtained from THEORY,) will do well to peruse attentively "Mr. Beckford's Thoughts upon Hunting, in a Series of familiar Letters to a Friend."—They are so truly the effusions of sound judgment, and so replete with the useful remarks of an experienced sportsman, that there is no room for any thing NEW or ADDITIONAL to be introduced upon the subject.