SPORTSMAN
—is the appellation, for time immemorial, annexed to any man whose partiality to the SPORTS of the FIELD are universally known: they are evidently marked out for him by the dispensing and benign hand of Providence, for the promotion of health, and the gratification of pleasure, of which, enjoyed with moderation and rationality, he is never ashamed. The name of SPORTSMAN has ever been considered concisely characteristic of strict honour, true courage, unbounded hospitality, and the most unsullied integrity. However the character may have been broken in upon by time, or mutilated by the innovations of fashion, caprice, or folly, the original stock was derived solely from the blood of the true old English country Esquire; who, uncontaminated by the curse of insatiate ambition, is only happy himself in the happiness of his domestic dependents, the corresponding smiles of his tenants who surround his mansion, and an hospitable association with his numerous friends.
His HOUNDS are kept from an instinctive attachment to the sport itself, as well as to perpetuate the respectable and exhilarating establishment of his ancestors, (hitherto transmitted to their posterity without a stain,) and not from the least desire of having his name blazoned through every part of the county in which he resides, for keeping what he has neither PROPERTY to SUPPORT, or spirit to enjoy. Personally frugal, (amidst the most spirited hospitality,) he never suffers his mind to be disquieted by the pecuniary applications of people in trade: having a soul superior to the idea of living beyond his income, and running in debt, it is an invariable maxim, never to let his tradesmen be a single quarter in arrear. The guardian of his own honour, he never affords a chance of its becoming degraded by the officious and unprincipled pride of a subordinate, under the appellation of STEWARD; or to be disgraced, or prostituted, by the barefaced, unqualified denial of a menial bedaubed with lace and variegated finery, under the denomination of a footman.
Innately philanthropic, the true, well-bred, liberal-minded SPORTSMAN is always equally easy of access to friends, neighbours, tenants, and even to necessitous parochial solicitants; and never countenances false consequence amongst his domestics in one department, or impertinent pride in another: by a persevering adherence to which system, his rustic mansion seems the summit of all worldly happiness and earthly gratification: not a dependent but eyes him with the warmest sensations of gratitude; not a servant within, or a labourer without, but looks awefully up to him as their best friend. The pleasures of the field he extensively and judiciously engages in with all the fervency of a well-informed and experienced sportsman; but by no means with all the unqualified enthusiasm, and fashionable furor, of an indiscreet and determined devotee. Capable of distinguishing between the use and abuse of what is so evidently and benignantly placed before him, as an excitement to exhilarating action, bodily invigoration, and general health; he enters into all its spirit, avails himself of all its import; not more as a personal gratification (in respect to sport) than a mental perusal of one of Nature's many instructive volumes, displaying to the ruminative and expansive comprehension, the applicable and coinciding speed of the HORSE; the instinctive impulse, invincible ardour, and corresponding perseverance of the HOUND; the various shifts and evasions of the GAME; and lastly, the firm and manly fortitude of those who join and surround him in the CHASE. These are the distinguishing traits by which the true and generous sportsman may be known: and it must be freely admitted, that so congenial are the feelings, so sympathetic the liberality, and so uniform the hospitality of SPORTSMEN in the scale of universality, that no friendships are better founded, none more disinterested, few more permanent, and none more sincere.