Part 2

Coursing, more than the other laborious diversions of rural life, while it ministers to our moderate sensual enjoyment, admits also during the intervals of the actual pursuit of hound and hare, much rational reflection, opportunities of conversation with our brethren of the leash, and mental improvement. It tends, as Markham quaintly expresses himself, “to satisfie the mind and body in a joynt motion;” for in the beautiful poetry of a living patron of the Celtic dog, there is no interval of idleness with the well-read courser;

[Sidenote: Marmion, Introd. to Canto +ii.+]

Nor dull between each merry chase, Passes the intermitted space: For we have fair resource in store, In Classic and in Gothic lore.

[Sidenote: De Incert. et Vanit. &c. c. +lxxvii.+]

[Sidenote: The Anatomie of Abuses.]

But there are those who anathematize limiting and coursing, and other rural recreation, either as sinful, or indicative of barbarism and mental degradation, in the ratio of the pursuit. Like Cornelius Agrippa, they view venation in genere as the worst occupation of the worst of mankind; and say with Philip Stubbes, that “Esau was a great hunter, but a reprobat; Ismael, a great hunter, but a miscreant; Nemrode, a great hunter, but yet a reprobat, and a vessell of wrath;” and bid us, in the poetic badinage of the poet of Cyrene, leave off coursing:

[Sidenote: Callimachus, J. in Dian. vs. 154.]

ἔα πρόκας ἠδὲ λαγωοὺς οὔρεα βόσκεσθαι τί δέ κεν πρόκες ἠδὲ λαγωοὶ ῥέξειαν;

swearing, with the melancholy Jaques,

[Sidenote: As You Like It. act +ii.+]

that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse, To fright the animals, and to kill them up, In their assign’d and native dwelling-place.

[Sidenote: Cicero de Nat. Deor. L. +ii.+ c. 63.]

But if “some habites and customes of delight” are allowable and indispensable to the “contentment” of the human mind, and “men of exceeding strickt lives and severity of profession” have indulged in rural diversions, why need we regard the severe reflections of the sensitive Monsieur Paschal, or his more modern plagiarists? why think that wisdom loves not the courser’s sport? or that man is degraded before the tribunal of sound reason by estimating aright the instinct of any of the creatures around him? or made sinful in the eyes of his Creator by availing himself of the adapted powers of the lowliest of the brute race, for the subjugation of such wild animals as were originally designed by a bountiful Creator for the sustenance and recreation of man? “Canum verò tam incredibilis ad investigandum sagacitas narium, tanta alacritas in venando, quid significat aliud nisi se ad hominum commoditates esse generatos?”

[Sidenote: Manchester Memoirs V. +i.+]

The inference in regard to the chases and field sports generally is surely just, “that man, by co-operating with such animals, employs both his and their faculties on the purposes for which they were partially designed: tending thereby to complete the bounteous scheme of Providence, the happiness and well-being of all its creatures.”

[Sidenote: Jul. Cæsar. Scaliger. Epidorpidum L. +iv.+]

videtur Natura parens hunc homini dedisse ludum, Suà obire manu retia, defigere varos, Hos cum docuit: cum accipitrem redire jussum Jucunda canes cum leporarios creabat: Nunquàm faciens frustrà aliquid carensve fine.

[Sidenote: Somerville, Chace. B. +iv.+]

The brute creation are man’s property, Subservient to his will, and for him made. As hurtful these he kills, as useful those Preserves; their sole and arbitrary king. Should he not kill, as erst the Samian sage Taught unadvised, and Indian Brachmans now As vainly preach; the teeming rav’nous brutes Might fill the scanty space of this terrene, Incumb’ring all the globe.

[Sidenote: Xenophon de Venat. c. +i.+]

[Sidenote: Hist. of Engl. Poetry, V. +ii.+]

Mr. Warton, the talented historian of English Poetry, a bookful Academic, and not a μαθητὴς κυνηγεσίων, acquits the hunter of the charge of barbarism, and acknowledges that “the pleasures of the chase seem to have been implanted by nature; and under due regulation, if pursued as a matter of mere relaxation, and not of employment, are by no means incompatible with the modes of polished life.”

[Sidenote: Encyclopédie Méthodique sur les Chasses, avertissement.]

The difference of opinion on the subject of the chase has arisen entirely from the different lights in which it has been viewed; the one exhibiting its rational use, the other its intemperate abuse. “Elle a trouvé autant de censeurs outrés que d’apologistes enthousiastes, parmi les anciens et les modernes, parce qu’elle a été envisagée sous le double rapport de son utilité et de ses abus.”

Amongst the ancient eulogists, in the Grecian language, will be found Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, Polybius, and Julius Pollux; in the Latin, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Seneca, Pliny, Justin, Symmachus, and others. To which numerous phalanx of classic worthies there is no opponent authority, save that of Sallust: and of more recent days, Petrarch, and Cornelius Agrippa. Not to swell this prefatory matter with too many citations from obsolete languages, I have referred the reader, who may wish to know more of the éloges alluded to, severally to the passages in a note subjoined. But touching the adverse party, a word or two may be here admitted.

[Sidenote: Bell. Catal. c. +i.+]

In appreciating the authority of Sallust’s sentiments on the subject of field-sports, as given in the studied preface of his Catilinarian War, “Non fuit consilium socordiâ atque desidiâ bonum otium conterere: neque verò, agrum colendo, aut venando, servilibus officiis intentum, ætatem agere;” we should remark the ambitious tone of pretended philosophy in which the introduction is written: “Nostra omnis vis in animo, et corpore sita est. Animi imperio, corporis servitio magis utimur; alterum nobis cum Diis, alterum cum belluis commune est.” And that this distinction between mental and corporeal qualities, their proper relation to each other, and the subordinate character of the latter to that of the former,

[Sidenote: Oppian. Halieut. L. +v.+ vs. 94.]

ὡς οὔτ’ ἠνορέης, οὔτ’ εἴδεος ἔπλετ’ ὄνειαρ τόσσον, ὅσον πραπίδων,

[Sidenote: Arist. Polit. L. +i.+ c. +vii.+]

[Sidenote: Historia Vitæ et Mortis.]

are kept up in the passage first adduced: in which he merely means to say that he does not wish to spend his time in slothful idleness; and that the rural vocations of agriculture and hunting, being of a secondary and inferior character, more connected with the body than the mind, are not agreeable to his taste, as the business and occupation of life, “ætatem agere.” And we must allow that the entire and constant dedication of time to practical agriculture, or rural sports, to the care of flocks and herds, or the kenneling and coursing of greyhounds, unvaried by such higher studies and pursuits as are characteristic of well-educated men, must be deemed, in polished life, rather lowly employment;—approaching too near to the class of occupations, which the Stagirite considers sordid and servile, as being exercised by the corporeal powers alone:—to avoid which, Sallust declares a decided preference to speculative over bodily activity; to the “vita in literis” over the “vita rusticana:” “quò mihi rectius videtur,” says he, “ingenii quàm virium opibus gloriam quærere.” Disclaiming that union of both, which we so much admire in the Athenian philosopher of the Scilluntian retreat, and his counterpart, the modern literary country gentleman; a fair example of an individual acting upon the twofold principle on which Mr. Addison regulated his conduct. “As a compound of soul and body, obliged to a double scheme of duties; and thinking that he has not fulfilled the business of the day, unless he has employed the one in labour and exercise, as well as the other in study and contemplation.”

[Sidenote: Oppian.]

τῷ τις ἀεργίην δυστερπέα τῆλε διώκοι καὶ κραδίης καὶ χειρός.

[Sidenote: The Governour, B. +i.+ c. +xxvi.+]

“It is not onely called Idelnes,” says Sir Thomas Elyot, “wherin the body or mynde cesseth from laboure, but specially ydelnes is an omission of al honest exercise.”

[Sidenote: Sir T. Elyot’s The Governour, B. +i.+ c. +xi.+]

[Sidenote: H. C. Agrippa in Dedicat. D. Aug. Furnatio.]

[Sidenote: De Vanit. et Incert. &c. c. +lxxvii.+]

Passing over, for the present, the objections of Petrarch, let us pause for a moment on the vituperations of Henricus Cornelius Agrippa. So confessedly crabbed a gentleman as this “noble clerke of Almayn,” can add but little weight to the scanty file of semi-classical oppositionists. Admitting in his dedication to Furnatius his mental approximation to the canine qualities of the metamorphosed Queen of Troy, “adeò ut ex ipsâ indignatione fermè cum Trojanâ illâ Hecubâ versus sum in canem, ac nullarum virium sim ad benè dicendum, nil amplius memini nisi mordere, oblatrare, maledicere, conviciari,” &c., his verdict cannot be received as that of a candid and unprejudiced adversary. The general contempt with which he visits all the arts and sciences, deprives his anti-cynegetical calumnies of much of their poignancy, and renders his “ars crudelis et tota tragica, cujus voluptas est in morte et in sanguine, quam ipsa deberet refugere humanitas,” &c. scarce worthy of the courser’s notice.

The moderate and occasional recourse to field-diversions, with the same object that influenced Pliny in their pursuit, “ut animus agitatione motuque corporis excitetur,” is not reprehensible, nor inconsistent with the due cultivation of the mind, and the fulfilment of the higher duties of life.

[Sidenote: Petr. Lotichii 2di Eclog. +i.+ Sarnis. vs. 10.]

Ipse etiam citharam Phœbus quandoque reponit: Et pharetras plectris, et mutat plectra pharetris.

But “there is an especiall need,” observes Christopher Wase, in the preface of his translation of Gratius, after much just praise of hunting, “to hold a strict reine over our affections, that this pleasure, which is allowable in its season, may not entrench upon other domesticall affaires. We must consider that it wastes much time, and although it have its own praise, being an honest recreation and exercise, yet it is not of the noblest parts of life. There is great danger lest wee bee transported with this pastime, and so ourselves grow wild, haunting the woods till wee resemble the beasts which are citizens of them, and, by continual conversation with dogs, become altogether addicted to slaughter and carnage, which is wholly dishonorable, being a servile employment. For as it is the privilege of man, who is endued with reason, and authorized in the law of his creation to subdue the beasts of the field, so to tyrannize over them is plainly brutish.”

[Sidenote: Cowper’s Task, B. +vi.+]

On Noah, and in him on all mankind The charter was conferr’d, by which we hold The flesh of animals in fee, and claim O’er all we feed on pow’r of life and death. But read the instrument, and mark it well: Th’ oppression of a tyrannous controul Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin, Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute.

[Sidenote: Senecæ Epist. +xiv.+]

When field amusements are allowed to engross the whole of our attention, and in their pursuit to enslave, as it were, the mind to the body; when they become the ἔργα of life instead of the πάρεργα, its daily occupation, instead of the occasional recreation of its leisure hours; they constitute, as Rittershusius has well observed, a culpable θηρομανία, and certainly tend, by devoting the attention exclusively to inferior objects, to abridge the intellect of that sustenance which it should occasionally derive from more refined and important studies. “Fateor insitam esse nobis corporis nostri caritatem: fateor nos hujus gerere tutelam: non nego indulgendum illi, serviendum nego.”

[Sidenote: Petrarchæ Remed. Utriusque Fortunæ, Lib. +i.+ Dial. 32.]

With such ultra-sportsmen the translator has no community of sentiment: nor will they experience from common sense less severity of reproof than “Reason” bestows on them in the dialogue with “Joy” in Petrarch’s “Remedia Utriusque Fortunæ.” “Ad honestum nihil idonei,” says Ratio, “sylvas colunt, non vitam solitariam acturi, cui non minùs quàm politicæ se ineptos sciunt, sed feris, ac canibus, et volucribus convicturi, quod non facerent, nisi illis similitudine aliquâ juncti essent: qui, si ex hoc voluptatem quandam, seu solam temporis fugam quærunt, utrinque stulti, voti compotes forsan evaserint. Sin, nescio quam, seu ingenii, seu magnificentiæ gloriam aucupantur, errant,” &c.

[Sidenote: Plin. Epist. L. +ix.+ 10.]

The whole dialogue is an admirable rebuke of the licentious sporting in the days of this extraordinary genius. “Hic amor, hæc felicitas, et hoc totum, quod Creatori Deo, quod altrici patriæ, quod parentibus, quod amicis redditis? Quis vos ferat, ad aliud natos, in his vivere, si modo vivitis, hoc agentes?” says “Reason:” and I confess that I am unable and unwilling to furnish “Joy” with a reply of defence; approving, as I do, of the joint worship of Minerva and Diana, recommended by Tacitus to his correspondent Pliny, and of making the health of the body conducive to that of the mind: “ut sua menti constet sanitas,” says Christopher Wase to William Lord Herbert, “et justum corpori accedat robur.”

[Sidenote: Xenophon. Cyneg. c. +i.+]

[Sidenote: Orph. Argon. v. 377.]

[Sidenote: Xenophon. Cyneg. c. +i.+]

It must ever be borne in mind that the illustrious heroes of Xenophon’s classic file acquired not their renown by hunting prowess alone, but by its union with moral and intellectual endowments: ἐκ τῆς ἐπιμελείας τῆς τῶν κυνῶν καὶ κυνηγεσίων καὶ ἐκ τῆς ἄλλης παιδείας πολὺ διενεγκόντες κατὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν ἐθαυμάσθησαν. Chiron himself was invested with the privileges and science of the chase on account of his moral worth, διὰ δικαίοτητα—for he was δικαιοτάτος Κενταύρων. And the numerous disciples of the craft, distinguished in the annals of the world as practical sportsmen, from Cephalus and Æsculapius to Æneas and Achilles, left other claims on the notice of posterity than those attached to their characters as μαθηταὶ κυνηγεσίων.

[Sidenote: Somerville, The Chace.]

know that such Transporting pleasures were by heav’n ordain’d Wisdom’s relief, and virtue’s great reward.

[Sidenote: Symmachi Epist. L. +i.+ E. 53.]

But it is time to cease both praise and reprehension: of the latter I have been sparing; of the former, perhaps, too liberal. Symmachus, “the wordy champion of expiring Paganism,” checks his friend and correspondent Agorius in boasting too much of his “nodosa retia vel pennarum formidines, et sagaces canes, omnemque rem venaticam, meliorum oblitus;” and suggests “quare cum scribis, memento facundiæ tuæ modum ponere. Rustica sunt et inculta, quæ loqueris, ut venator esse credaris.” Wherefore, being myself addicted only to one branch of the craft, viz. that of “greyhound-hunting,” in the phrase of our “pedant king,”

[Sidenote: Sir Thomas More’s poems. “Manhod.”]

to nourishe up and fede The greyhounde to the course—

[Sidenote: Symmachi Epist. L. +v.+ 6.]

[Sidenote: Xenophon. Anab. L. +v.+]

I am fearful of falling into the error of Agorius, and becoming obnoxious to the same rebuke. Enough, therefore: and now for an example.—Will the bookful recluse, the sedentary and learned oppositionist qualify the scorn with which he views our varied course of occupation in the library and the field, if we show him that our opinions and practice “liberalia studia sylvestri voluptate distinguere” are supported by a renowned example of antiquity; and direct his attention to the latter and sequestered part of the life “secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitæ” of the elder Xenophon, in contradiction of the refined antipathies of Sallust?—bid him contemplate the rival of Plato and Thucydides in his delightful retreat at Scillus, “under the protection of the temporal sovereignty of Lacedæmon, and the spiritual tutelage of Diana; diversifying the more refined pleasures of his studious hours with the active amusements of the field; breaking his dogs, training his horses, and attending to the breed of stock; registering the observations of his personal experience in these healthful pursuits with his own immortal pen; and affording an example to scholars in all ages, that they should not disdain to refresh their vigour, and renew their animation, by allowing the unharnessed faculties to recreate themselves freely in country sports, and exercise themselves agreeably in country business.”

[Sidenote: Burns, “The Twa Dogs.”]

O would men stay aback frae courts, An’ please themselves wi’ countra sports, It wad for every ane be better, The laird, the tenant, an’ the cotter!

I wish it were in our power to enrol the name of the accomplished Athenian among the first patrons of our particular branch of field-sports; but the greyhound was unknown to the son of Gryllus. We may, however, place the honour of the leash under the early patronage of his celebrated namesake: whose talents, as a military chief, were distinguished in the age in which he lived; whose works, as a philosopher and historian, have been transmitted with reputation to posterity, and continue to attract sufficient attention from the literary world, to embolden us in directing the notice of such of our opponents as consider the courser in a state of degraded existence, to the younger Xenophon, in his twofold capacity of a man of literature, and a patron of the leash. And we may conclude from the latter having been considered worthy the illustration of his pen, that coursing was not then classed with the “servilia officia” of rural life.

Before I proceed to the reasons which have induced me to lay before the public the following translation, I cannot resist availing myself of the opportunity, which a defence of the courser’s pursuit affords, of transcribing a spirited and highly poetical production of the late Mr. Barnard, of Brantinghamthorpe, breathing the refined sentiments of a gifted scholar and ardent courser, fired at the idea of his favourite sport, his greyhounds, and his mountain thoughts being lightly or disdainfully received in the world’s esteem!

MY GREYHOUNDS.

Remember’st thou my greyhounds true? O’er holt or hill there never flew, From leash or slip there never sprang, More fleet of foot or sure of fang.—Introd. to +Marmion+ Cant. +ii.+

Oh! dear is the naked wold to me, Where I move alone in my majesty! Thyme and cistus kiss my feet, And spread around their incense sweet; The laverock, springing from his bed, Pours royal greeting o’er my head; My gallant guards, my greyhounds tried, March in order by my side; And every thing that’s earthly born, Wealth and pride and pomp, I scorn; And chiefly thee Who lift’st so high thy little horn, Philosophy!

Wilt thou say that life is short, That wisdom loves not hunter’s sport, But virtue’s golden fruitage rather Hopes in cloister’d cells to gather? Gallant greyhounds, tell her, here Trusty faith, and love sincere— Here do grace and zeal abide, And humbly keep their master’s side. Bid her send whate’er hath sold Human hearts—lust, power, and gold— A cursed train— And blush to find, that on the wold They bribe in vain.

Then let her preach! the muse and I Will turn to Gracchus, Gaze, and Guy; And give to worth its proper place, Though found in nature’s lowliest race. And when we would be great or wise, Lo! o’er our heads are smiling skies; And thence we’ll draw instruction true, That worldly wisdom never knew. Then let her argue as she will! I’ll wander with my greyhounds still (Halloo! Halloo!) And hunt for health on the breeze-worn hill And wisdom too.

But enough—

[Sidenote: Pindar. Pyth. +viii.+ vs. 40.]

εἰμὶ δ’ ἄσχολος ἀ- ναθέμεν πᾶσαν μακραγορίαν Λύρᾳ τε καὶ φθέγμα τι μαλθακῷ, μὴ κόρος ἐλθὼν Κνίσσῃ.

[Sidenote: Decline and Fall, Vol. +vii.+ c. 42.]

By my literary friends of the leash, who will alone probably condescend to open the following little treatise, it will be expected, after this too prolix defence of active field-amusements, and too selfish gratification of personal regret, that I should particularly state the reasons which have induced me to devote a few intervals of leisure to the version and illustration of an ancient courser, dignified by Mr. Gibbon with the title of “the eloquent and philosophic Arrian.”

[Sidenote: Marmion, Introduction to Canto +iv.+]

A task so often thrown aside When leisure graver cares denied.

But an objection in limine must be first answered to a modern reader giving up any of the “horæ vacivæ” of his library even to the perusal of the cynegetical writers of antiquity, much less to their collation; as treating forsooth of lowly animals, in their nature irrational and ferine.

Should any one address me in the language of the old nurse to Phædra—

[Sidenote: Euripidis Hippolyt. v. 226.]

τί κυνηγεσίων καὶ σοὶ μελέτης;

or of Menedemus to Chremes—

[Sidenote: Terentii Heauton. act. +ii.+ sc. 1.]

Tantumne est ab re tuâ otii tibi Aliena ut cures, eaque nihil quæ ad te attinent?

[Sidenote: Love of Fame, Sat. +i.+]

[Sidenote: Sir T. Elyot’s The Governour, B. +i.+ c. +xiii.+]

I would reply, that I do not consider these authors as affording unsuitable mental recreation to any literary gentleman, be his vocation what it may; nor as rendering him amenable to the charge of Dr. Young of being “a polite apostate.” Saint Chrysostom, the most eloquent of the Greek fathers of the church, was so enamoured of Aristophanes, notwithstanding the malignity of his satire, his occasional obscenities, and licentious morals, as “to wake with him at his studies, and to sleep with him under his pillow:” and it was never “objected either to his piety or his preaching, even in those times of pure zeal and primitive religion.” To close the ancient cynegetica against the modern student, merely because the lowly quadruped, that gives a name to such works, forms a part of their subject-matter, pregnant in every page with innumerable other beauties, unconnected with the poor tyke, but scattered around him, would be (in an expressive simile of the author of “the Governour”) like “prohibiting a man to come into a fayre gardein, lest in gadring good and holsome herbes, he may happen to be stung with a netle”—“Semblaby yf a man doe rede wanton matter, myxt with wysdom, he putteth the worst under fote, and sorteth out the beste.”