PREFACE. HE old and infirm have at least this privilege, that they can recal to their minds thofe fcenes of joy in which they once delighted, and ruminate over their past pleasures, with a fatisfaction almost equal to the first enjoyment. For those ideas, to which any agreeable sensation is annexed, are easily excited; as leaving behind the most strong and permanent impreffions. The amufements of our youth are the boaft and comfort of our declining years. The ancients carried this notion even yet further, and fuppofed their heroes in the Elyfian Fields were fond of the very fame diverfions they exercised on earth. Death itself could not wean them from the accustomed sports and gayeties of life. "Pars in gramineis exercent membra palæstris ; "Contendunt ludo, et fulvâ luctantur arenâ: "Pars pedibus plaudunt choreas, et carmina dicunt. "Arma procul, currûfque virûm miratur inanes. "Stant terrâ defixæ hastæ, paffimque foluti "Per campum pafcuntur equi. Quæ gratia currûm "Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes "Pafcere equos, eadem fequitur tellure repoftos." VIRG. Æneid. vi. Part on the graffy cirque their pliant limbs Struggling difpute the prize. Part lead the ring, B 2 The The chief their arms admires, their empty cars, Their lances fix'd in earth. Th' unharness'd steeds Graze unreftrain'd; horfes, and cars, and arms, All the fame fond defires, and pleasing cares, Still haunt their shades, and after death survive. I hope therefore I may be indulged (even by the more grave and cenforious part of mankind) if at my leisure hours, I run over, in my elbow-chair, fome of those chaces, which were once the delight of a more vigorous age. It is an entertaining, and (as I conceive) a very innocent amusement. The refult of these rambling imaginations will be found in the following poem; which if equally diverting to my readers, as to myself, I fhall have gained my end. I have intermixed the preceptive parts with so many descriptions and digreffions in the Georgick manner, that I hope they will not be tedious. I am fure they are very neceffary to be well understood by any gentleman, who would enjoy this noble fport in full perfection. In this at leaft I may comfort myself, that I cannot trespass upon their patience more than Markham, Blome, and the other profe writers upon this fubject. It is most certain, that hunting was the exercife of the greatest heroes in antiquity. By this they formed themselves for war; and their exploits against wild Leafts were a prelude to their other victories. Xenophon fays, that almost all the ancient heroes, Neftor, Thefeus, Caftor, Pollux, Ulyffes, Diomedes, Achilles, &c. were Maonlaì xuvnyecsõv, difciples of hunting; being taught carefully that art, as what would be highly ferviceable serviceable to them in military discipline. Xen. Cynegetic. And Pliny obferves, thofe who were defigned for great captains, were first taught "certare cum fu"gacibus feris curfu, cum audacibus robore, cum cal. "lidis aftu:" to conteft with the fwiftelt wild beasts, in speed; with the boldest, in strength; with the most cunning, in craft and fubtilty. Plin. Panegyr. And the Roman emperors, in those monuments they erected to transmit their actions to future ages, made no fcruple to join the glories of the chace to their most celebrated triumphs. Neither were their poets wanting to do juftice to this heroick exercife. Befide that of Oppian in Greek, we have feveral poems in Latin upon hunting, Gratius was contemporary with Ovid; as appears by this verse; "Aptaque venanti Gratius arma dabit." Lib. iv. Pont. Gratius fhall arm the huntsman for the chace. But of his works only fome fragments remain. There are many others of more modern date. Amongst these Nemesianus, who seems very much fuperior to Gratius, though of a more degenerate age. But only a fragment of his first book is preserved. We might indeed have expected to have seen it treated more at large by Virgil in his third Georgick, fince it is exprefsly part of his subject. But he has favoured us only with ten verses; and what he fays of dogs, relates wholly to greyhounds and mastiffs. "Veloces Spartæ catulos, acremque Moloffum." Georg. iii. The greyhound fwift, and mastiff's furious breed. And he directs us to feed them with butter-milk. "Pafce fero pingui." He has, it is true, touched upon the Chace in the 4th and 7th books of the Æneid. But it is evident, that the art of hunting is very different' now from what it was in his days, and very much al-' tered and improved in these latter ages. It does not appear to me that the ancients had any notion of pursuing wild beafts by the fcent only, with a regular and welldifciplined pack of hounds; and therefore they must have paffed for poachers amongst our modern sportsmen. The mufter-roll given us by Ovid, in his story of Actæon, is of all forts of dogs, and of all countries. And the description of the ancient hunting, as we find it in the antiquities of Pere de Montfaucon taken from the Sepulchre of the Nafos, and the Arch of Conftantine, has not the leaft trace of the manner now in use. Whenever the ancients mention dogs followed by the scent, they mean no more than finding out the game by the nofe of one fingle dog. This was as much as they knew of the "odora canum vis." Thus Nemefianus fays, "Odorato nofcunt veftigia prato, "Atque etiam leporum fecreta cubilia monftrant." Oppian has a long description of these dogs in his first book, from ver. 479 to 526. And here, though he feems to defcribe the hunting of the hare by the scent through many turnings and windings; yet he really fays no more, than that one of thofe hounds, which he calls |