deftroying Game; clothe him in green plufh, and fend him to provide pheasants, and bid defiance to his fuperiors, whenever the mafter has company to dine with him, and wishes to fave an article in the butcher's account. This green-coated hero, who is ufually. one of the greatest fcoundrels in the parish, fallies forth under the protection of the lord or lady of the nanor ; and if he meets a curate, or an apothecary, or a reputable tradefman, or even a neighbouring lord of the manor, boldly infults them, threatens to fhoot their dogs, or feize their fowling-pieces; and juftifies all his infolence by alleging, that what he does or fays is all by his mafter's order. Appeal to that mafter, and, probably, the infults are aggravated; or, if he pretends to uncommon affability, he will allow that the fellow is apt to be a little foul-mouthed; but, upon the whole, is very faithful fervant. The low wretch himself might, indeed, be punished both for his trefpafs and his ill-ufage; but though he infulted his profecutors in the field, he is ready, like all upstart and petty potentates, to bend on his knees for mercy, and ufually difarms the generous by pleading a wife and fix children. I know not which ought to predominate, compaffion for the poor deluded peafant, or contempt for his employer. is furely enough that the rich man claims an exclufive right to the commoners of nature himself; and he ought by no means to be suffered to commiffion the lowest plebeian to do that which he prohibits in gentlemen of the profeffions; of fortunes as independent, if not fo great, as his own, and of minds often much greater.

a

It

It is in the power of thefe hirelings, who feldom poffefs much principle, to involve all the country in animofity. The landed gentry ufually poffefs a fhare of pride fully proportionate to their estate and manfionhoufe. The hireling of one trefpaffes on the dominions of another. Reprifals are made. Each défends his reprefentatives. One thinks himfelf as good (for that is the phrafe) as the other. No conceffions can poffibly be made. Hatred, of the bitterest and most rancorous kind mutually takes poffeffion of thefe lords in miniature; and many a hunting would end, if vaffals could

be

be procured, like that of Chevy Chace, in a bloody battle.

If compaffion did not intervene, one might be much entertained with fo ludicrous an object, as that of creatures, who pretend to reafon, benevolence, chriftianity, and education, rendering their existence mutually painful, by fierce quarrels, fecret but venomous hatred, expenfive and vexatious litigations, occafioned by objects of a nature truly trifling in themfelves, and which, allowing them every poffible praife, can be called no more than innocent diverfions. Are we not ftill children with all our beard 2nd gravity about us, if we always play till we quarrel? Our conduct, in this refpect, is almoft too abfurd to admit of serious expoftulation. It may furnish fcenes for mirth at a puppetfhew, or a farce at Bartholomew Fair.

However, I think it neceffary, before I conclude this fubject, to declare, for the fake of avoiding the malignant mifreprefentations of goffips and fcandal-dealers by profeffion, that there are no allufions in this paper either perfonal or local; and that I have not been pleading for a privilege in which I am interested, not being inclined to hunt, nor able to shoot.

I will beg leave to add one paffage on the fubject from Blackstone, for the information of thofe among fportfmen, who are too tenacious of their exclufive rights, and who are able to read it.

"Another violent alteration of the English confti"tution, confifted in the depopulation of whole coun"tries for the purpofes of the King's royal diverfion; "and fubjecting both them, and all the antient forests "of the kingdom to the unreafonable feverity of "Foreft Laws, imported from the continent; whereby "the flaughter of a beaft was made almost as penal as the death of a man. In the Saxon times, though no man was allowed to kill or chafe the King's deer, yet he might ftart any game, purfue and kill it, 66 upon his own estate. But the rigour of thefe new "conftitutions vetted the fole property of all the "Game in England in the King alone; man was allowed to disturb any fowl of the air, or any beaft of the field, of fuch kinds as were specially

68

and no

"referved

"referved for the royal amufement of the Sovereign, "without exprefs licence from the King, by the grant "of a chase or free warren: and whofe franchises were granted as much with a view to preferve the breed "of animals, as to indulge the subject: From a fimilar principle to which, though the Forest Laws are now mitigated, and by degrees grown entirely obfolete; yet from this root has grown a baftard flip, known by the name of the Game Law, now arrived to, "and wantoning in, its higheft vigour: both founded upon the fame unreasonable notions of permanent property in wild creatures; and both productive of the "fame tyranny to the commons: but with this dif"ference; that the Forest Laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the land, the Game Laws "have raifed a little Nimrod in every manor. And in

66

66

66

one refpect the antient law was much lefs unreafonable than the modern; for the King's grantee of a chafe or free warren might kill game in every part of his franchise; but now, though a freeholder of less than one hundred a year is forbidden to kill a partridge on his own eftate, yet nobody elfe (not even the lord of the manor, urdefs he hath a grant of free warren) can do it without committing a trespass, and fubjecting himself to an action."

No. CXXII. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF GO

VERNING THE TEMPER.

TOTWITHSTANDING the many complaints of the calamities of human life, it is certain that more conftant uneafiness arifes from ill temper than from ill fortune, In vain has Providence beftowed every external bleffing, if care has not been taken by ourselves to smooth the afperities of the temper. A bad temper embitters every fweet, and converts a paradife into a place of torment.

The government of the temper then, on which the happiness of the human race fo greatly depends, can

never be too frequently, or too forcibly recommended. But as it was found by fome of the antients one of the moft efficacious methods of deterring young perfons from any difagreeable or vicious conduct, to point out a living character in which it appeared in all its deformity, I fhall exhibit a picture, in which I hope a bad temper will appear, as it really is, a moft unamiable object.

It is by no means uncommon to obferve thofe, who have been flattered for fuperficial qualities at a very early age, and engaged in fo conftant a series of diffi pating pleafure, as to leave no time for the culture of the mind, becoming, in the middle and advanced periods of life, melancholy inftances of the miferable effects refulting from an ungoverned temper. A certain lady, whom I fhall diftinguish by the name of Hifpulla, was celebrated from her infancy for a fine complexion. She had, indeed, no very amiable expreffion in her eyes, but the vermillion of her cheeks did not fail to attract admiration, and fhe was convinced by her glafs, and by the affeverations of the young men, that fhe was another and a fairer Helen. She had every opportunity of improving her mind; but as we naturally beftow our fiift care on the quality which we moft value, she could never give her attention either to books or to oral instruction, and, at the age of fifteen or fixteen, could fcarcely write her name legibly, or read a fentence without hesitation. Her perfonal charms were, howver, powerful enough to captivate the heart of a thoughtless heir, very little older than herself.

Her

vanity, rather than her love, was gratified by the alliance; and when she found the affiduities of promifcuous fuitors at an end, fhe found herself gradually finking in the dead calm of infipidity. When love was no more, other paffions fprung up with all the luxuriancy of rank weeds, in a foil where no falutary herb had been planted in the vernal feafon. Pride, that fruitful plant, which. bears every kind of odious quality in abundance, took root in her heart, and flourished, like the nettle or the hemlock, on the banks of the ftagnant pool.

Her husband was the firft to feel its baneful effects.. Though the match was greatly to her advantage, she perfuaded herself that she might have done better; and

that

He

that her good fortune was by no means adequate to the prize which her beauty and merit might have juftly claimed. With this conviction, and without any habits or abilities which might lead her to feek amusement in books, fhe found no diverfion fo congenial to her heart, as the tormenting a good-natured, young, and agreeable husband, who, by marrying, had excluded her from the probability of a title. As a fmall compenfation for the injury received, fhe affumed an abfolute dominion over him, his fortune, and his family. durft not differ in opinion from her; for on the flightest oppofition, her eyes dart fire, her cheeks glow with indignation, and her tongue utters every bitter word which rage and malice can dictate. The comfort of every meal is poisoned by a quarrel; and an angry vociferation is re-echoed from the parlour to the kitchen, from the cellar to the garret, by night and by day, except in the awful and ominous paufe of a fullen filence,

The poor husband, who with every amiable difpofition, poffeffed alfo the virtue of patience, bore the evil as long as human nature could bear it; but as years advanced, and her fury increafed, he fought a refuge at the tavern, and in the compofing juice of the grape. Excefs and vexation foon laid him in the only fecure afylum from the ftings and arrows of an outrageous temper, the filent tomb.

The children, after fuffering every fpecies of perfecution which an angry, though foolishly fond mother, could inflict, no fooner arrived at maturity, than they began to look for happiness in an escape from home, where neither peace nor eafe could find a place. The daughters married meanly, unworthily, and wretchedly, contented to take refuge from the rage of a furious mother in the arms of footmen and hair-dreffers. The fons ran away, and became vagrant and wretched debauchees; till, in mere defpair, one of them entered as a foldier in the Eaft India fervice, and the other put an end to his own existence.

The mother, after fhedding a few natural tears, and wiping them foon, began to feel her pride and paffion amply gratified in an abfolute dominion over an estate,

a mansion