accuracy, plans of campaign among the pheasants set out with diagrams as
if there was going to be a battle of Blenheim in the woods. To be a
successful sportsman nowadays you must be a well-drilled veteran, never
losing presence of mind, keeping your nerve under fire--flashes to the
left of you, reports to the right of you, shot whistling from the second
line--a hero amid the ceaseless rattle of musketry and the 'dun hot
breath of war.' Of old time the knight had to go through a long course of
instructions. He had to acquire the _manege_ of his steed, the use of the
lance and sword, how to command a troop, and how to besiege a castle.
Till perfect in the arts of war and complete in the minutiae of falconry
and all the terms of the chase, he could not take his place in the ranks
of men. The English country gentleman who now holds something the same
position socially as the knight, is not a sportsman till he can use the
breechloader with terrible effect at the pheasant-shoot, till he can
wield the salmon-rod, or ride better than any Persian. Never were
people--people in the widest sense--fonder of horses and dogs, and every
kind of animal, than at the present day. The town has gone out into the
country, but the country has also penetrated the mind of the town. No
sooner has a man made a little money in the city, than away he rushes to
the fields and rivers, and nothing would so deeply hurt the pride of the
_nouveaux riches_ as to insinuate that he was not quite fully imbued with
the spirit and the knowledge of the country. If you told him he was
ignorant of books he might take that as a compliment; if you suggested in
a sidelong way that he did not understand horses he would never more be
friends with you again.

Nothing has died out, but everything has grown stronger that appertains
to the land. Heraldry, for instance, and genealogy, county
history--people don't want to be sheriffs now, but they would very much
like to be able to say one of their ancestors was sheriff so many