his hours, and he is too often an idle man, whether he hunt or
whether he do not. Nor is it desirable that any man should work
always and never play. I think it is certainly the fact that a
clergyman may hunt twice a week with less objection in regard to
his time than any other man who has to earn his bread by his
profession. Indeed, this is so manifestly the case, that I am
sure that the argument in question, though it is the one which is
always intended to be conclusive, does not in the least convey
the objection which is really felt. The truth is, that a large
and most respectable section of the world still regards hunting
as wicked. It is supposed to be like the Cider Cellars or the
Haymarket at twelve o'clock at night. The old ladies know that
the young men go to these wicked places, and hope that no great
harm is done; but it would be dreadful to think that clergymen
should so degrade themselves. Now I wish I could make the old
ladies understand that hunting is not wicked.

But although that expressed plea as to the want of time really
amounts to nothing, and although the unexpressed feeling of old
ladies as to the wickedness of hunting does not in truth amount
to much, I will not say that there is no other impediment in the
way of a hunting parson. Indeed, there have come up of late years
so many impediments in the way of any amusement on the part of
clergymen, that we must almost presume them to be divested at
their consecration of all human attributes except hunger and
thirst. In my younger days, and I am not as yet very old, an
elderly clergyman might play his rubber of whist whilst his
younger reverend brother was dancing a quadrille; and they might
do this without any risk of a rebuke from a bishop, or any
probability that their neighbours would look askance at them.