sirable 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. Such recreations are now
unclerical in the highest degree, or if not in the highest, they are
only one degree less so than hunting. The theatre was especially a
respectable clerical resource, and we may still occasionally see
heads of colleges in the stalls, or perhaps a dean, or some rector,
unambitious of further promotion. But should a young curate show himself
in the pit, he would be but a lost sheep of the house of Israel. And
latterly there went forth, at any rate in one diocese, a firman against
cricket! Novels, too, are forbidden; though the fact that they may be
enjoyed in solitude saves the clergy from absolute ignorance as to that
branch of our national literature. All this is hard upon men who, let
them struggle as they may to