Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/90

 '' Notions of these things, for the first four Thousand Years of the World; Health and Strength were then in more esteem than the refinements of Pleasure; and it was accounted a great deal more Honourable to Till the Ground, or keep a Flock of Sheep, than to dissolve in Wantonness, and effeminating Sloath. Hunting has now an Idea of Quality join'd to it, and is become the most important Business in the Life of a Gentleman; Antiently it was quite otherways. Mr. Fleury has severely remark'd, that this Extravagant Passion for Hunting is a strong Proof of our Gothic Extraction, and shews an affinity of Humour with the Savage Americans. The Barbarous Franks and other Germans, (having neither Corn, nor Wine of their own growth,) when they pass'd the Rhine, and possess'd themselves of Countries better Cultivated, left the Tillage of the Land to the Old Proprietors; and afterwards continu'd to hazard their Lives as freely for their Diversion, as they had done before for their necessary subsistance. The English gave this Usage the Sacred Stamp of Fashion, and from hence it is that most of our Terms of Hunting are French. The Reader will, I hope, give me his Pardon for my freedom on this Subject, since an ill Accident, occasion'd by Hunting, has kept England in pain, these several Months together, for one of the best, and greatest Peers which she has bred for some Ages; no less Illustrious for'' Rh