Those also
who attend these diversions, are so numerous, and their rank, and
station, and character, are often such, that they sanction them again by
their example, so that few people think of making any inquiry, how far
they are allowable as pursuits.
But though this general thoughtlessness prevails upon this subject, and
though many have fallen into these diversions as into the common customs
of the world, yet benevolent and religious individuals have not allowed
them to pass unnoticed, nor been backward in their censures and
reproofs.
It has been matter of astonishment to some, how men, who have the powers
of reason, can waste their time in galloping after dogs, in a wild and
tumultuous manner, to the detriment often of their neighbours, and to
the hazard of their own lives; or how men, who are capable of high
intellectual enjoyments, can derive pleasure, so as to join in shouts of
triumph, on account of the death of an harmless animal; or how men, who
have organic feelings, and who know that other living creatures have the
same, can make an amusement of that, which puts brute-animals to pain.
Good poets have spoken the language of enlightened nature upon this
subject. Thomson in his Seasons, introduces the diversions of the field
in the following manner.
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