Invite thy ready hand, each sacred page
  Rich with the wise remarks of heroes old. 
  Converse familiar with the illustrious dead;
  With great examples of old Greece or Rome
  Enlarge thy free-born heart, and bless kind Heaven,
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  That Britain yet enjoys dear Liberty,
  That balm of life, that sweetest blessing, cheap
  Though purchased with our blood.  Well-bred, polite,
  Credit thy calling.  See! how mean, how low,
  The bookless sauntering youth, proud of the scut
  That dignifies his cap, his flourished belt,
  And rusty couples jingling by his side. 
  Be thou of other mould; and know that such
  Transporting pleasures were by Heaven ordained
  Wisdom’s relief, and Virtue’s great reward.
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* * * * *

BOOK II.

THE ARGUMENT.

Of the power of instinct in brutes.—­Two remarkable instances in the hunting of the roebuck, and in the hare going to seat in the morning.—­Of the variety of seats or forms of the hare, according to the change of the season, weather, or wind.—­Description of the hare-hunting in all its parts, interspersed with rules to be observed by those who follow that chase.—­Transition to the Asiatic way of hunting, particularly the magnificent manner of the Great Mogul, and other Tartarian princes, taken from Monsieur Bernier, and the history of Gengiskan the Great.—­Concludes with a short reproof of tyrants and oppressors of mankind.

  Nor will it less delight the attentive sage
  To observe that instinct, which unerring guides
  The brutal race, which mimics reason’s lore
  And oft transcends:  heaven-taught, the roe-buck swift
  Loiters at ease before the driving pack
  And mocks their vain pursuit, nor far he flies
  But checks his ardour, till the steaming scent
  That freshens on the blade, provokes their rage. 
  Urged to their speed, his weak deluded foes

  Soon flag fatigued; strained to excess each nerve,
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  Each slackened sinew fails; they pant, they foam;
  Then o’er the lawn he bounds, o’er the high hills
  Stretches secure, and leaves the scattered crowd
  To puzzle in the distant vale below. 
     ’Tis instinct that directs the jealous hare
  To choose her soft abode:  with step reversed
  She forms the doubling maze; then, ere the morn
  Peeps through the clouds, leaps to her close recess. 
     As wand’ring shepherds on the Arabian plains

  No settled residence observe, but shift
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  Their moving camp, now, on some cooler hill
  With cedars crowned, court the refreshing breeze;
  And then, below, where trickling streams distil
  From some penurious source, their thirst allay,
  And feed their fainting flocks:  so the wise hares
  Oft quit their seats, lest some more curious eye
  Should mark their haunts, and by dark treacherous wiles
  Plot their destruction; or perchance in hopes