Lady Frances did not restrain farmers, or the sons of farmers from shooting, as none are better entitled to game than those whose property is the support of it.
'See that assemblage of the sons of wealth, Whose pity and humanity extend To dumb creation! with what costly care They study to preserve the brutal race From _vulgar_ persecution! Truly great Were such benevolence, could their design Deserve so laudable a name!--Alas! What are they but monopolists in blood, That to themselves endeavour to preserve Inviolate the cruel privilege Of slaughter and destruction? What is this But petty tyranny, th' ambitious child Of luxury and pride? If Heaven indulge A right to kill, each free-born Briton sure May claim his portion of the carnage. All O'er nature's commoners, by nature's law, Plead equal privilege: what then supports This usurpation in the wealthier tribe; The _qualifying_ acres? no, proud man, Possessions give not thee superior claim To that, which equally pertains to all-- Whose property you timid hare, which feeds In thy inclosure? thine? denied--allow'd, Yet if the fearful animal be thine, Because the innocently crops _to-day_ The herbage of thy freehold, whose will be The claim _to-morrow_, when thy neighbour's soil Affords her pasturage? Assuming man! How is the hardy Briton's spirit tam'd By thy oppressive pride!-when danger comes Who shall defend thy property? thyself? No; that poor Briton, whom thou hast undone By prosecutions--will he not retort, "What's liberty to me? 'tis lost! 'tis gone! "If I must be oppress'd, it matters not "Who are th' oppressors. Shall I hazard life "For those imperious lordlings, who denied "That privilege, which Heaven and nature meant "For food, or sport, or exercise to all?"'
Mr Burt devoted his time much to his grand-children, though he was far from wishing to obtrude too much knowledge on their tender years, as the mind may be overstrained by too intense application, in the same way as the body may be weakened by too much exercise before it arrives at its full strength.
Quintilian compares the understanding of children to vessels into which no liquor can be poured but drop by drop. But there is a certain season, when our minds may be enlarged--when a great stock of useful truths may be acquired--when our passions will readily submit to the government of reason--when right principles may be so fixed in us, as to influence every important action of our future lives. If at that period it is neglected, error or ignorance are, according to the ordinary course of things, entailed upon us. Our passions gain a strength that we afterwards vainly oppose--wrong inclinations become too confirmed in us, that they defeat all our endeavours to correct them. A superior capacity, an ardent thirst for knowledge, and the finest dispositions, soon discovered themselves in Lord Munster; particularly a singular warmth of affection, and disinterestedness of temper. And although experience evinces, that memory, understanding, and fancy, are seldom united in one person, yet he is one of those transcendant geniuses, who is blessed with all three. Mr Burt treated him always with that distant condescension, which, though it encourages to freedom, commands at the same time respect. He appeared in different characters to him, that he might find something new and agreeable in his conversation.