The opening of Chapter I
Triumphant returning at night with the spoil,
Like Bachanals, shouting and gay:
How sweet with a bottle and song to refresh,
And lose the fatigues of the day.
With sport, wit, and wine, fickle fortune defy,
Dull 'wisdom all happiness sours;
Since Life is no more than a passage at best,
Let's strew the way over with flowers.~1~~“THEY order these things better in London,” replied the Hon. Tom Dashall, to an old weather-beaten sportsman, who would fain have made a convert of our London Sprig of Fashion to the sports and delights of rural life. The party were regaling themselves after the dangers and fatigues of a very hard day's fox-chace; and, while the sparkling glass circulated, each, anxious to impress on the minds of the company the value of the exploits and amusements in which he felt most delight, became more animated and boisterous in his oratory--forgetting that excellent regulation which forms an article in some of the rules and orders of our “Free and Easies” in London, “that no more than three gentlemen shall be allowed to speak at the same time.”