Rights of Hospitality

: Hospitality.

Dr. Johnson, in his tour through North Wales,
passed two days at the seat of Colonel Middleton, of Gwynnagag. While he

remained there, the gardener found a hare amidst some potatoe plants, and

brought it to his master, then engaged in conversation with the doctor. An

order was given to carry it to the cook. As soon as Johnson heard this

sentence, he begged to have the animal placed in his arms, which was no

sooner done, than pproaching the open window, he restored the hare to her

liberty, shouting after her to accelerate her speed. "What have you done,

doctor?" cried the colonel. "Why you have robbed my table of a

delicacy--perhaps deprived us of a dinner." "So much the better, sir,"

replied the humane champion of a condemned hare; "for if your table is to

be supplied at the expense of the laws of hospitality, I envy not the

appetite of him who eats it. This, sir, is not a hare taken in war, but one

which had voluntarily placed itself under your protection; and savage

indeed must be that man who does not make his hearth an asylum for the

confiding stranger."