Club, was not so attractive an event as might have been supposed, considering the value of the prize, and the fair and reasonable conditions of the race. Five little yachts only entered in the match, viz. :

The Invicta was an entirely new vessel, built by her owner. The match was spiritedly sailed throughout; and so evenly were the little clippers matched that the result was at all times doubtful-as positions were changed again and again. The Invicta has evidently some good features about her, but we question if she can beat the Flirt. Unfortunately, she ran aground before the conclusion of the race, and just as the wind became stiff enough to test her qualities. The Flirt was ultimately hailed the winner; but the Mosquito was uncommonly well up at the finish, being only half-a-minute astern,

(To be continued.)

THE ATHLETE OF OLD, AND OF 1856.

BY HARRY HIEOVER,

Those who have paid me the compliment of reading what I have ventured to lay before the public, will perhaps say that the first thing I should do, on any occasion when I employ my pen, is to invoke the indulgence of the reader. To this I briefly reply by a French quotation, or rather sentence-" Cela va sans le dire;" and I trust it will be always considered that, when (in military phrase) my work (6 passes muster," I ever attribute such success much more to the forbearing kindness of the public than to any decided merit of my own.

On this particular occasion, I have to apologize for using such rude materials as the athlete, as an article for a periodical destined to meet the eye of the nice young English gentleman of the present era; but I beg to assure him that, though, from the tenor of my heading, I am compelled to touch on pugilistic encounters, it will form but a very small portion of this article, which is on athletic sports in general, of old and recent date.

Whoever writes for the perusal of the public, is unavoidably placed in this most awkward and truly unpleasant situation: Say what he will, he is sure to offend somebody; for in what he writes there will ever be found a something that touches the ticklish parts of somebody but if his writings are of such a nature as not to offend the deserving or sensible part of the community, he can easily bear

the brunt of the censure (perhaps I may add, abuse) of those whose praise would be anything but flattering.

I have mentioned the "nice young English gentleman" (I cannot adopt modern, common phrase, or vulgar expression, so far as to use the term "gent"), where anything of the gentleman is alluded to; and gentleman I most willingly suppose my quoted hero to be, though,

"Heavens! how unlike" his "Belgic sires of old-
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold!"

Thus expresses himself one of our best pastoral poets, in two of perhaps the most spirited lines he ever composed; for, if my respected father "said sooth" (and he knew our poet well), friend Oliver was not the brightest of companions, though his egregious vanity induced him to consider himself as such, and though he did attempt, but not play, the German flute. Our poet maintained that this said flute often maintained him. "Credat Judæus ;" but supposing it was so, it was not among those who knew how to appreciate the talent of Nicholson or Druet; or, if it had been, we must bear in mind the spirited answer of one of the diplomatists, when Charles the Twelfth, or the King of Prussia (who, God forgive him! considered hunting as beneath a monarch), said, "Votre roi chasse toujours," received the following piquant reply: "Oui; mais il ne joue jamais de la flûte. Let us hope our present system of education may not lead the rising generation to consider playing the flute an attainment of more consequence than being able to command an army.

Let us return to the heading of this article-the athlete of many centuries ago and then gradually work our way up to 1856.

The athletæ, if what I have said of them is true, and if I have rightly understood what I have read, were men following professionally fistic and other combats, in public exhibitions; and as hypercritical pretended moralists and teetotallers were not so rife in those days as now, these men were (and deservedly so) held in much higher esteem than the prize-fighter of later days. The former ranked, in the estimation of the public, higher or lower, in accordance with their tried and known prowess; and on supporting their character as to bravery, strength, and activity, depended their means of support: a defeat, to them, was almost as fatal as death itself; and "selling a fight" was unknown and unthought-of in such days. They contended for prizes, it is true; but the reward showered on them by an enthusiastic and admiring multitude far exceeded the guerdon contested for.

Refinement in a nation, we might infer, would improve the habits of all those who lived under its influence; and, if so, why not those of the prizefighters? "So it has," some may say, and, in proof, refer us to old pictures, adding, "Look at the ungainly efforts of the gladiators of former times; and then compare them with the elegance of attitude, neatness, and rapidity of a Belcher or an Eales." Doubtless, refinement has done this; but it has also so refined the modern school of boxing, and the pugilist himself, as to have made him (speaking in general terms) a man in whom no confidence can be placed, whom no gratitude influences, and no shame deters. This the warmest patrons of pugilism have found out; and such men as

Crib, Gully, Oliver, and others of the same era, are no more to be found now than one of the athlete of old. That others may possess their powers, if brought forth, is probable; but there can be no hope entertained of their possessing their powers and honesty too. much for refinement in the prize-ring.

So

The hypocrites to whom I have alluded may say that "it matters little by what means; but if refinement has in any way put down pugilistic encounters, it has done good." This would, however, be jumping to a very hasty conclusion. If it had ever been made clearly manifest that the old English practice, when fairly carried on, was prejudicial to society, then the conclusion would be just; but this never was ascertained to be the case; and I, and many others, must be reborn, before we can be convinced that it was so.

"Horrid!" would exclaim the miss of '56, if the word "pugilism" were mentioned: "what savages men must have been sixty years ago!" and, looking at the delicate hand of her lover, encased in the more delicate cream-coloured kid glove, she figures to herself the horror of that hand exposed to manly encounter. Lady, to a certain degree you are quite right. I should be one of the last to commit such a gaucherie as to mention such a thing in your presence-the last to wish to hear you speak in its praise; but I should be the first to regret seeing your admiration placed on a "thing" that entertained the same opinion.

When in the heading I use the term athlete, I must add that I do not mean it merely to allude to the gladiator, but to the athlete in any pursuit; a race, I fear, as fast receding as the drama. By what is such loss supplied? If good sense answers, "By an equivalent in value," I can only say I take quite a different view of the matter.

We will now take another subject; and in doing so, as in the former one, we will first refer to former times, or, as the song says— "Sing of times of good times older,

When men than women were much bolder."

The chase, the glorious chase, on which many have written, and in which so many thousands have joined so enthusiastically! Who that writes at all on such a subject, can write without feeling enthusiastically? He who can, if he has ever hunted at all, is like

"The man that hath not music in his soul;"

and I should all but say is fit for "treason, treachery, and plot s." The man who has never enjoyed the extatic pleasures of the chase, is no more to be blamed for not feeling rapturously at the bare mention of it than the blind for not feeling an elevation of mind and spirit when a glorious landscape and far-distant horizon is before him. I should merely say of him who had never known the joys of hunting what a pampered butler once said when speaking of his master's son, who was a captain in a marching regiment-"That is a description of poor d we always pity." I say this not derisively, contemptuously, or arrogantly, but with all the philanthropy of which my heart is capable. I do pity a man who has never enjoyed that which, next to woman's smile, imparts the most intoxicating and enthusiastic joy the heart and senses are capable of feeling. Why it is so I can

not say; but so it is, so it ever has been, and would I could say so it ever will be! It will, however, last beyond my allotted time; and when it ceases, if all men were of my turn, and lived to see its finale, they would only rejoice if they could say with Monsieur Tonson"De vorld is at an end."

If we revert to ancient works or songs written on the chase, we shall find that the woodland and the mountain were the districts pointed out as those sought by the hunter: now woodland, beyond a copse or gorse cover, is the most dreaded and detested by the same class; and most certainly of all the abominations, next to the ocean itself, a mountain is the last I ever wish to see when a pack of hounds are near me. I like mountain scenery much, in late spring or in the summer, with a lot of laughing and somewhat wicked-eyed girls on two or three jaunting-cars, money in one's pocket, and no worldly cares to act as a draw back on one's temporary joys; such a tour is delightful. (I make no apology for digression; for, if I did, half I write would consist in apologies for an inveterate habit.) Now, apropos of jaunting-cars and somewhat wicked or roguish eyes, these are two most delightful adjuncts to an excursion of this sort, and in no place is it enjoyed more than in Ireland. The car can be left out, in any weather, without injury; so we have no care about that. The nag to draw need not be more than plain and useful; so long as he is well fed, we have little anxiety about him. And the girls, or ladies, may jump on or off the car as a canary does by his perch, without creating alarm on their account; and absence from all care is the summum bonum of such a trip. So much for the conveyances.

Now for the eyes. Whoever goes on any party of amusement, must always go prepared for various contretemps and unforeseen casualties occurring; and must therefore-with the cold tongue, chickens, raised pies, &c.-pack up a large fund of good humour, that is determined to be pleased come what will. Now I have known beautiful eyes that could not do this; and a damaged mantilla could show us that if heavenly was the beam of that eye when pleased, our thoughts must take a downward direction to find a simile for its angry glance. But from the little roguish eye that throws its rays like shooting stars in the clear ether, we fear no such damper to our joys. No! a crushed bonnet creates a more ringing laugh than a new one brought from Madame Unetelles; and after being twisted back on the knee into the best form it can, the laughing fair one dons it, conscious that beauty coupled with humour can captivate even the stoic's heart. Ah me! that five-and-twenty and I should have given the final shake of the hand so long ago! "Mais vive la joie !" And if I must not now say in my own case, l'amour!" I may be permitted to say, "Vive la chasse!" say it con amore; and, as my stronghold, to the chase I return.

" Vive

And I do

Why the woodland and the mountain were formerly the resort of the hunter is easily accounted for. Game, at well as man, will (where the choice is open to them) naturally seek those places they find the most secure from danger; and as in former days Old England was only partially open country, game were chiefly to be found in those localities the least frequented by man, which of course were the forests. This kind of bo-peep hunting did well enough when the

hunters ridden were a description of animal whose attempts at a gallop, in comparison with our flyers of '56, was about on a par with the gambols of an elephant compared with the bounding elasticity of Carlotta Grisi in the "pas de Zéphir." Doubtless in whatever way we find and pursue the wild animal (I do not mean Carlotta Grisi), it is hunting; but as unlike modern hunting as would be the old Exeter road waggon to the Eagle or Velocipede locomotive. The zest with which it was pursued was, perhaps, as great then as now; for, in some shape or other, love, war, and hunting have ever been the most prominent impulses in the mind of man. Where such do not exist, it is devotion to other pursuits that gives another bias to the inclinations. What might be the manners of those Nimrods, of old we cannot to any certainty decide; for though as boys we learned that ❝ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros," it does not follow that a want of refined education necessarily leaves a man a savage: and, in fact, when we read the epithets of courtly dames and knights, as descriptive of those living in former days, we must conclude that, though the mode of doing things might to a certain degree be rude, it does not follow that the manners were rude also. The want of that finish of education so general now, proceeded from the simple fact that there was not the same want of it as is the case now The want of the knowledge of the French, Italian, or German languages was not felt by those who perhaps never met a native of either of those countries; but as they met women perhaps as lovely then as now, and men as susceptible of affront, attention and devotion to the former, and courtesy to the latter, was as necessary then as now, and perhaps existed to quite as great an extent.

That the youth trained to the chase and war might not evince "that soft turn for conversation that chamberers have," was probably the case; but, if we go back so far as the days of Mark Antony, verily, we must allow, if we may judge by his goings on, that he had a very tolerably gentlemanly mode of doing things, and though "the boldest and bravest in war," seems quite to have understood what was the sweetest solace to the heart of man when at home; and the fair partner of his domestic joys had somewhat of lady-like ideas in her mode of spending his loose cash. And, in reference to courtesy of manners, I think it by no means improbable that had the lounger of these days perpetrated the same offensive stare at the fair Clio that we sometimes see levelled at the fair of our days, friend Marcus would have sent him flying, notwithstanding he might sport the enormous never-ta ke-me-alive whiskers and moustache of late importation. This would have been somewhat rude on Mark's part, I confess; but it would have been effective, and would not shake my impression that Antony was a gentleman as well as a

warrior.

In the very early days to which I have alluded, the game sought for and hunted were of two kinds-the one was hunted that the sportsman might eat; the other, that he might not eat the sportsman. These separate kinds, we have reason to believe, were chiefly the wolf and stag. The destruction of the first, when once begun, was very soon effected; and as reward and fear both contributed to this end, so would the desire of gain, love of sport, and, in truth, the love