herself from the fatal scent that lures on death. Now down the torrent course she runs and leaps, to cleanse it from her poor paws, fur-protected from the sharp flints that lame the fiends that so sorely beset her, till many limp along in their own blood. Now along the coping of stone walls she crawls and scrambles-and now ventures from the wood along the frequented highroad, heedless of danger from the front, so that she may escape the horrid growling in the rear. Now into the pretty little garden of the wayside, or even the village cot, she creeps, as if to implore protection from the innocent children, or the nursing mother. Yes, she will even seek refuge in the sanctuary of the cradle. The terrier drags her out from below a tombstone, and she dies in the churchyard. The hunters come reeking and reeling on, we ourselves among the number-and to the winding horn the echoes reply from the walls of the house of worship-and now, in momentary contrition, "Drops a sad, serious tear upon our playful pen!" and we bethink ourselves-alas, all in vain-for "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret”— of these solemn lines of the poet of peace "One lesson, reader, let us two divide, and humanity: Taught by what nature shows and what conceals, With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." It is next to impossible to reduce fine poetry to practice -so let us conclude with a panegyric on fox-hunting. The passion for this pastime is the very strongest that can possess the heart-nor, of all the heroes of antiquity, is there one to our imagination more poetical than Nimrod. His whole character is given, and his whole history in two words-Mighty Hunter. That he hunted the fox is not probable-for the sole aim and end of his existence was-not to exterminate-that would have been cutting his own throat-but to thin man-devouring wild beasts-the pards-with Leo at their head. But in a land like this, where not even a wolf has existed for centuries-nor a wild boar-the same spirit, that would have driven the British youth on the tusk and paw of the lion and the tiger, mounts them in scarlet on such steeds as never neighed before the flood, nor "summered high in bliss" on the sloping pastures of undeluged Araratand gathers them together in gallant array on the edge of the cover, "When first the hunter's startling horn is heard What a squadron of cavalry! What fiery eyes and flaming nostrils-betokening with what ardent passion the noble animals will revel in the chase! Bay, brown, black, dun, chestnut, sorrel, gray,—of all shades and hues -and every courser distinguished by his own peculiar character of shape and form,-yet all blending harmo niously as they crown the mount; so that a painter would only have to group and colour them as they stand, nor lose, if able to catch them, one of the dazzling lights or deepening shadows streamed on them from that sunny, yet not unstormy sky. You read in books of travels and romances, of Barbs and Arabs galloping in the desert-and well doth Sir Walter speak of Saladin at the head of his Saracenic chivalry; but take our word for it, great part of all such descriptions are mere falsehood or fudge. Why in the devil's name should dwellers in the desert always be going at full speed? And how can that full speed be any thing more than a slow heavy hand-gallop at the best, the barbs being up to the belly at every stroke? They are always, it is said, in high condition-but we, who know something about horse-flesh, give that assertion the lie. They have seldom any thing either to eat or drink; are lean as churchmice; and covered with clammy sweat before they have trotted a league from the tent. And then such a set of absurd riders, with knees up to their noses, like so many tailors riding to Brentford, via the deserts of Arabia! Such bits, such bridles, and such saddles! But the whole set-out, rider and ridden, accoutrements and all, is too much for one's gravity, and must occasion a frequent laugh to the wild ass as he goes braying unharnessed by. But look there! Arabian blood, and British bone! Not bred in and into the death of all the fine strong animal spirits-but blood intermingled and interfused by twenty crosses, nature exulting in each successive produce, till her power can no farther go, and in yonder glorious gray, "Gives the world assurance of a horse !" "A horse! A horse! A kingdom for a horse!" Form the three hundred into squadron, or squadrons, and in the hand of each rider a sabre alone, none of your lances, all bare his breast but for the silver-laced blue, the gorgeous uniform of the hussars of England,-confound all cuirasses and cuirassiers,-let the trumpet sound a charge, and ten thousand of the proudest of the Barbaric chivalry be opposed with spear and scimitar,-and through their snow-ranks will the three hundred go like thawsplitting them into dissolution with the noise of thunder. The proof of the pudding is in the eating of it; and where, we ask, were the British cavalry ever overthrown? And how could the great north-country horse-coupers perform their contracts, but for the triumphs of the turf? Blood-blood there must be, either for strength, or speed, or endurance. The very heaviest cavalry-the Life Guards and the Scots Grays, and all other dragoons, must have blood. But without racing and fox-hunting, where could it be found? Such pastimes nerve one of the arms of the nation when in battle; but for them 'twould be palsied. What better education, too, not only for the horse, but rider, before playing a bloodier game in his first war campaign? Thus he becomes demicorpsed with the noble animal; and what easy, equable motion to him, is afterwards a charge over a wide level plain, with nothing in the way but a few regiments of flying Frenchmen! The hills and dales of merry England have been the best riding-school to her gentlemen-her gentlemen who have not lived at home at ease-but with Paget, and Stewart, and Seymour, and Cotton, and Somerset, and Vivian, have left their hereditary halls, and all the peaceful pas times pursued among the sylvan scenery, to try the mettle of their steeds, and cross swords with the vaunted Gallic chivalry; and still have they been in the shock victorious; witness the skirmish that astonished Napoleon at Saldanha-the overthrow that uncrowned him at Waterloo ! "Well, do you know, that after all you have said, Mr. North, I cannot understand the passion and the pleasure of fox-hunting? It seems to me both cruel and dangerous." Cruelty! Is there cruelty in laying the rein on their necks, and delivering them up to their high conditionfor every throbbing vein is visible-at the first full burst of that maddening cry, and letting loose to their delight the living thunderbolts? Danger? What danger but of breaking their own legs, necks, or backs, and those of their riders? And what right have you to complain of that, lying all your length, a huge hulking fellow, snoring and snorting half asleep on a sofa sufficient to sicken a whole street? What though it be but a smallish, reddishbrown, sharp-nosed animal, with pricked-up ears, and passionately fond of poultry, that they pursue? After the first tallyho, Reynard is rarely seen, till he is run in upon-once perhaps in the whole run, skirting a wood, or crossing a common. It is an idea that is pursued, on a whirlwind of horses to a storm of canine music,worthy, both, of the largest lion that ever leaped among a band of Moors, sleeping at midnight by an extinguished fire on the African sands. There is, we verily believe it, nothing foxy in the fancy of one man in all that glorious field of three hundred. Once off and awaywhile wood and welkin rings-and nothing is feltnothing is imaged in that hurricane flight, but scorn of all obstructions, dikes, ditches, drains, brooks, palings, canals, rivers, and all the impediments reared in the way of so many rejoicing madmen, by nature, art, and science, in an inclosed, cultivated, civilized, and Christian country. There they go-prince and peer, baronet and squire, the nobility and gentry of England, the flower of the men of the earth, each on such steed as Pollux never reined, nor Philip's warlike son-for could we imagine Bucephalus here, ridden by his own tamer, Alexan der would be thrown out during the very first burst, and glad to find his way dismounted to a village alehouse for a pail of meal and water. Hedges, trees, groves, gardens, orchards, woods, farmhouses, huts, halls, mansions, palaces, spires, steeples, towers, and temples, all go wavering by, each demigod seeing, or seeing them not, as his winged steed skims or labours along, to the swelling or sinking music, now loud as a near regimental band, now faint as an echo. Far and wide over the country are dispersed the scarlet runners-and a hundred villagers pour forth their admiring swarms, as the main current of the chase roars by, or disparted runlets float wearied and all astray, lost at last in the perplexing woods. Crash goes the timber of the five-barred gate,-away over the ears, flies the exrough rider in a surprising somerset-after a succession of stumbles, down is the gallant gray on knees and nose, making sad work among the fallow-friendship is a fine thing, and the story of Damon and Pythias most affecting indeed-but Pylades eyes Orestes on his back sorely drowned in sludge, and tenderly leaping over him as he lies, claps his hand to his ear, and with a "hark forward, tan-tivy!" leaves him to remount, lame and at leisure -and ere the fallen has risen and shook himself, is round the corner of the white village-church, down the dell, over the brook, and close on the heels of the straining pack, all a-yell up the hill crowned by the Squire's Folly. "Every man for himself, and God for us all," is the devout and ruling apothegm of the day. If death befall, what wonder? since man and horse are mortal; but death loves better a wide soft bed with quiet curtains and darkened windows in a still room, the clergyman in the one corner with his prayers, and the physician in another with his pills, making assurance doubly sure, and preventing all possibility of the dying Christian's escape. Let oak branches smite the too slowly stooping skull, or rider's back not timely levelled with his steed's; let faithless bank give way, and bury in the brook; let hidden drain yield to fore-feet and work a sudden wreck; let old coal-pit, with briery mouth, betray; and roaring ́river bear down man and horse to banks unscaleable by the very Welsh goat; let duke's or earl's son go sheer over a |