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! 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!" And I do say it con amore; and, as my stronghold, to the chase I return.

"Mais

"Vive

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-take-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

of venison, have soon also extirpated the stag, had not steps been taken for its preservation. Thus we find that, much as has been said and written by a certain part of the community in favour of the abolition of game-laws, such laws, in some shape or other, ever have existed in our country, since anything like a right of property has existed also. It matters little, as to the fact of the very ancient establishment of game-laws, whether a king encloses a portion of his kingdom for hunting purposes and the preservation of game, announcing it felony to hunt or destroy deer within its precincts, or whether of later date a landlord lets his land with the understood agreement that game is not to be killed on it: it is still game-laws.

I will not go further into this subject than an observation or two will lead me. It has been said (and indeed I cannot deny its truth), that game is not necessary to the support of man, and that what hares eat should be eaten by a sheep or ox. This is all true enough if we make up our minds merely to support nature; but then as melons, cucumbers, asparagus, and all the delicate vegetables, with strawberries and other fruits that occupy space in the garden, are not necessary for our support either, we might as well say they should not be grown, but the ground they occupy be planted with potatoes. When it is determined that ourselves and the pigs are to fare alike, such a plan would be most highly to be recommended; but if we are to be allowed French beans, in the name of good living let us have a bit of game to eat with them.

Another plea made against law for the protection of game is the quarrels and bloodshed it has occasioned. Doubtless it has; but this objection is really mere twaddle, and made by those who, not being sportsmen, consider his amusement and propensities as unworthy protection. Because, forsooth, it does not jump with their ideas, as to what does, they may say, as relating to the trouble and expense the sportsman incurs in protecting his game, que le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle ;" another might say the same thing of the opera, or a converzatione; and so each person might say of the pursuit of another. But to come to the broad sweeping accusation, that game being protected occasions bloodshed prosecution-and this those anti-game-law advocates would term persecution-I would merely put a homely question to those most philanthropic beings. Would you vote for the abolition of a law that punishes a man for breaking into your house? "Oh!" exclaims the anti-house-breaking advocate," the simile will not hold good; my life is in danger from the burglar." Not a bit, good sir, if you do not attempt to interrupt him in carrying off your silver forks: he no more means, or wishes, to murder you than does the poacher me if I let him take his course. "Aye," responds my opponent in statistics, "but a silver fork is a thing of intrinsic value." "Oh," cry I," you are there, are you? Now, pussy jumps out of the bag: touch your pocket touch your life. Where is your philanthropy now? I value a few head of game at as great a price as you do a silver fork. Now, if you keep a hot pot, or intend to patronize any one who does, doubtless you know to a fraction whether silver is worth 4s. 10d. or 4s. 10d. 7-8ths per ounce. My dear sir, you take a more prudent, tradesmanlike, and jesuitical way of estimating property than I have ever done. I am beat. A hen pheasant with her brood under her is not, in mercantile estima

tion, worth a silver fork. I make this amende honorable to you. Perhaps my reader will permit me to make a remark to him sotto voce. Ladies, in the softness of their hearts, I have generally found strong advocates for abolishing game-laws, and, when I have said that I would transport a fellow for killing a fox (which I certainly would do), have replied, "Would you be such a barbarian as to send a man from the bosom of his family for a nasty fox, or a thousand foxes?" Reader, my respected mother was not, I believe, a whit more cruel in her disposition than the generality of her sex; yet I do remember me, that when a man she employed to build her a poultryhouse left (as it was afterwards proved) a place accessible to his person in the roof, and subsequently did, in the best legal phrase I can muster, steal and purloin therefrom sundry and divers partridgebreasted, Dorking, and Poland fowls, together with sundry and various sorts of pea-fowl, and particular, as will (not) be hereinafter described, peacocks and peahens, I cannot (I wish I could) say I remember to have perceived any particular yearnings towards the fellon, who was prosecuted. I have done with any further remarks on game-laws, except adding, that if we are to throw open our preserves, lest by entering them the poacher may subject himself to be taken from his interesting family, let us at the same time leave open the butler's pantry, and above all not permit the poultry-house door to be k cked, which most certainly was done on the occasion that occurred in my family-or rather in the feathered family appertaining to it; for if we are to consider that nothing is worth protection but that indispensably necessary to the existence of man, neither chicken, duck, nor goose should live while, if we reckon by pounds, shillings, and pence, the flesh of the ox is to be had at much less

per pound. Increase of population naturally leads to a want of increased means of supporting it, and this as naturally led to the levelling and clearing of forest or woodland; this, as in the present day, brought about an allotment of such land to those having property in its immediate vicinity, and as the game brought up in these forests had no longer their shelter as a home and refuge, they betook themselves to the open fields, hedgerows, and such portions of cover as were left uncleared; these covers became private property: hence probably the origin of preserves; and the man to whom a hundred acres of this land was allotted became the circumstantial, if not the natural, possessor of such animals as were indigenous to the soil. Before such property had a distinct proprietor, or supposing it belonged to the crown, and while all were equally permitted to roam over it, no dispute arose as to the killing of game there-those with the best dogs and most assistance got the most; but no idea of original or purchased right to the denizens of the wilds or forests existed. When, however, different proprietorships took place as regarded the soil, disputes arose as to the right of ownership of the game of such precincts, and these disputes brought on the appointment of persons to protect game, in another word gamekeepers, call them what they might in those days; and as the poacher of game and the preserver of it of course could not agree (or at least ought not, though many infamously do so), broils ensued, and hence the constant altercations between the poacher and gamekeeper; the former laid his snares to catch it to procure bread, the latter protected it to secure the same thing.

This, however, only relates to the preservation of animals as objects of the chase. We will look at the influence of time in the manner of pursuing it.

In the primitive days of hunting, no matter what might be the kind of game pursued, the killing it was the first object of the hunter; he killed it either from a wish to exterminate its species, or from a desire to obtain it for food. With fox-hunters the same desire influences them at the present day, and a kill is the great desideratum ; but it proceeds from a different feeling altogether: we do not want to kill a fox to eat him, still less from any wish to exterminate his race, but simply for the following reason-a kill keeps up the courage and dash of the foxhound, whereas only one fortnight's succession of blank days or runs to ground would render him dispirited, and he would shortly lose all that energy so characteristic of the high-bred fox-hound, on the maintaining of which the chief hope of the foxhunter rests.

Every Englishman addicted to field sports (or at least those born within the last two or three centuries), laughs at a foreigner's ideas of hunting, and no one has indulged in such ridicule more than myself; but time and reflection have taught me that such derision is in the first place illiberal, and in the second not indicative of the best possible good sense; for if we refer to history, or pictures painted by ancient masters, we must infer that the English hunting of five hundred years since was not very different from that in use with the French monarch of one hundred years ago; and the flying pack of Leicestershire, with the immortal Tom Smith at their side, differ no more from the pack of the departed Louis of France than they do from that of Henry the Eighth of England, who, could he be resuscitated (which heaven forefend!) with his welter weight, would make but a sorry figure now in the Quorn country.

Whether field sports are considered in the light of killing that which is obnoxious or dangerous to us while alive, or whether we kill it as an article of food, or pursue it for sport only, doubtless the inhabitants of any country act and always have acted up to the best or most pleasant mode to them of carrying on field sports; they may differ from our own, but not now so much as ours differ in 1856 from what they were even so late as the year 1600.

THE SPORTING RESOURCES OF IRELAND.

"This morning, July 1, 1856," says our Waterford friend, "hearing a squeal in the grass, I ran and took a young rabbit from a rat which had attacked it, and had already made a hole in its back." He does not tell us that this trifling incident was the reason of his disserting, in a pleasant sporting style over a course of capabilities, till he reached at length page 48; but it is not at all improbable that the rat-and-the

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