And merrily carried the golden tassel For the Waterloo Hero of Gordon Castle; Disregard the call of Sim, And the first son of Robert de Gorham (13) Like his namesake who flogged in a swimming A salmon short of condition; Impression too honoured her pea-green jacket, In the closest race of the season; The Eglinton shield through the thick of the fight Nor did Sweetheart succumb without reason. (14) My kindest regards to 'Fifty; Bid him keep up the fun as I've always done, "Oh! would it were mine to behold, When the gales are blowing a screamer, In a Mediterranean steamer. "I can view them afore and aft, When the retching is once got through, "On the morn of the race may the Pacha There's twelve! Hear my three last wishes- MAY BEE-HUNTER WIN THE ST. Leger, AND BOLINGBROKE COLLAR THE DERBY." (1.) Mr. Batson's residence is near these hills. (2.) It is said that in old times "Oxford had the honour of burning the bishops whom Cambridge had the honour of educating." (3.) Old name for Beverley, where Peter Simple was trained. (4.) Mr. Simpson is often seen riding Peter to these hounds. (5.) At Northampton in the beginning of March. (6.) In the Houghton Handicap, on the last day of the Newmarket Meetings. (7.) Mr. Payne parted with Collingwood dirt cheap. (8). His defeat by Chanticleer for the Doncaster Cup of 1848. (9.) Lord Stanley's colours are "black with white cap." (10.) Every one who takes an interest in the permanent revival of Doncaster races understands this allusion. Semi-franc's race against Belus will not be easily forgotten by the ring. (11.) Old John Day's reading of "Peccavi." (12.) The Kents trained six of the two-year-old cracks last season. (13.) The Nigger. (14.) He was dead amiss at Liverpool, and hardly up to the mark at Stockbridge. 34 COUNTRY PRACTICE. BY GELERT. No. I. "Call," says the mighty Fingal, "call my dogs, the long bounding sons of the chase. Call white-breasted Bran and the surly strength of Luath. Blow the horn, that the joy of the chase may arise; that the deer may hear and start at the lake of With morning we awaked the woods, and hung forward on the path of the roes. They fell by their wonted streams roes. " OSSIAN.-Fingal. The man who is devoted to foxhunting, happily for himself, is rarely influenced by an equal devotion to politics. The healthier pursuit admits of no divided allegiance; so, in general, he gladly consigns to other hands the task and deep solicitude which are inseparable from a political career. Yet he must not suppose that either he or his favourite pastime are unaffected by the tendency of politics; though he take no share in the councils of state, nor lend himself to court intrigue; though he hoist not his party banner, nor join in the political fray, yet are his interests as much at stake as if he were leading the debate at St. Stephen's, rather than a field of horsemen over the heathery surface of the wild Exmoor. The mariner himself guides the ship, but his fellowvoyagers are no less interested in her safety as she speeds o'er the vasty deep. The following dialogue lately took place within the walls of a kennel that has held hounds for the best part of a century : 66 Tom," said a squire to his huntsman the day after thirty couple of puppies had reached his kennels, " Tom, there has been some grievous neglect in the management of these puppies. I never saw a worse lot come up from walk 66 True, Sir: they a'nt what they used to be, nor ever will be again, unless some change for the better happens to the farmers. They're all in a mess together, and Mrs. Garland told me the other day that she feared those two puppies out of Niobe would be the last she should ever rear for your honour 66 Did she? Then they must be serious times indeed, if Mrs. Garland, the most industrious and thriving of my tenants, could sound the alarm and speak thus. However, Tom, if you see her again, tell her, from me, that the prospects of agriculture may improve, and that, as every trade is liable to fluctuation, so she may yet see her produce bring a fair and remunerating price." Tom touched his cap, but, with a gloomy look, shook his head and said "I'll tell her so, your honour, though I fear it won't be much good. Better prices, if they come at all, will come too late for a great many of them. The farmers are all down-hearted, and have every rea son for being so. They've lost protection, and the foreigner is favoured by the loss; so they say all, sir; and I really believe the story is true." "I am grieved to say, Tom, it is too true. By this suicidal measure the foreigner alone is benefited; he derives all the advantage of free trade from us, and gives nothing in return. Were a liberal give-andtake system adopted throughout the world, the result might possibly be otherwise; but we cannot control nor legislate for other countries; so that now, without reciprocity, we are precisely in the position of a man who invariably puts a Queen's head upon his letters, but is called upon to pay double for those which he himself receives. I am no politician, Tom-a foxhunter seldom is-but I cannot shut my eyes to the lowering storm which threatens us on all sides, nor to the danger in which our good old ship is involved by the recklessness and mismanagement of those at the helm." Tom, though a philanthropist in general, was especially so in reference to a portly, handsome-looking woman and five children, who depended on him for protection; and as his thoughts veered homeward, he looked up to the squire with a pensive, enquiring eye, and said, "Old George, the earthstopper, told me last night, sir, that many of the farmers intend carrying what little they've got into a foreign country, before they lose all; and I'm thinking if we cannot get those quarters again, our entry will come short for next season." "Many more important things than the entry, Tom, depend upon the occupation of those farms. If the farmer fall, who shall stand? What will become of the landlord, the clergyman, the tradesman, and the labourer? Society is like an arch in which every stone is made to depend more or less on its neighbour, and the farmer is the keystone thereof displace it, and the building will tumble into ruins. No, Tom, the farmer must be upheld at any cost; he shall have my earnest support till we regain protection. In the mean time I'll drop my rents and give up my hounds." Tom's expression of countenance was that of ghastly acquiescence and resignation to the will of his patron. He did not answer, for he knew enough of the squire's determination to be assured that what he had said he would indeed fulfil. On the first public day the announcement ran like wildfire throughout the country-" The squire gives up his hounds!" Nevertheless, the wisdom of the squire's policy will be doubted by many. It will be said, and said truly, by those who are cognisant of the subject, that it would be difficult to point out a revenue which is more thoroughly diffused amongst the agricultural class than that which emanates from foxhunting. And as to lowering rents, the benefit resulting therefrom would extend only to the tenant farmer, therefore limited and incomprehensive in its object. The following passage translated from " Xenophon's Treatise on Hunting," written 380 years before the Christian Era, may have escaped the squire's research, in his progress through Eton and the schools. The author spent the last few years of his life in hunting; built a magnificent temple to Diana; and died at the fine old age of 90. He says: "And our ancestors, too, knew that from this cause they prospered against their enemies, and they took on themselves a regard for the interests of the young men for though originally they were scantily supplied with grain, still they made a rule of not impeding huntsmen, as they were not in quest of any of the things that grow on the ground ; and, besides, they made a rule not to pursue by night at a less distance than many furlongs from Athens, that they who possessed that art might not deprive them of the huntings. For they saw that this pleasure, and this alone of young men's pleasures, produces many good effects; for it renders them both temperate and just, and it excludes them from none of the other honourable pursuits, if they wish for any, as do the opposite pleasures, the mischievous ones. But some urge that it is not right to be fond of the chase, that they may not be regardless of their own affairs. Not knowing that those who do good to their country and their friends are all more careful than others of their own affairs. Since, then, those who love the chase prepare themselves to be serviceable to their country in the most important points, they cannot be neglecting their private interests; for each man's own interests are upheld and are overthrown according as his country is, wherefore such are preserving the interests also of the others, together with their own." The memory of man cannot recall a finer or more genial November that the last past; yet, with few exceptions, the complaints in respect of sport have been loud and long in most countries. But on one especial day, Monday the 29th of October, before the fixtures were duly advertised, the scent was such as to enable no less than six different packs in the midland counties to kill their respective foxes, chiefly after brilliant runs; and be it remembered that a good scent will generally make a good fox. The hounds are at him from first to last, and do not give him time to execute any crooked devices; go he must, and the straighter he goes the better head they carry. On this day the weather was precisely what it was on Wednesday, the 3rd of November, 1847, when Mr. Conyers' hounds, Lord Fitzwilliam's, and other packs, had all such remarkable runs; there was a warm drizzling mist in the morning, looking doubtful as to whether it would settle into heavy wet or clear for action. About noon, however, cloud-compelling Jove relented, Mercury looked up, and the doubt was resolved in favour of an open day. One of the six runs alluded to occurred in a fine vale country, with nothing but grass as far as the eye could ken. The fox broke instantly with twenty-five couple of hounds at his brush, and pointed at once for the deep covers of Dewley, seven miles distant as the crow would fly. The pace for the first forty minutes shook off several couple of hounds, and every man but one, who rode a small, thorough-bred, chestnut stallion; and for the last ten it increased, if possible, up to within two fields of the cover. Here about eight couple of hounds only, running mute and almost abreast, viewed their fox; but so beaten were they on reaching him that many of them staggered from exhaustion. The fox was evidently an old soldier, but his tactics served him not a rush; they tore him and eat him in shorter space than he ever discussed the daintiest pullet. The pack, it is but just to say, was composed mainly of puppies, a few of which distinguished themselves in no ordinary form. The blood of Mr. Foljambe's Albion, Lord Fitzhardinge's Drunkard, and Sir Tatton Sykes' Dragon, never flowed in better veins. Alas, for the little chesnut horse! he has never eaten a feed of corn from that day to this; fever has settled in his feet, and he will be a cripple for life. Another of the runs, and the last that shall be mentioned, took place in a stone-wall country, having a light loamy soil, very level, and chiefly under plough. It will, of course, be inferred that in such a district hounds could not go too fast for the horses, but in the present instance the reverse proved to be the case. The fox was found exactly at one o'clock; he took a short turn round the cover, then went away down wind with only half the pack in pursuit: the other half were running another fox, but in less than two minutes were stopped, and capped forward with all speed. The pace, however, was such that they could not be thrown in from first to last, and the leading hounds pulled down their fox in thirty-five minutes, without having received a stroke of assistance from the rest of the pack throughout the piece. The huntsman declared that for ten years he had not seen so brilliant and decisive a performance. The field on this occasion was adorned by one of the best entries that ever crossed a horse. A young naval officer, a middy who had never ridden a chase before, was mounted by his brother-in-law, the master of the hounds, upon a clever, well-bred animal, and told in rather significant language that if he were left behind it would not be the horse's fault. Accordingly as the hounds broke cover he dashed away at a headlong pace at and over everything that opposed him, side by side with the leading hounds, and never flinched or drew rein till the fox was gasping at his feet; not a man in the field saw anything but his back from the find to the finish. Nothing but a British sailor-a young and a gallant one, too-could have gone as he did. The most remarkable part of the story is this, that his brother-in-law declares he never could be persuaded to ride over the smallest jump before he went to sea-that, in fact, he could scarcely sit a horse when pushed to a trot; and that he had always been afloat from his first appointment to that very day. We can only conclude, that the giddy mast and slippery shrouds had strengthened his nerve, and rendered his eye and head heedless of danger. But the improvement in keeping his seat is less easily accounted for; it reminds one of the feat of the famous Madame de la Rochejaquelin during the Vendéan war. Her first husband, M. de Lescure had in vain endeavoured to impress upon her the advantage of being able to ride in such troublous times, but she was so frightened when mounted that the slightest motion of the horse threw her to the ground. Although a servant held the bridle, and two gentlemen walked on each side of her, she wept for fear. Some time afterwards, when the war in La Vendée was at its height, a letter arrived from her husband, stating that he was lying wounded at La Boulaye. "I was dreadfully alarmed," she says in her own memoirs," and would not lose a moment. Taking a horse that happened to be in the court-yard, I did not allow time to alter the stirrups, which were uneven, and galloped off. In three quarters of an hour I rode three long leagues of bad roads. I found M. de Lescure out of bed; but he had a violent fever, which lasted several days. Since that time I have never been afraid of riding upon horseback. That fox-hunting is yearly becoming more and more an artificial sport throughout England cannot be denied: on every side we have ample proof that its wild distinction is fast waning, and its rough-and *The lady, we conclude, rode a la cavalier |