"And any reason must condemn me."

66 Why not some reason connected with my own individual fancies and ways? You know how much all of us differ in these respects.'

"Yes, yes, Twiller; but, arguing from remotion, I infer it is the sporting part of the business that keeps you back. How eagerly have I seen you start for a walk, or a ride, on the slightest hint! Fresh air, sunshine, country, were to you irresistible till to-day. On this day, the additional circumstances are your own boys, who, I am sure, are not at the bottom of it; and the dogs and guns, which I therefore conclude, form the difficulty. Am I right, Twiller?"

Suppose you are, need my ideas influence any one but myself?"

"To be sure they ought, if they are sound; and if not, they ought to be got rid of. You were once a sportsman, too, I recollect."

"I was, indeed, an enthusiastic one; not the least severe struggle of my life has been to relinquish all title to the designation, in spirit as well as in act."

"True, because hunting, of all field pursuits, is that which most thoroughly brings a man down to its level. Perhaps if I had not broken out of it early, it might have kept me in topboots and leathers to this day. But, thank God, I became disgusted in time, and saw through it."

"Saw through it !"

Yes; it is the amusement which, of all others, most smacks of savage life; and, therefore, most demands the animal recklessness of youth, or the dogged insensibility of age. We have it in us as surely as there are canine teeth in our jaws, and nails upon our fingers. But let reason file and pare these down, and what is hunting? I can understand the chase of bears and lions, of wolves and tigers, in countries infested with them; and can forgive the Indian for tracking his stag to skin and eat him -nay, I excuse the beaver-trapper, and the sable-seeker, and can find arguments for the rat-catcher; but for the gentleman who rides breakfasted to cover, and hears music in the hideous flesh-howl of his dogs, the one and only extenuation I will admit is the force of habit, a cloak beneath the charity of which even the gladitorial rabies of Old Rome may find a cover."

"My dear Twiller, I like to hear you give reasons!" exclaimed Bland, who had followed with admiring eye not so much the matter as the words which fell from his friend. He was, it must be remarked, an enthusiast on the subject of John Twiller, and would hive his friend's ideas, just as Eckermann used to bottle Goethe's thoughts, for future use.

"I like to hear you give reasons ¡ Now, why did you want me to think you churlish, rather than rational and humane ?"

out heeding the interruption, "there are revolting circumstances connected with hunting, apart from the cruelty. It is a levelling sport. No distinction is recognized beyond that of bodily strength and physical pluck.' In it I recognise the boisterous and brutal exultation of the carnivorous creature, man, in strong animal excitement, without any nobler object than the pursuit to the death of a wretched little terrified fox.

"Should I join the field, I am forced to yield to a wretch I would not sit in company with, if he happen to have a better animal than mine under him. Here, alone, I find myself in contact with the loose and low of my neighbourhood; I place myself in all the humiliating attitudes of effort, exhaustion, awkward and ridiculous predicament, and, worse, display feelings before them. Dignity is out of place at a fox-hunt. No nobility, chivalry, valour, generosity, goodness, can possibly have room for exercise; for the numbskull who will ride at a quarry sixty feet deep, gets credit for more courage than I, who, thinking I am born for a better death, pull up. And should I feel for my horse and spare him, Oh! I need not 'show' again at the cover-side. Poor Harry Sandford refused to tell which way the hare went, and got flogged by the Squire. I confess that before giving up the sport altogether, I came to think that the best hunt was a 'drag, and the best game a piece of fried bacon.

"I might, possibly, enjoy the pleasures of the field (though I doubt it) in some royal chase, with a whole country to career over, and my own selected companions round me, in sullen and imperial seclusion; or I might relish (though I am inclined to think not) the pursuit of destructive animals in countries by which they were overrun. Here I should have real danger, and a worthy object, with the blessing of the farmer, as he opened his gate for me, instead of a wellmerited scowl and curse, as I shiver his padlock with a blow of my hammer-headed whip, and plough up his glebe and corn together."

"God bless you, John Twiller !" exclaimed Bland, in a transport of admiration, excited fully as much by this animated outburst of his friend's humour, as by his acquiescence in the

sentiments he gave utterance to"From you I can bear to be put out of conceit with anything;-but I must remind you in my own justification that I never was an advocate of the chase of the greater animals, such as hunting, deer-stalking.'

"Deer-stalking! I am glad you mentioned deer-stalking, Eusebius; for it is the culminating point of barbarity, uniting the thief and the mur derer in one. I well remember, as a boy, stealing up to wood-quests of an evening in dark corners of the pine-grove, with feelings such as I do not like to recal now. Suffice it to say I can imagine ever since the sensations of the Irish Ribbonman, as he lurks in the hedge for the approaching gig-wheels. I soon gave that up. It was only for wood-pigeons. Think of the gentle and human gracefulness of the unobtrusive deer, which believes that it has left room enough for man, and is content with its desert or its mountain, which it looks round upon with confiding eye, as if secure at least of what men have abandoned! The fern tosses its lordly fronds like mimic antlers beside it, and the grey rock stands close by, the emblem of solitary security. It is a traitor a glance glares over

it ;

a barrel rests upon it. The quick instinct of the animal turns that way; its clear and Landseer-tinted eye beams full in the direction of the

danger that glorious orb glasses the glen in miniature perfection, one instant exhibiting a beauty and a mechanism no skill of man could hope to rival; and the next burst in upon by the crashing bullet, and made a mass of but I need not go into details; suffice it to say that the shot has taken effect, and the newspapers announce, with a flourish of trumpets, that one antlered head more has fallen beneath the unerring rifle of some honorable-or right honorable-sportsman."

"Bravo! excellent !" cried Bland; "this is one of the old barbarisms which, I suppose, will follow bearbaiting, bull-fighting, and the like, into the back-woods of reprobation, before the advance of Christianity and civilization, like so many dogribbed Aborigines. But, then, in the meantime, John Twiller" "What then !"

"Then, alas! how many associations

of the past must be dissevered from your sympathy, as you grow tame in this way! I fancy I see friends shaking their heads mournfully, as they pass away to

"Ah! yes," interrupted Twiller, "that is the worst of it, I admit, the peopleyou lose, with the horses and dogs! Forgive! kind, hearty, rubicund old companion; thou of the exploded topboot and resuscitated round-cap! Forgive! high and thoughtful philosopher, testifying ever of the truth, yet unsworn, save upon the books of nature and revelation-the Old and New Testament of the heart-who wast wont to muse over both in secluded haunts, by the margin of congenial streams, flowing side by side with thy reveries, lustrous, devious, pure as they; and in thy hand the rod which I envied thee not, and on thy hat the quiver of the favorite fly! Forgive! honest, charitable, conscientious, simple associate of my youth, with thy ever-dangling dog-whistle, and eternal leather gaiters! John Twiller loses much, in losing ye; and would not consent to part with ye on any terms less exacting than the forfeiture of his own self-esteem."

"So you did not like fishing much?"

"Never could abide it. An eternal getting out of tangle." "But shooting, now, for in

stance

"Eusebius, you must take the broad principle. There is no defence for slaying any animal for sport, when you come to think of it. This condemns the pursuit in all its branches. Shooting I kept up till the other day, I admit. I am sorry it is gone, for there were glorious bracing walks over rich arable and wild mountain, at the most joyous season of the year and hours of the day, with animated, laughing, friendly-looking dogs careering round me, and a stock of health bagged with every brace of birds. Yes, Eusebius! I confess it was delightful."

"And is so, Twiller! You shall shake off these prejudices at last, as regards shooting, and join our next party with a gun on your shoulder, and these crochets out of your brain. Recollect, your reasoning I cannot attempt to answer, if I would. look at it in another light

But

"Why any other light but that of

the sun?-my reason follows me, as I follow the game, and points with more unerring precision than my dogs. My dear Eusebius, you have only to open your eyes to be convinced. I know your heart is open already. The life of animals has its joys and sorrows; its interests, employments, and amusements-nay, its episodes and romance. What child can doubt this, who has read the dear household memorials of 'Pecksy and Flapsey'? What man will deny it who has pondered over the more moving facts of the philosopher of Selborne? Christopher North, a poet in other things, bagged his hare-the affectionate Cowper boxed his. Each had his sport; but, my dear Eusebius, it was a very different matter for the hare."

"I confess, John," said Bland, after a pause, "6 you have put me out of conceit with myself. How is it that I cannot get myself to admit mere reason in judging of these things?"

"Because you view them from a state of society so thoroughly steeped in the influence, that you cannot separate your judgment from your prejudices, by a comparison with what is without. It is as hard as to discover yellow by candlelight, which is yellow itself. But don't be cast down about it, Eusebius; you will one day think as I do. You know you have only one, or at most two, branches of this old tree to lop off. My own belief is, that, after all, you are arguing more for the practice of others than your own. If what I hear is true, your parish duties are too conscientiously discharged to leave you much time for rod or gun."

Eusebius blushed, as if he had been detected in a crime.

But, however that may be," continued Twiller, "shooting is one of those cheerful improprieties that a man may be at liberty to regret, though he has given it up. As for myself, Eusebius, I frankly confess that the day I finally hung up my gun, I felt as if I had shaken hands with a friend who was going away; and let it down for the last time from half-cock with a sigh."

"With me, hard-hearted that I am," cried Bland, with a ludicrous pathos of voice, "I fear it will be with a tear!"

"To be sure it will; and you will exhibit your better nature by the warmer regret. We cannot, one of us, yield the body up to the mind, much less to the spirit, without a pang. To fall back upon reflective counterparts of the actualities of physical enjoyments, is to resign the visible world for the invisible-to become blind that we may see."

"How do you manage, Twiller, when you are forced to proclaim your sentiments, one way or the other?"

"To say the truth, I have not yet been put to the proof, in a mixed company; and I foresee that it will be a struggle. I shall have all the young against me, Eusebius !"

"A formidable phalanx!" "And nothing but wrinkles, and gout, and crutches, and crochets on my side."

"Yes, and the liberal and generous soul which applauds the motive, even in declining to imitate the act."

"Even that is uncertain, unless I must exclude myself from the class. Well do I remember the mingled emotions of contempt and dislike with which I used, in my youth, to contemplate a certain eccentric cousin of mine who had thought proper to abandon the sports of the field. It is very alarming, Eusebius, to think that one may actually beget the same feelings in unknown quarters. That noble scion of a noble house, what is it that I now honour his self-sacrifice with approving tears? I dare say he himself experienced all this diffidence and misgiving and apprehension which I now encounter. Did they protect him? Let my own conscience answer that question!"

Here Twiller was obliged to pause. And Eusebius Bland felt that it would be unbecoming in him to break in upon that pause.

At length Twiller resumed,

"Yes, you must make up your mind to suffer much, in any departure from prevalent errors. To have

unworthy motives attributed to you is the hardest of all to bear. To be set down as weak, or indolent, or pusillanimous, when all the time your animal blood boils to be partaking of the sport of those who deride you! Then, to be complimented by appeals to your sympathy and support in favour of those manly amusements by those who are, with

the same breath, perhaps, denouncing along with you the dissipated pleasures of society, and who take it for granted that you will help them in crying down the one by joining in exalting the other, without, of course, entertaining the remotest idea that they have calculated erroneously on your support. Oh, Eusebius, I hope I may be able to endure this, when it

comes !"

"You will, John Twiller; but nobody else would. As for me, I humbly confess

"Then, suppose I were on a visit. A fine morning-the setters whining-barrels squibbing-a party of friends talking cheerily about meRollo looking beseechingly in my face-I have a stiff leg, a pain in my back, a head-ache-a letter to write. Can't go. Well, the next time. Yet, after all, these excuses, too, are criminal, and won't always serve."

"The sin lies in the killing, I suppose," suggested Bland, musingly, though it is only the incident, not the object, of the sport."

"True; but as an incident it is equally wrong; One sometimes is tempted to wish that there were fossil pterodactyls in the air, to skim over the stubble on their stony wings, and be brought down by duck-shot. Shooting these would be innocent, I

suppose.

"After all," said Bland, “ may it not be a question for a casuist to decide, how far we are not justified in adopting a vicious system which we find universal, for the sake of conformity and peace e? Here is the universal usage; the genius of our national character. Nobody dreams of seeing cruel pleasure in a day's sport. Healthy, invigorating, developing all manly and British qualities as it does, is the system to be denounced, because it causes, as one of its accessorial necessities, suffering to animals, which animals, be it remembered, are articles of human consumption, as sheep and oxen are? God forbid, Twiller, that I should lightly advocate the continuance of abuses, because they are general. You know my sentiments on the slave question. But I cannot shut my eyes to an opposite danger, to which all these exceptions are liable. You may narrow too rigidly the confines of admissible amusements, You may

contract the common by enclosure, until you drive trespassers into other people's preserves. What is an active young man to do to amuse himself?"

"Very true, Bland; that is the hardest question of all. Some substitute must be provided as an outlet for that exuberance of spirits which now goes off in detonations about the fields."

"And such you cannot find. I have often looked for it, fruitlessly."

"Perhaps, after all, Eusebius, we ought to take our pattern from Him who was himself the pattern of all virtue, and who, while he kept himself clear of offence, left things as he found them-war, slavery, public extortion; but preached, both by precept and example, doctrines subversive of these evils."

"Then we must, in any case, put by our own rods and guns?"

"As for me, my dear Eusebius, my heart has much to do with the matter. I must respect the prejudices of others; and I must respect my own humility. I would overlook with affectionate resignation the impulses of my children and friends in the questionable direction, and unceasingly inculcate and illustrate the blessed duty of making friends with all animated beings about us, participating in their joys and sympathising in their sufferings as far as possible, so as to beget feelings calculated by a general tendency to promote the effects I dare not hope directly to produce. Even this is hard. See what I have lost to-day, in the loss of the society of these two poor sleeping boys! Will it not be dangerous to relinquish such a hold?-to forego the natural opportunities of free

hearted conversation and instruction to be found in the fields ?"

The hour for returning had now arrived. The boys were roused; coats buttoned on, and leave-takings gone through; but not before a proImise had been extorted from their host to return the visit as soon as possible, accompanied, as the boys insisted he should be, by the dogs. To this Bland demurred, seeming determined to make some immediate demonstration on the subject of sporting; perhaps not sorry to shew the father what his notions had brought

upon him. But at last, sorely pressed, he made a sort of compromise, by promising to fetch over a brace of greyhounds, which, although these dogs are generally made subservient to sporting purposes, were, with him, house-pets.

And now, as they were in the act of parting, Eusebius Bland seemed shaken and distressed,-Twiller was serious, the boys were tired and silent. Clouds had obscured the declining sun-the day had changed.

As the Twiller party sat together in the van, Demophon and Rollo seemed anxious to speak. At last, the former abruptly told his father that he meant to give up shooting; and Rollo instantly announced the same intention.

"How's this, children ?"

"We heard your last words to Mr. Bland, papa."

"Well ?"

"It's cruel, papa. We'll give it

up."

Twiller's breast swelled within him. Here were the first fruits of a good resolution. He felt happy, and blessed God, who had so speedily rewarded him.