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but more particularly field mice, of which any one may be thoroughly convinced, if he will take the trouble of either examining the animals' billeting, or of following the nightly track of one in the snow; he would then plainly see how curiously they hunt and examine every tuft of grass and stubble cock, and where they pounce upon the mice and devour them.

It would not be fair to mention names on such a subject, but the fact is beyond question, and it bears so closely and forcibly upon what I have been saying about the destruction of foxes, that I shall mention an anecdote relating to it. The hounds of a noble lord, who some years ago hunted one of the midland counties, were advertised to meet at the covers of a gentleman, which were in those days more celebrated for the number of pheasants which they harboured than for the good runs which they afforded to foxhounds. As it was well known that there was no chance of a find, the keeper-as I am charitable enough to suppose that it must have been done without his master's connivance-procured a bagman, which was designed to be put down in due form when the hounds were drawing; this disgraceful intention having come, by some means or other, to the ears of the noble owner of the pack, he was determined to be even with the intended perpetrator of the insult. Riding up to the cover-side exactly as the hand of his watch rested upon the appointed hour, he thus addressed his huntsman:-" My hounds meet at half-past ten, and I wait for no one; throw them into cover, Harry." In they went, and a blank draw was the result. "Why, there is not even the slightest touch of a fox," says his lordship, and away he trotted to another cover seven miles distant, leaving the keeper, the bagman, and a large party of gentlemen in the lurch, who were at breakfast, and anxiously expecting the arrival of the hounds.

(To be continued.)

OXFORD PARODIES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "HINTS TO FRESHMEN," &c.

No. 3.

AIR-"The days that we went gipsying."

Oh, the days we read those musty books, a short time ago,

Were certainly the seediest a man could ever know;

We filled no glass, we kissed no lass, our hacks grew fat and sleek,
We thought it dissipation if we rode them twice a week.
We rose up early in the morn, we sat up late at e'en,
And naught but horrid lexicons about us could be seen!

*The late Lord Middleton.

Unheeded lay our meerschaums then, our "Lopez" bound in green; The undisturbed blue-bottle was on our team-whip seen;

The goblets in our foxes' heads ne'er shone with good Bordeaux, But we took a glass of something mild, and talked about "Greatgo."

We rose up early, &c.

We got parental letters then, in which 't was gravely vowed, How harrowed all would be at home, if we perchance were "ploughed :"

And what was worse, those sordid duns an early payment wished, "Till, what 'twixt ticks and tutors too, we felt extremely "fish'd." We rose up, &c.

"Tis past! 'tis past! 'tis won at last! my Muse no longer grieves; We sweep adown the High-street now in our long silken sleeves; And envious under-graduates sigh forth, as we draw near, "O crikey! how I wish I was a 'new-made Bacalere :'

They rise up when they like at morn, they sit up late at e'en, And hunt, and quaff, and smoke, and laugh, the whole term thro', I ween.

H.

LA CHASSE ETRANGER.

BY HARRY HIEOVER.

La Chasse-when to this we annex the true English construction, THE CHASE, how does the heart of a foxhunter quicken in its pulsations at the magical sound of those two brief words! The valetudinarian (if he has the true spirit in him) shakes off his aches and pains, and at the sound of the horn, like the veteran soldier at that of the trumpet, "dares again the field." The victim of hypochondriacism rouses from his apathy, and feels himself again giving the rattling "Tally-ho!" Even the pale and heart-stricken son of adversity forgets the freezing or supercilious looks of the favourites of prosperity, and in his mind's eye again welcomes the honest beaming countenance of the true fox-hunter, that never allows the cloud of misfortune that may lower o'er a brother sportsman to shut out that jovial and warming smile from the afflicted heart.

Hail to thy name, O Chace!-hail! doubly hail to thy glorious reality!-and ten-fold hail to my country, honest England, land of the chace, thou only Elysium of the lovers of true sport!

Let other nations slay their thousands by the gun, where neither exertion nor manly daring are the requisite attributes of the sportsman, as children of a younger growth immolate the defenceless fly who vainly struggles for escape against the glazed divisions of the window. Perish such ignominious sport! The scions of an honest stock of fine old English gentlemen war not with the confined and defenceless,

but seek the wild game in its native haunts, allow it all its many natural shifts, all its energies for escape, and would blush to take it at unfair advantage, as, God be praised! they would shun to take their fellow-man. Long may the homely but glorious sentiment-" a clear stage and no favour"-be the pass-word of our country to deeds of manly daring: long may such a sentiment influence us in facing the enemies of our land of sport; and long may such feeling teach us to stop the falling blow when levelled at a prostrate or defenceless

foe.

Let cavillers rail at some of our national sports, and despise or pretend to despise trials of manhood they have not the courage or hardihood to meet or imitate; let other nations say such sports are unrefined, that our pugilistic encounters tend to brutalize the mind or harden the heart the craven only promulgates such ideas. If brutalizing the mind consists in teaching man to look his fellow-man in the face without cowering beneath his glance, or in teaching him to scorn to take advantage of a helpless enemy, then and not till then will such encounters merit the epithet. That such exhibitions are not refined, every man must allow; but we want not refinement for the unrefined, for to these unrefined do we chiefly owe a nation's glory and a nation's peace.

And now return we to the chace. Doubtless in former days there was but little refinement to be found among mere fox-hunting squires. Whence arose this? Not from their pursuits, so far as those pursuits went; but from other causes. In those days the badness of roads made travelling slow, expensive, and inconvenient; consequently journeys were seldom undertaken but from motives of necessity: this prevented such men acquiring that knowledge of the world, and that ease and polish of manner, that are only to be acquired by travel and a frequent intercourse with refined society. And further than this: the date is not far distant when study was held to be beneath the notice of the man of independent fortune, and necessary and desirable only to those whom necessity impelled to mental labour as a means of support. Study in those days was considered infra dignitatem of a gentleman: what we now estimate as the most ordinary education would then have been held, and indeed despised, as being clerkly, and was considered no more as the attribute of the gentleman than we should now consider the being able to keep a set of books by double entry-an accomplishment, I opine, few gentlemen would be vain of possessing. Nor was the fair helpmate of the squire in those days one iota better informed than himself, and, but that the natural softness and delicacy of the sex "emollit mores," would she have been other than the prototype of her boisterous lord. These were the fox-hunters and their fair dames of the beginning of the last century; but in 1845 tell me the place where more refinement of mind and manner is to be found than at a meet near Melton. The unthinking or uninitiated might say "at Almacks:" he who would say so must indeed be both unthinking and must know little of the world. Many, nay most of those who were seen, at the former, to "top the barred gate, and brush the thorny twining hedge," or, in more modern phrase, to "switch at a rasper, charge an ox-fence, and go like bricks," may

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on the same evening be seen in the latter hemisphere of fashion, breathing the soft tale into the ear of beauty, with all the elegance, refinement, and seductiveness of manner and language necessary to ensure the entrée within the circle of elegance and aristocracy. Yet such men are not of that class of effeminate beings devoting their time to merely writing "sonnets to their mistress' eyebrow," or in holding the silken skein from which the fair one weaves the gage d'amour destined to the favoured and happy object of her smiles; nor would they, like such ephemera, devote the propitious hunting morning to a piano, where the only feeling they create is one of comparison between the ungainly object and that of the fair form who, once seen there, has been the bright vision of our nightly dreams, where we again in fancy hear her dulcet notes, again feel the fascination of her conscious smile of triumph, and again behold her sylph-like form gracefully bending as her fairy fingers fly over the party-coloured keys of the instrument. Lovely, thrice lovely woman! this is thy bright prerogative: this thy empire: this the scene of all thy many conquests-thy self-created Elysium, where none but the manly should be privileged to enter. The timid, affected coxcomb, who fears to show his dear loved person where aught of risk or danger threatens, can never truly estimate thy numberless perfections; though he dares to challenge thy smile as an offering to his self-estimated pretensions, instead of wooing it as the best and brightest reward of an honest and devoted heart. Little do such beings wot that manly bearing and a dauntless spirit are the surest stepping-stones to woman's estimation.

La Chasse-strange that twenty-one miles of water should make so wide a difference in the ideas of men in thy pursuit; but so it is, at least so it was in 1823.

A visit to a friend called me, that year, to Dunkirk. Now this said Dunkirk, though well enough as a town, is not exactly the locale where a man fond of hunting would wish to find himself, in the month of December. Knowing, however, that there was something like a pack of hounds near St. Omer's, and intending to take that town en route, I took over two horses: these, with a Flemish mare I purchased to draw my buggy, constituted my stud in France. I had, however, not knowing how the St. Omer hunt might turn out, taken the pink, the leathers, et cetera, with me. At Dunkirk I was introduced to Monsieur le Baron-who was considered, as I heard, the greatest chasseur of the place, and had his loge de chasse a few miles off. He talked of his piqueur, his chiens de chasse, his horses, and God knows what, inviting me to accompany him à la chasse the next day, and promising to call and take me, as I concluded, to THE MEET. On the baron's departure, my friend, who had politely excused himself from joining us, smiled most suspiciously; but on my asking if the baron really meant it, he assured me he did, but had the honesty to say I should not exactly find Tom Oldaker and the Berkeley: this I was quite aware of, but must candidly confess I expected to meet hounds of some sort. I could not get a word more in explanation from my friend, so told my man to take on my horse in the morning, and determined to see the thing out. I was discussing my côtelette at nine o'clock, when I heard a carriage drive up to the door. Jumping up, with a

cup of coffee in one hand, and a bit of the côtelette on the end of my fork in the other, like Morbleu on hearing the name of Tonson again, there I saw the baron, not in gig, drag, or dog-cart, a good upper benjamin on his back, a shawl round his neck, and an Havanna in his mouth; but there I saw

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us !"

a common fiacre from the hotel. From this vehicle emerged the baron, with a gun in one hand, and an enormous German pipe in the other. After the baron, out came a stupid big-headed cur-looking pointer, with a thing in lieu of a stern about half the length and twice the size of an ordinary sausage, which he let fall as if he was ashamed of it, or as if it had been given him by nature merely to hide that part of his person that is indelicate to expose, for which purpose its length just sufficed. What on earth can this mean? thinks I. Do they shoot, as well as hunt their game here? and do they use such a beast as that following as finder? The baron was attired in a kind of half-travelling, half-jockey cap, a grey jerkin and green waistcoat, a pair of old brown pantaloons with a velvet (had been) scarlet stripe down the outer seam, these surmounted by a pair of half-Hessian half-life-guardsman's boots. "Well," thinks I, "you are a rum'un to look at, whatever you may be to go." "Oh! now I have it," says I, "he means to get an hour's shooting before he takes the hounds out." "Nous voici !" cried the baron, entering the room. "So I see," thinks I, "and two pretty-looking d-s you are;" so I suppose the baron thought of me who was dressed in my usual hunting clothes, for after the usual salutations he added-"mais, mon cher, quel drole habillement ! Ah! le joli habit, et les petites bottes !" "Anything more?" thinks I. "I must alter some of this, or I suppose I shall be taken for some overgrown monkey escaped from the back of a dromedary led about for exhibition." After, therefore, to the great chagrin of the baron, putting aside the pink for a more promising occasion, we, accompanied by the big-headed animal with the stump, took our places in the fiacre; the Frenchman in high glee, anticipating, as he assured me we should do, faire grande chasse, I shrewdly suspecting myself of being the ass I was, in supposing it possible to get anything like hunting in the district of Bergues. Concluding still that something of the sort would be attempted, I made up my mind to be amused by the ridiculous, if I could not be gratified by anything better. "Journeying with this intent," on my part, the baron every ten minutes putting forth his head to hurry the driver, with as much sign of anxiety and importance as if he feared a fox would have broke and gone away over as clipping a country as England could produce, he all at once changed his note, and now screeched as furiously to him to stop, as if life or death depended on his instant compliance. Even before this could be accomplished, out bolted the baron, and after him the stump-tailed quadruped. Looking from the window, I saw the former going at top-speed, the latter following at the same pace; presently the greatest chasseur of the province came to a full stop; bang went one barrel, and, as I suppose, to make assurance doubly sure, bang went the other. Into the hedge

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