two resources-to take a mere cottage, remain in the country, and become an object of pity to his neighbours; or hide his " diminished head" in the only place where he can effectually do so, in his own country, namely, London. It is true a man need not blush at his altered circumstances, if they occur from events that call forth the commiseration, and not the censure, of his friends and neighbours. It is true Cincinnatus took to his plough, Belisarius was led about blind and in poverty. A statesman reduced to a garret, when sent to by the reigning Minister, and offered place and preferment if he would use his name and talents in the support of measures at variance with his ideas of what would be beneficial to his country, had the magnamity to say, "Go back to those who sent you, and say the man who can content himself in a garret is not one to be bribed to act against his conscience." The commiseration of friends is in itself a solace to the ruined man, so far as showing he has done nothing to forfeit their esteem or his self-respect; but pity is so closely allied to contempt, among the generality of mankind, that the high mind shrinks within itself at the contact. Rochefoucault affirms : "Q'il y a quelque chose dans les malheurs de nos meillieurs amis qu'il ne nous deplait pas." It is a vile sentiment, but a true one. What he means I take to be, that in hearing of the "malheurs de nos amis," it produces a self-congratulation that we are exempt from such calamity; for, unfeeling and selfish as the world is, we will not suppose men so truly diabolic as to rejoice in the misfortunes of others, when no gratification accrued to themselves. Yet a devil's kind of impulse will often induce men to address a man, who they well know has sent his stud to Tattersall's, somewhat in this way: "Do you mean to hunt in Leicestershire next season?" or, "Well, being summer now, will you take a hundred-and-fifty for Vaulter?" well knowing the horse has been sold long since. Such is the petty feeling of triumph the prosperous often indulge in, at the expense of their less fortunate brother-man. Was Rochefoucault far wrong in what he says? or is it to be wondered at that the stricken man avoids his former acquaintance?

But, independent of this, fox-hunting is not to be enjoyed by a gentleman without considerable means. The man following it may be supposed to have been expensively brought up and educated. The mere "bookless, sauntering youth" depicted by Somerville may, it is true, if his means fail, content himself in associating with common farmers and huntsmen, thus indulging in conversation on the only subject he is conversant with, or can appreciate. It is true his obtuseness may spare him the mortifications the man of refined mind and high spirit is subjected to; but, on the other hand, the latter has a taste that can find gratification in other pursuits as well as foxhunting; he has a mind to fall back on, and he knows there is no place where a mind, properly directed, can find more sources for gratification than in London; thus he "is not all deserted on the main.'

Perhaps some old companion and sportsman may, at the next meet at "cover side," miss the well-remembered face, and him who was wont to pioneer his horse across country, to the admiration of all, and the envy of some; that bold and accomplished horseman is, peradventure, at the moment spending a portion of his saddened hours in visiting the annual exhibition of pictures. Happy for him that he

has the mind to admire other objects as well as hounds and horses; thrice happy that he can find interest in the "Life of Petrarch" as much as in "the life of a race-horse." Men of less mind can only feel that he must miss his hunters in winter, and his four-in-hand in summer. Doubtless he does feel such loss acutely; but this is not the great source of his woe; it is the loss of caste, consequent on the loss of worldly means, that he feels. "This the respect that makes calamity of so long life"; this feeds the never-dying bitterness of his lot; this converts the once joyous companion into the shrinking recluse; this renders society distasteful to him; this causes him to sit alone, or seek alone pursuits that suit "the gloomy tenor of his soul." The pursuits he seeks keep up this saddened turn of mind. He can feel deep interest in Hamlet, but for the life of him he cannot laugh at broad farce; the once joyous laugh is unknown to him, and he only wonders what others see to laugh at. Still he can have his solitary amusements; in London he can have them without observation. "Aye, there's the rub," or rather there's the only solace he can know. This accounts for the number of men we see in London, who the inconsiderate might suppose would be the last men to be found there; and so they would be, were they in their former position. We thus find it is their poverty brings them there; and, no doubt, to the man of small means, there is a greater variety of amusements a gen tleman can participate in, to be found in London, than in the country. It is true he may fish there; but who ever knew a fox-hunter an angler? He may shoot, but he would hold the going out with merely Old Juba wretched slow work. No, he must quit a locality the pleasures of which he can no longer enjoy-at least, not in a way that would be any enjoyment to him. What I can fancy some one to say (perhaps the parson of the parish): "What, must it be aut Cæsar aut nullus?" Yes, good sir, precisely that; the Cæsar is gone, and the hunting one horse would be to him the "nullus.”

I have intended to carry out the fact that the country is usually found intolerable to most London men, particularly so to men not possessing attributes of mind to enjoy the many agrèmens it holds forth. It is true the fox-hunter and once man of fortune cannot, or will not, become a fisher, nor will he shoot in an inferior way; but there can be no reason why Mr. Tubbs from Cheapside may not find both extremely exhilarating; they might be Cæsar to him, though, as I have said, nullus to the other.

A man must have very little mind if he cannot substitute one pleasure for another: he may greatly prefer the first, but as a pis aller he can admit a saccedanum-that is if he can have it as he had his fox-hunting, as it ought to be had. The huntsman, the farmer, or the mindless man may hold the opera or refined society no recompence at all for a day's hunting; but if circumstances oblige a man to make London his future head-quarters, and can retain something of his position in life, he must be a bad philosopher if he cannot submit to the change, and thank the Gods for the good provided. The mind (as I have said, if a man has any) will not be much affected by mere change of situation, or necessary change of amusement. Sad, sad the case, when that mind yields to the pressure of calamity and consequent mortification!

BLACK GAME IN THE NEW FOREST.

BY AUCEPS.

For many years past, the little delightful rural villages of Beaulieu and Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, have proved popular retreats to those few favoured individuals, who, privileged with a forest shooting license from the Crown functionaries, have been accustomed to reparthither, annually, at this season of the year, to enjoy the sport of black-cock shooting. This royal waste was, until the last few years past, extensively stocked with both the red and fallow deer, which animals, having free liberty to wander, separately or in herds, over the heather-clad dales of this sylvan Savannah, in the course of their peregrinations (particularly during the dark nights of spring), were in the constant habit of trampling upon the nests of the above birds, crushing thereby the prospects of many a promising brood of poults. Since the forest has been undeered, the chances of the nests being obtruded upon by other incidental casualties are not so numerous as heretofore, and, on this account, the birds have become more plentiful, and, exposed to less disturbance, thrive better than they formerly did in their old retired quarters.

Some ninety to a hundred years since, the black-cock and grey-hen abounded throughout the whole of the woodland districts around this royalty, and were held in the highest estimation by the several lords of manors owning farms in its vicinity. Strict injunctions were laid down in the leases furnished to the tenants, against the latter, under any circumstances, destroying this choice feature in the game calendar; and much encouragement was furthermore extended towards such as would, a few weeks preceding the harvest month, assure their baronial masters that they possessed a few packs of black grouse upon their rented lands.

The art of "shooting double"-that is, by means of the bine-barrel fowling-piece-was not, at that period, much in vogue; so that the birds were not so liable to be thinned in numbers as they are now-a-days, when the chances against their escape are most cruelly multiplied. Besides, the guns of that day were constructed upon a more clumsy princi. ple, both as to lock and barrel, whilst the percussion-cap and the wire cartridge were not so much as dreamed of. I have heard several old farmers observe, forty to fifty years ago, that they have known as many as four strong packs of "heather-poults" to have been hatched upon a patch of forty acres of wild ground in the neighbourhood of Beaulieu and Brokenhurst. These spots were highly favourable to the nidification of this class of tetrao, which indulge freely, with their pulli, on the fruits of the vaccinium oxycoccus and the vaccinium myrtillus (the wild cranberry and bilberry) which grow profusely hereabout. It is this circumstance that proves so advantageous to the poults, which are, at their first stage of shifting for themselves (without the

more immediate care and providence of the parent birds), enabled to pick up a plentiful share of pabulum, constituted by the berries of the above shrubs, in the valleys of this wilderness.

It was usual for the lords of manors, at that period, to remit a small sum from the half-year's rent, in cases where their tenants were so fortunate as to harbour this highly-prized game upon their estates, as an inducement to cause the same to keep a strict look-out after poachers -a class of prowling, predating persons, who were scattered in little parties, all through the New Forest.

It is not to be wondered at that the above warren should have been so popular among the South and West of England sportsmen, who, in that day, found it a tedious as well as a very expensive task to proceed by water to Ireland, or by the old-fashioned jog-trot horse-managed "lumber drags," from one week's end to another, to reach the moors of Scotland. It was just the thing for a young lord, or expectant son of a wealthy esquire resident in or near London, to take their first lessons in grouse shooting on a field so near home, and so convenient to meet all their desires, before they executed their acquired skill on the black and red birds of the mountains. Besides, it was a comparatively easy mode of replenishing their bags with large varieties of game, after the August month, in which the forest under consideration abounds. It was an agreeable part of the country, close to the sea, just suited to persons fond of a short trip to the Isle of Wight by water. There are fine limpid trout streams in the immediate vicinity, venison at hand when wanted, and a host of necessaries of all descriptions and kinds to be procured from the fashionable town of Southampton, an hour's journey off. Indeed, the extreme difficulty in procuring a forest license rendered the privilege one of a dignified character, since none but those who held good interest in high quarters could possibly succeed in gratifying their legitimate object in this particular. There were only a select few, who enjoyed the zest of sporting in the forest wilds, and these few aristocratically clubbed together, and were accustomed to take the field as would the earls of old, who formed the suite of King William of Normandy, who was the original founder of this royal chase. "The Crown," at Lyndhurst, was the fashionable rendezvous for these highly favoured shooters, one of the most clean, convenient, and comfortable roadside inns throughout England. Indeed, it was the crack hostel for the reception of the brush and tally-ho members of the New Forest hunt, when old father Nicolls held the kennel at Lyndhurst, and Squire Pulteney was the gallant master of the ceremonies when the occasional gatherings of the "hie over" fraternity were assembled in the jovial sportsman's hall. His antepenultimate Majesty George the Third, who was devoted to the sweet sounds of music, in the opera and on the open plain, was so vastly taken up with this enchanting little village, that he established a hunting-box in the same, and, on his visit to a gentleman named Clark, residing near the spot, where himself and his Queen Consort Charlotte spent the day, in June 1782, he desired that, after their departure, his mansion might be named "Mount Royal," under which acceptation it is known up to the present day. It was at the above country inn, that the licensed forest-shooters took up their abode, during the season, where they spent a most cuviable and happy time of it. I can readily fancy each one repeating to his adjacent friend, the pleasure

able time they were enjoying, and the lovely scenery that lay before them.

"Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori:
Hic nemus, hic ipso tecum consumerer ævo."

VIRGIL.

There were twelve distinct walks in the royalty, each superintended by a keeper and assistants, who were provided with lodges by the Crown, so that whatever district the shooters might feel disposed to try, the keeper of such walk would accompany them, and point out the spots where grouse were to be met with.

There are some of these birds to be found in the moors of Dorsetshire, but the same are bred on private estates, and are killed off periodically, with advantage only to the owners of the grounds they occupy. With this exception, there is no grouse shooting that presents itself to the sportsman in this part of the kingdom, so that it can create no great surprise to find that the New Forest is rendered, on this very account, a "strict preserve."

We possess only one species of this bird in these parts, viz., the tetrao niger or black-cock; nor do we hear of the red game being found nearer north than Yorks and Cumberland. I was, upon one occasion, shooting rabbits upon a wild heath, composed of furze, fern, and ling. I had a faithful old turnspit terrier accompanying me, who not only actually turned that culinary instrument before the kitchen fire, by means of a box with treadles, furnished him for the occasion, but one which went far a-field with me on my gunning excursions, to hunt out what game he could find for myself (his master), to bag, and afterwards cause to be spitted, and turned by his agency. Sharper (for such was the name I had given him) was a black-and-tan marked dog, weighing twenty-two pounds; his legs were bowed like a pair of confronted cheese-knives, and he carried a perfect tail, which sustained a white-tip to it, at the extremity. His legs were not more than five inches from the ground, which caused the length of his body to exceed all proportion, and when he made head-way in pursuit of any locomotive object, he appeared to jump, after the fashion of a polecat or weasel, the limbs of which animals are exceedingly short when compared with the length of their bodies. This canine companion I continued to possess for upwards of ten years, and he was a very astonishing animal. He would "stand" at birds of every game distinction as staunch as a pointer; but he would invariably "put up" a hare or rabbit, and use his tongue freely. He would retrieve as correctly as a Russian spaniel or a Newfoundland dog, and take water as readily as the latter breed of canines. I have brought more game down to my gun, in one day, with "Sharper" alone, than I remember ever to have done when I have been attended by a brace or leash of legitimately-bred dogs. The fact is, he was slow and "very" sure; he held a wonderful olfactory command over a cold, greasy fallow, and I feel assured, within myself, that if I had afforded him a fair chance, without calling him off his scent, in due time he would have effectually succeeded, after a tedious run (or rather jumping bout) in coming up to a hare. When I went abroad, I left him in charge of a particular friend and relation; but he was never afterwards reconciled to his position, for he gradually pined away and died.

However, having digressed from my original subject, I will return to

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