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ther, when mast falls sparingly, he calls them together by the music of his horn to a gratuitous meal; but in general they need little attention, returning regularly home at night, though they often wander in the day two or three miles from their sty. There are experienced leaders in all herds, which have spent this roving life before, and can instruct their juniors in the method of it. By this management, the herd is carried home to their respective owners in such condition, that a little dry meat will soon fatten them. I would not, however, have it supposed that all the swineherds in the forest manage their colonies with this exactness. Bad governments and bad governors will everywhere exist; but I mention this as an example of sound policy, such as hath been often realised, and hath as often been found productive of good order and public utility. The hog is commonly supposed to be an obstinate, headstrong, unmanageable brute; and he may perhaps have a degree of positiveness in his temper. In general, however, if he be properly managed, he is an orderly, docile animal. The only difficulty is to make your meanings, when they are fair and friendly, intelligible to him. Effect this, and you may lead him with a straw.

"Nor is he without his social feelings, when he is at liberty to indulge them. In these forest migrations, it is commonly observed, that of whatever number the herd consists, they generally separate, in their daily excursions, into such little knots and societies as have formerly had habits of intimacy together; and in these friendly groups they range the forest, returning home at night in different parties, some earlier and some later, as they have been more or less fortunate in the pursuits of the day.

"It sounds oddly to affirm the life of a hog to be enviable, and yet there is something uncommonly pleasing in the lives of these emigrants-something, at least, more desirable than is to be found in the life of a hog from Epicurus's herd. They seem themselves also to enjoy their mode of life: you see them

perfectly happy, going about at their ease, and conversing with each other in short, pithy, interrupted sentences, which are no doubt expressive of their own enjoyments, and of their social feelings."

"We well remember," continues the editor, "an occasion, when in one of our New Forest rambles we had thrown ourselves down at the root of a great beech-tree, whence we looked abroad from underneath its wide canopy of foliage on a small streak of sunshine, which, penetrating an opening in the wood and falling athwart the ground beyond, gave a broader and deeper effect to the shadows around. There was not a breath of air, and not a sound was to be heard, and we lay in all the listlessness of that dreamy musing which to the idle mind might seem as idleness, but which the philosopher and moralist may well know how better to appreciate. Suddenly, a sound like that of warlike music, mellowed somewhat by distance, came upon our ears. We started up from our recumbent position so far as to lean upon one arm, and strained to listen,-being almost persuaded, not without some degree of awe, that we were soon to have our eyes gratified by some pageant of the green-garbed elves,

'Who meet on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,

By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,

To dance their ringlets to the whistling wind-
Or on some bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where cowslips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.'

"The sound increased, and grew harsher as it advanced; and as it drew yet nearer and nearer, the tramp of what might have passed for the fairy chivalry was mingled with it. Even yet we were ignorant of what spectacle awaited us, until at length the leading boar of a large herd of forest swine came grunting forward into the sunshine, followed by all the musical

members of his harmonious detachment. Whether it was the cheering and cherishing effects of the sunshine, or that there was something savoury in the herbage of the spot, we know not; but the grunting swelled into a louder chorus, their snouts became more and more busy, their ears and tails were kept in continued and joyous motion, and their small eyes seemed to flash back the sun's rays with an unusual eagerness of expression. It was an interesting sight; and had not swine been the subject of it, we should tell the truth and say, that it was a sight as beautiful as interesting. The creatures were in fine condition ;—their bristles shone like silver; their bodies were clean, as if they had been daily washed and combed like a lady's lapdog; and they seemed to be so free and happy, that their very appearance filled our mind full of the romance of forest life and forest recollections. We sprang up in order to observe and to admire them more closely; but the noise we made alarmed them, and off they galloped in a terrible fright, helter-skelter, with a speed which none of the porcine race but such as are free swine of the forest could have possibly exhibited; and long after the last of them had disappeared amid the more distant shades into which they penetrated, we still heard their retreating trumpets gradually dying away.

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From oak to oak they run with eager haste,

And, wrangling, share the first delicious taste
Of fallen acorns, yet but thinly found

Till the strong gale has shook them to the ground.

It comes; and roaring woods obedient wave;

Their home, well pleased, the joint adventurers leave :
The trudging sow leads forth her numerous young,
Playful, and white, and clean, the briars among,
Till briars and thorns increasing, fence them round,
Where last year's mould'ring leaves bestrew the ground;
And o'er their heads, loud lash'd by furious squalls,
Bright from their cups the rattling treasure falls;
Hot, thirsty food !-whence doubly sweet and cool
The welcome margin of some rush-grown pool.'"

BLOOMFIELD.

In "Ivanhoe" we have the following delightful description of sunset upon a forest, with a conversation between Gurth the swineherd and Wamba the jester

:

"The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of Sherwood Forest. Hundreds of broad short-stemmed oaks, which had witnessed perhaps the stately march of the Roman soldiery, flung their broad gnarled arms over a thick carpet of the most delicious greensward; in some places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies, and copswood of various descriptions, so closely as totally to intercept the level beams of the sinking sun; in others they receded from each other, forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of which the eye delights to lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths to get wilder scenes of sylvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun shot a broken and discoloured light, that partially hung upon the shattered boughs and mossy trunks of the trees, and there they illuminated in brilliant patches the portions of turf to which they made their way. A considerable open space in the midst of this glade seemed formerly to have been dedicated to the rites of druidical superstition; for, on the summit of a hillock, so regular as to seem artificial, there still remained part of a circle of rough unhewn stones of large dimensions. Seven stood upright; the rest had been dislodged from their places, probably by the zeal of some convert to Christianity, and lay, some prostrate near their former site, and others on the side of the hill. One large stone only had found its way to the bottom, and in stopping the course of a small brook which glided smoothly round the foot of the eminence, gave by its opposition a feeble voice of murmur to the placid and elsewhere silent streamlet.

"The human figures which completed this landscape were two, partaking in their dress and appearance of that wild and rustic character which belonged to the woodlands of the west riding of Yorkshire. The dialogue which they maintained between them ran as follows:

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"The curse of St. Withold upon these infernal porkers!' said the swineherd, after blowing his horn obstreperously, to collect together the scattered herd of swine, which, answering his call with notes equally melodious, made, however, no haste to remove themselves from the luxurious banquet of beech-mast and acorns on which they had fattened, or to forsake the marshy banks of the rivulet, where several of them, half plunged in mud, lay stretched at their ease, altogether regardless of the voice of their keeper. The curse of St. Withold upon them and upon me!' said Gurth; if the two-legged wolf snap not up some of them ere nightfall, I am no true man. Here, Fangs! Fangs!' he ejaculated at the top of his voice to a rugged wolfish-looking dog, a sort of lurcher, half mastiff, half greyhound, which ran limping about as if with a purpose of seconding his master in collecting the reftory grunters; but which, in fact, from misapprehension of the swineherd's signals, ignorance of his own duty, or malice prepense, only drove them hither and thither, and increased the evil which he seemed to design to remedy. A devil draw the teeth of him,' said Gurth, and the mother of mischief confound the ranger of the forest that cuts the fore-claws off our dogs, and makes them unfit for their trade !-Wamba, up and help me, an' thou be'est a man; take a turn round the back o' the hill to gain the wind on them; and when thou'st got the weathergage, thou mayst drive them before thee as gently as so many innocent lambs.'

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"Truly,' said Wamba, without stirring from the spot, 'I have consulted my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether of opinion that to carry my gay garments through these sloughs would be an act of unfriendship to my sovereign person and royal wardrobe: wherefore, Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their destiny,which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else

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