Here, just at the close of the season, we introduce scene the fourth, in the drama of what "rural gentlemen term sport divine," depicting the most glorious period of the whole chase, the run, with hounds flying like pigeons over a most beautiful line, and a happy few in the full enjoyment of it prepared to go, to stand or fall, till horses, hounds, or reynard cry, "Hold, enough!" We have played a part in most British sports in our time; have stood our trifle on the Derby, and felt our heart throb pretty considerably at the chance of pocketing the long odds, as our chosen champion came one among the first round Tattenham corner-nay, to go beyond this, have hustled a cocktail, in humble imitation of a Newmarket star for a hunter's stake; have watched with no small anxiety an old favourite, entrusted, for the time, to the tender mercies of a professional "breakneck," clear or scramble through the awful impediments so laudably assigned as part of his task by a steeple-chase committee; have cheered on an old school-fellow to pull for (and, indeed, at some slight risk of) very life, in a deciding heat between the Leander and Cambridge; have run ourselves into the next thing to a fever to get up a score at cricket, and, in short, tried almost everything that there is or was to be had in the way of excitement and amusement for love or money, but on no occasion do we remember such a perfect abandonment to the scene,

"Such a state of delight far exceeding all bounds,"

one of

as when we have been fighting our way, best pace, over a country at the sterns of a crack pack of fox-hounds; and in saying this we know full well we are hazarding no original, no "first time of" broaching opinion, for with almost all sportsmen of all classes the feeling is the same. Ask the most enthusiastic disciple of Izaak Walton, provided only he has done the thing in proper style, and felt himself" us," not on a pony and in a plaid shooting-jacket, but with a hunter under him and a bit of pink a-top of him-ask him, we repeat, to speak out fairly, and say whether he ever experienced that ecstacy of delight and excitement in an encounter with a great wild salmon or a hard-pulling pike, which he has when, in good health and a good place, he joined with hand and heart the fox-hounds in full cry? Ask your brother, your cousin, or your uncle, from India, whether the danger and death of his first tiger, grand though it might have been, will bear any comparison with the first who-whoop he heard given over an English fox; could his first poke at a porker be mentioned in the same day with that day when he viewed him away from the bottom of Garston Gorse? Ask a "rale Irish jontlemon" whether he ever went to meet his "most intimate friend" at twelve paces with the gusto, that every day during the season he turns out to meet "the Blazers?" Hint to a Welchman, that Sir Watkin could be Sir Watkin without a pack of hounds in his kennel, and the spirit in himself to ride up to them, and one, two, three in the face, or the lie direct, is what you may reasonably expect in reply from the fiery ancient. Go to cannie Scotland, and see how Lord Kintore, Lord Rosslyn, Lord Elcho, and the Lord knows how many more, are respected as true Scots and true sportsmen. Mon

sieur Heaviswellè may not understand the joke of the thing, Don Splitposteroso and his Rosinante may not relish it, and Baron Deadslowenough, over on a visit to the castle from our friends in Germany, may shrug up his shoulders at the notion of such an amusement, but shew us-only point out to us the Englishman who dare sneer at the outbreak of applause with which we rise to drink "fox-hunting," with nine times nine, and "one cheer more."

Although the present time may not be exactly the most appropriate for offering any remarks on riding to hounds, the subject of our plate alone, we think, will warrant our throwing tongue a little under that head, trusting that such as already know full well how to do the trick will not quarrel with us for endeavouring to enlighten, as far as may be in our power, their less experienced or less confident companions of the chase. The three grand questions, then, to be considered in principio are these-Do you know the country? Do you know your horse? And third, last, and most important of all-Do you know your own mind?

Do you know the country?

This, to the dash-away dare-devil, well primed for a lark, or the clipping Meltonian well provided (with three horses out) for a run, may not appear a point of any great weight, their sole object and endeavours being to go where and with the hounds. It would, however, be astonishing to mark the difference in the performances of some men over their own country, and another which they had seldom or ever before attempted to cross. Let such a one on his favourite horse have to encounter the latter; let it be the same style of fencing and riding, as easy, or even easier than what he has left behind him, still the impression as to his abilities as a horseman and a pilot will be wonderfully lower in the land of strangers than the estimation he is held in for the same by friends and fellow countrymen in "our shire." The class of men likely to be affected by this change is your resident country gentleman, or sporting yeoman, just settling quietly down at an era ranging from thirty to forty, to a regular attendant on hounds twice or thrice a week, but with money matters and matrimony to steady him. Of course he must be at least a tolerably good and bold rider; for, otherwise, with a want of hand, heart, and seat, all countries must be very much the same: it is also equally necessary that he must be well mounted; promising young horses, half-made, or old stagers a little on the "have been," we not unusually find under the direction of such a steersman. Well, thus furnished in and out, how do we see him going to work under the more favourable circumstances, that is, on the "home circuit?" Why, from find to finish, he is riding, not away from the hounds; rarely, indeed, but in three minutes he might take a "senior optime" situation; still, all through, he is going to points, and his great wish evidently is to nurse or save both man and horse. At every turn he is anticipating the next, knows every weak place, every bog, gravel pit, ford, and "stopper" in the line, and is consequently fighting all through to come across or avoid one or the other. This now is the sportsman, the real practical sportsman, who observes, understands and enjoys the hunting, does no damage to the country or the pack; and, when the run is over, from

his knowledge of the sport and the localities, can give a far better description of it, than nine out of ten of those who have been doing their utmost all through to ride over the hounds or each other. Here we have him as "the squire" or our next-door neighbour; but behold him next week, a hundred and fifty miles farther north, south, east, or west, and if it was not for the clever brown horse, with the white heel, which you are ready to swear to, or the easy workmanlike seat of the man that you recognise as clearly and as quickly, you would lean to every doubt that might arise as to their identity. From custom he does not break away with the leading hounds; and what then does he do? Make for some nick of his own contrivance and conception, by which, in all probability, he will have the benefit of losing the pack and himself before he has travelled half a mile; join the descendants of Dick Turpin (this is too bad though, Dick could ride, but let it go with this proviso, that we don't father our sins on Harrison Ainsworth)-follow the sons of Turpin, the hard-riding, anti-jumping highwaymen, and get covered with mud instead of glory. Or, does he fix his eye on a member of something his own cut? Let him take the latter, and he may; in fact, it is his only chance. Yes, you gentlemen who do not know the country, but yet will, as they say at Ashdown Park, run cunning, just ask Boniface, when you take your horse in the morning, to name two or three of this sort that you may rely upon, and rely upon us when we say, you will not repent it. To the party, however, thus honoured, it is not invariably so pleasant: for instance, when the late Lord Derby hunted Surrey, all the Cockneys, from the moment of uncarting the deer, had "eyes right" on poor Jonathan the huntsman; and woe unto him! did Prosper make a mistake, for then, as sure as fate, some swell from Cornhill or Cheapside came over or on them. And now for number two.

Do you know your horse?

Lord bless us! but this is a secret worth knowing; and we really cannot remember ever having thoroughly enjoyed a day's sport, if not in possession of it. To know your nag's forte, and second him in it; to ram, jam, and cram at everything, or let him take his own time and place, just as the case may be; to hop in and out of the doubles one after another, or fly the timber; which will you-which can you take? These are awkward questions, only to be mastered by purls and perseverance; by levelling some hundred yards of the mansion house boundary, when you should have been landing, almost without an effort, into the fallows a little higher up; to find yourself comfortably cased in the ditch on "t'other side," with Jolly-boy on the top of you, from having left the fashion of attempting it all to him, instead of having been at him with hand and heel up to the very rising point; or, on the other hand, completely flabbergasting an old un, by rattling him at a stiff style, whereas, you are told after you are over (query-his head), that he must and will take his own time, or not take it at all. Then again, after leading on a new purchase, only seventy-five guineas, warranted sound and rising seven, after topping stone walls, laughing at timber, creeping queer places, and beating everything for speed, hugging yourself with delight at the sight of the willows, conscious that this is the Rubicon, the last sifting out, the

quietus complete of the remaining oi snobboi. Yoicks! There's old Bonny-lass in the middle of it, and Merryman, with a half-shake as he climbs the opposite bank, off again like a shot-Hurrah! it's eight yards if it is a foot. And now for the crowing deed of your new chesnut-bravely you send him at it, striding away like a very Eclipse, and clear

Halt!

"Holloa! Eh? What's the matter now? Why he's refused, actually refused, the first time to-day too. My good fellow, you can't mean that."

At it again, with more steel but less heart.

"No, if you plaze!"

:

"What! a second time? d--n it, Master Rufus, but this spoils all stop though, perhaps he's a fancy to take brooks at a stand; pretty good standing jump this; still here goes-come, come-now then-you'll be in in a minute-come up-confound you, just make

a

"Bless your eyes, Sur, it's not no manner o' use your a aggrawating yourself in that way, for there aint a mortal man upon airth as could get that brute over two fut of water."

"Indeed! how so? Pray, farmer, do you know anything of this horse?"

"Why, I should think I did too, when I bred him."

"You did? he came from Mr. Chizelem into my hands."

"Yes, yes, I knows that; Chizelem gave me two-and-thirty pounds for him a pervarse brute, when if 't warnt for that, he is honestly worth 99

There, that's enough. Reader, learn all you can from the man you hire, borrow or buy your horse, and find out the rest yourself; need we say on whom depends five-fifths of the whole, and when you have done this, when you do know your horse

Do you know your own mind?

Do you know, when you clap to him, whether you mean business or not? Do you know, when you find his head pointed straight for something considerable, whether you are going to give him another touch with the spur, have another flourish with your whip hand, and go manfully at it? or is there just the slightest hesitation, a faint idea that it looks worse the nearer you are to it that it would have been better, perhaps, had you shirked it altogether at first-that he might -you might even stop yet? Alas! your hand and heart act together, your horse too joins in, feels the doubt, the uncertainty, the half check in place of the rousing final stroke. Will he rise at all? He doesn't know, you don't know, neither does the man immediately in your wake

Crash!

"What an awful fall! Not the horse's fault, by G-d,' as Dick Bayzand said; neither are you hurt, I hope, though it would serve you right, too, for not knowing your own mind."

But what are we at?-precept for practice-never at a moment like this. Come along, come along-now we are going again "At High Pressure."

317

NOTITIA VENATICA.

BY R. T. VYNER, ESQ.

(Continued.)

According to the accounts given by various authorities, these laws were exceedingly severe; they have by degrees, however, been repealed; and, although the legislature has given protection to the preservers of deer, hares, pheasants, &c., the chase of the fox is alone. countenanced by sufferance, and supported by by-laws framed and acknowledged by the admirers of the sport. These laws refer chiefly to the lines of demarcation which divide one fox-hunting country from another; or, in other words, what covers a master of hounds shall enter to draw for a fox, without trespassing upon lands within the acknowledged boundary of the country hunted by another established pack of hounds, a transgression beyond which is considered by the hunting world dishonourable and unsportsman-like.

If a huntsman pursues his fox beyond his own country, he has a right to endeavour to kill him, even if he should enter a favourite cover of another hunt; if he goes to ground in a strange country, he may be bolted by a terrier, but not by digging, as no spade nor substitute for a spade must be used-in fact, the ground must not be broken; he may be washed out, in case of his going into a drain leading from a pond, where the water can be let into the drain by a sluice; he may be also bolted from a drain by inserting a lighted whisp of straw at one end of it. The "New Sporting Magazine" records an instance of a fox being bolted from a drain by a person blowing at one end of it the horn of the guard of a mail coach, which happened to come up at the time when the fox went to ground.*

A fox is a most nervous and timid animal, particularly when coming in contact with anything in the shape of an enemy; and I have known him bolted more than once in my life by ferrets.

It is well known that in this country the absolute and undisputed right in landed property extends " usque ad cœlum," and that a person is undoubtedly at liberty, by the law of the land, to do what he likes with his own; but, although by this enactment it is legally in his power to determine whom he shall permit to hunt his covers, the by-laws of fox-hunting have decided quite differently, as the right of drawing those covers would, without the least doubt, belong to that hunt which had, without interruption, been in the acknowledged habit of hunting that country, within the limits of which these covers might be situated. If it were not for this, what confusion would ensue! Upon every slight misunderstanding, or coldness between neighbouring gentlemen, there would be some pretence or other for allowing their covers to be drawn by another master of hounds; no acknowledged boundary would be kept up, and when the sportsmen left the kennel in the morning, it would be a matter of uncertainty

* Vide New Sport. Mag., vol. ii. p. 95.