ended, too, full of good promise for another season. The new stewards are the Marquis of Normanby and Mr. E. M. Mostyn. Better could not have been selected. The materiel of sport offers well also: the arena of its celebration will be as nearly perfect as anything can be expected on this side of Olympus. "LAST SCENE OF ALL!” ENGRAVED BY S. ALLEN, FROM A PAINTING BY H. ALKEN. "High waving the brush, with pleasure half mad, Roaring out- Yoicks! have at 'em we've killed, my lad!" See the huntsman once more in the midst of his hounds." Search the world over, and you will not find so pure a sport in any or every particular, from find to finish, as fox-hunting-a sport we "love but for itself alone." True, unalloyed, health-giving, carebanishing pleasure, practised without one selfish motive, without a hope or a thought of pocket or pot-hunting. And now confining ourselves to Old England, can we venture to say as much for any other leading pastime, in which anything like equal excitement, not to go beyond that, is created? Will the book-making, double-dealing, unnaturally heightened anxiety of the race-course bear the scrutiny? Has not the thought of what a glorious figure the leviathan he is trying to land will make when he opens his basket on returning home, a place in the beating heart of friend Piscator? Is pride a feeling quite unknown to the dead shot, as he starts his forty brace of grouse on the Fourteenth of August to his many friends in the south? Or-or-or (shame that such things are; pity 'tis they're true) can it be with any regard to pounds, shillings, and pence that so great a majority find their way to his fishmonger in Piccadilly? Has the Prize Cup no charms in the eye of the Royal Thames Yachtman, or are the Gold Couples and Goblet of no consideration to Messrs. Graham, Goodlake and Co. ? Yes, in nearly all sports, as in business, men will look forward to something "by way of return:" from the turfite who counts his thousands in expectation when he sees his favourite on the rise, to the fly-fisher who calculates his fives and tens on the same plan, when he sees a rise at his favourite; from the "first oars" who sports his medal and modesty, to the cricketer who takes his laurels out in "grub and bub" at the cost of the vanquished, we have them all with similar views towards the finale: i. e., something to carry home, no matter whether it be taken in pounds sterling or in "the pound of flesh." Even the merry harriers are constantly associated with the virtues of currant jelly, as tried on a well-roasted, well hunted hare; and the follower of the fox stands consequently as the only exception to this first catching-and-then-cooking kind of diversion. A good run, certainly, like a good tragedy, is scarcely complete without blood; but, then, there is no motive or wish in this beyond a glorious wind-up to a glorious day's sport; no undercurrent considerations of saving dinners or making presents, or showing off in silver and gold with the produce of flood and field. At the very farthest the master or leading man, or, as often as not, a tailing-man, a lady fair, or a parvus Iulus, will carry home the brush or a pad, and Old Skirmisher, as his wont, the head of the hero who, like the man in ancient Rome, has given up his life for the good of his countrymen. Under almost any circumstances we quite agree with the far-famed Chichester Butcher, that an affirmative answer to the "Did you kill him?" is of no little import in settling the character of a good run with foxhounds. Let the scurry be ever so fast, or over ever so fine a country, let horses and hounds behave ever so well, it requires blood fairly earned and fairly run into to fix the stamp of the "short, sharp, and decisive," which in modern times is generally allowed to embody the beauties of this premier sport. We scarcely know anything more unsatisfactory or annoying than, after having come well along with your fox for, say, the best part of an hour, the result proclaims that he has done you. "We lost him: came to a sudden, unlooked-for, inexplicable stop in the midst of this capital burst; tried forward, tried back, first rode to this holloa, then to that; touched on him, as we thought, once or twice in series of small covers; roused three fresh foxes, and after being telegraphed back once more to a man at plough who had seen what he could almost swear was a fox about an hour and a half ago, gave it up in despair.” There now, if such a finale as this, by no means an uncommon one, won't take the varnish off what in courtesy be called a good thing with hounds, we confess to being rather puzzled to explain what would. The hanging and dawdling about from this enclosure to that, the gate-opening, cigar-lighting, stand-at-ease sort of work to which you are so quickly brought down; the listless, can't-make-it-out looks of the old hounds as they "get on" from one wide cast to a wider-these little ingredients of a check can only embitter by comparison the recollections of the first part-the clipper you were just about to enjoy, the pace at which you flew over the grass, and the determined style in which every hound in the pack went turn for turn and stride for stride with the gallant-hearted villain who struck out a line as straight as an arrow, and gave every hope of his intention to keep it. When a fox well-found and well-warmed is only half-killed or accounted for in this wise; when, with the steam once well up, you are allowed to cool down again after this fashion; and when at length, despite all your faith in fortune's favour and Will's headpiece, the latter strikes his colours, "calls over his company," and accepts the young farmer's offer to show them the nearest way home -then, we say, then a man might perhaps be pardoned for taking his place in the start for the Lark back, or, in venturing an opinion on the correctness of the first-flight Meltonia's notions who declared that hunting really would be fine fun, if one could only get those infernal hounds out of the way. We have set out with showing that the death of the fox, however much to be desired as the end and aim of a day's sport, carries no interested or mercenary motives with it; and on many other heads as well as this the who-whoop, we think, will be found to stand equally high. Limiting ourselves to the chase, there can scarcely be a more tame, if not, indeed, unsportsmanlike exhibition than the turnout and turn-in again of the stag-in medias res, may be all very well, but "the take" especially-that bottling up to live to run another day, another week, or another season, does play the very deuce with anything of that wild enthusiasm which poets always sing of, and practitioners sometimes feel; destroys the illusion quite entirely, in fact, making a tip-top sawyer feel so much like "the riding gentlemen" at Astley's, or forcing out considerations as to whether he couldn't enjoy much the same kind of thing cheaper and nearer business in a home made run, three times round and a distance, over Jackson's Hunting Ground. With the hare again, as our pastors and masters repeat to those sad scamps of fellows who prefer smoking to ciphering, and taking pleasure to taking pains, are we 66 sure to come to a bad end." Here, indeed, when one acknowledges the shrill piteous shriek of poor, innocent, unoffending puss, we would have the stag-hunting, stag-housing plan in full force, and good Sir Roger's system, as described by The Spectator, preserved as scrupulously and as duly reverenced up to this day as Beckford's thoughts or Meynell's deeds. But with the fox-that deep, designing, prowling, plundering, house-breaking, murderous rascal, bold Reynard the fox, it is quite another thing. We neither quarrel with custom for saving his life, nor with ourselves for not doing so: we should think not indeed: a quick-witted, quick-footed thief, up to every move for making his way into a preserve, or out of it over the open; and known to be guilty of more crimes than the biggest poacher or the best lawyer in the whole county. Who, too, has despoiled over and over again-at least, so the farmers' wives will say at the close of a season-so many good ladies of their fowls; and what we are sorry to say is sometimes considered quite as heinous an offence so many good gentlemen of their pheasants. Save him, indeed! why it is an absolute duty we owe to our neighbours, our pockets, and ourselves, to give him "a duster;" and so, as here we have him all draggled and out-generalled with sixteen couple of hounds, every one at him and on him-Who-whoop! once more say we, as "Master Merriman" turns him over and over, and all but drops him again as poor foxy, game to the last, fixes every tooth he has in his head through and through that of his aggressor; but still, poor devil! it is terrific long odds against him; and as Challenger, Concubine, Dreadnought, Valentine, and a whole host of others join * Far be from us to in any way attempt to disparage this perfect little establishment, one of the most complete and useful in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and which combines health and exercise with the acquirement of an art that every gentleman should be well versed in, and that the majority of our fair friends might profit by pursuing. |