And my drinking bouts I'll bring to their close,
By a drain at this tankard of prime dog's-nose.'"

"Let Henry, till his lungs are spent,
Lectures give to Parliament,
Dealing out his leaden raps
On Steeple-chasing Handicaps;
Still may Strathmore duly strive
To keep the stirring game alive;
Though The Chandler's sun is set,
British Yeoman, Mason's pet,

With crush-weights contrives to cope;
Those who stood upon Vain Hope
Trusted to no broken reed;
Peter Simple and Proceed,
Faithless to their nomenclature,
Made a barter of their nature—
P. at fences turned right mulish,
P. S. made his foes look foolish,
With "Cunning-Tom" upon his back,
And half the tin of Beverlac, (3)

And oft with his owner 'neath high-pressure stress,
Gallantly cheeking The Holderness. (4)

"Then with more legitimate' glories,

I could fill full many a tome;

For as to turf contests there never were smarter

6

Since first Old Frank Buckle to wastes' was a martyr, From that day when Young Fernhill bowled over The

Tartar, (5)

How he proved there was life in the old horse yet.'

D

66

Where was the once champion Surplice?
Echo answers • Where !'
Clifden's fondest hopes have proved
Castles of thin air;

A second struggle now he'd rue,
In bandages with Canezou.

When once the spell was broken,
Admiring Yorkshire saw

The tartar' of Lord Eglinton

A rival to the

straw :'

Well might that Dutchman's owner

The first night of the meeting,
Declare he could live the distance and give
Each foe a stone and a beating.'

Nor the mention will I shirk
Of the high-bred Nunnykirk,

Though his long and dismal look
Made his fate no fast-sealed book,

But plain in his eye and his gait to be read
On the Derby morning at Leather-head,
Still each second-place and win
Rank him next to the Lady Evelyn.
Many a better bagged many a groat

Out of white-faced Vatican's brilliant coat;
Many bitterly swore as they dropped their money,
Beguiled by a taste for the Clifden honey;
And perchance to forget many others would fain
The black-jacket tricks of a Legerdemain, (9)
And wished from their hearts that the Saturday night
Of the trial had brought her young Ion to light;
While one and all roared when the bullock' of

Jacques

Made Belus pull up in a Produce Stakes

O'er Doncaster Moor, whose fast-setting sun
Rose again when the hurly burly was done. (10)

"Seldom did a trainer's hand

Strip the hood and loose the band
From such nags as lately we
Viewed cantering up each T.Y.C.;
Many a one Perquavi' spoke (11)
Behind white-stocking Bolingbroke,'
And thrice as many bit the mire,
Levelled by the Kentish fire.' (12)
Countess vanquished many a field,
Ne'er did Ghillie Callum yield
In the dance, though friends confess
He earned a prize for clumsiness ;
Those who love good thighs and joints
May carefully scan the Compass-points;
Harriot proved herself sound stuff,
Officious met with no rebuff,

And merrily carried the golden tassel
For the Waterloo Hero of Gordon Castle;
But once did the Italian grim

Disregard the call of Sim,

And the first son of Robert de Gorham (13)
At the chair got a leading position-

Like his namesake who flogged in a swimming
match

A salmon short of condition;

Impression too honoured her pea-green jacket,
Clincher and Bee-hunter stood in a bracket
In the closest race of the season;

The Eglinton shield through the thick of the fight
Was thrice gallantly borne by the Avenel Knight,
On his owner The Mildew inflicted no blight,
Nor did Sweetheart succumb without reason. (14)
"Now pr'ythee, Old Time, remember

My kindest regards to 'Fifty;

Bid him keep up the fun as I've always done,
Nor of open weather' be thrifty.

"Oh! would it were mine to behold,

When the gales are blowing a screamer,

Swells and their betters, jocks and their' sweaters,'

In a Mediterranean steamer.

"I can view them afore and aft,

When the retching is once got through,
The voyage to Cairo whiling with faro,
Or else with unlimited loo.

"On the morn of the race may the Pacha
Call the English nags 'precious Guys,'
But cash up at eve, and his feelings relieve
By remarks on his stud-groom's eyes.

"There's twelve! Hear my three last wishes

MAY VAN TROMP PROVE A TRUMP CARD TO KIRBY,

MAY BEE-HUNTER WIN THE ST. LEGER,

AND BOLINGBROKE COLLAR THe Derby."

(1.) Mr. Batson's residence is near these hills.

(2.) It is said that in old times " Oxford had the honour of burning the bishops

whom Cambridge had the honour of educating."

(3.) Old name for Beverley, where Peter Simple was trained.

(4.) Mr. Simpson is often seen riding Peter to these hounds.

(5.) At Northampton in the beginning of March.

(6.) In the Houghton Handicap, on the last day of the Newmarket Meetings. (7.) Mr. Payne parted with Collingwood dirt cheap.

(8). His defeat by Chanticleer for the Doncaster Cup of 1848.

(9.) Lord Stanley's colours are "black with white cap."

(10.) Every one who takes an interest in the permanent revival of Doncaster

races understands this allusion. Semi-franc's race against Belus will not be easily forgotten by the ring.

(11.) Old John Day's reading of " Peccavi."

(12.) The Kents trained six of the two-year-old cracks last season.

(13.) The Nigger.

(14.) He was dead amiss at Liverpool, and hardly up to the mark at Stockbridge.

COUNTRY PRACTICE.

BY GELERT.

No. I.

"Call," says the mighty Fingal, "call my dogs, the long bounding sons of the chase. Call white-breasted Bran and the surly strength of Luath. Blow the horn, that the joy of the chase may arise; that the deer may hear and start at the lake of With morning we awaked the woods, and hung forward on the path of the roes. They fell by their wonted streams

roes.

OSSIAN.-Fingal.

The man who is devoted to foxhunting, happily for himself, is rarely influenced by an equal devotion to politics. The healthier pursuit admits of no divided allegiance; so, in general, he gladly consigns to other hands the task and deep solicitude which are inseparable from a political career. Yet he must not suppose that either he or his favourite pastime are unaffected by the tendency of politics; though he take no share in the councils of state, nor lend himself to court intrigue ; though he hoist not his party banner, nor join in the political fray, yet are his interests as much at stake as if he were leading the debate at St. Stephen's, rather than a field of horsemen over the heathery surface of the wild Exmoor. The mariner himself guides the ship, but his fellowvoyagers are no less interested in her safety as she speeds o'er the vasty deep.

The following dialogue lately took place within the walls of a kennel that has held hounds for the best part of a century :

66

Tom," said a squire to his huntsman the day after thirty couple of puppies had reached his kennels, "Tom, there has been some grievous neglect in the management of these puppies. I never saw a worse lot come up from walk

"True, Sir: they a'nt what they used to be, nor ever will be again, unless some change for the better happens to the farmers. They're all in a mess together, and Mrs. Garland told me the other day that she feared those two puppies out of Niobe would be the last she should ever rear for your honour

"Did she? Then they must be serious times indeed, if Mrs. Garland, the most industrious and thriving of my tenants, could sound the alarm and speak thus. However, Tom, if you see her again, tell her, from me, that the prospects of agriculture may improve, and that, as every trade is liable to fluctuation, so she may yet see her produce bring a fair and remunerating price."

Tom touched his cap, but, with a gloomy look, shook his head and said "I'll tell her so, your honour, though I fear it won't be much good. Better prices, if they come at all, will come too late for a great many of them. The farmers are all down-hearted, and have every rea

son for being so. They've lost protection, and the foreigner is favoured by the loss; so they say all, sir; and I really believe the story is true.”

"I am grieved to say, Tom, it is too true. By this suicidal measure the foreigner alone is benefited; he derives all the advantage of free trade from us, and gives nothing in return. Were a liberal give-andtake system adopted throughout the world, the result might possibly be otherwise; but we cannot control nor legislate for other countries; so that now, without reciprocity, we are precisely in the position of a man who invariably puts a Queen's head upon his letters, but is called upon to pay double for those which he himself receives. I am no politician, Tom-a foxhunter seldom is—but I cannot shut my eyes to the lowering storm which threatens us on all sides, nor to the danger in which our good old ship is involved by the recklessness and mismanagement of those at the helm."

Tom, though a philanthropist in general, was especially so in reference to a portly, handsome-looking woman and five children, who depended on him for protection; and as his thoughts veered homeward, he looked up to the squire with a pensive, enquiring eye, and said, " Old George, the earthstopper, told me last night, sir, that many of the farmers intend carrying what little they've got into a foreign country, before they lose all; and I'm thinking if we cannot get those quarters again, our entry will come short for next season."

"Many more important things than the entry, Tom, depend upon the occupation of those farms. If the farmer fall, who shall stand? What will become of the landlord, the clergyman, the tradesman, and the labourer? Society is like an arch in which every stone is made to depend more or less on its neighbour, and the farmer is the keystone thereof displace it, and the building will tumble into ruins. No, Tom, the farmer must be upheld at any cost; he shall have my earnest support till we regain protection. In the mean time I'll drop my rents and give up my hounds."

Tom's expression of countenance was that of ghastly acquiescence and resignation to the will of his patron. He did not answer, for he knew enough of the squire's determination to be assured that what he had said he would indeed fulfil. On the first public day the announcement ran like wildfire throughout the country-"The squire gives up his hounds!"

Nevertheless, the wisdom of the squire's policy will be doubted by many. It will be said, and said truly, by those who are cognisant of the subject, that it would be difficult to point out a revenue which is more thoroughly diffused amongst the agricultural class than that which emanates from foxhunting. And as to lowering rents, the benefit resulting therefrom would extend only to the tenant farmer, therefore limited and incomprehensive in its object.

The following passage translated from " Xenophon's Treatise on Hunting," written 380 years before the Christian Era, may have escaped the squire's research, in his progress through Eton and the schools. The author spent the last few years of his life in hunting; built a magnificent temple to Diana; and died at the fine old age of 90.

He says:

"And our ancestors, too, knew that from this cause they prospered against their enemies, and they took on themselves a regard for the interests of the young men; for though originally they were scantily