a school on the estate. Attached to a small gothic chapel, a five minutes' drive from the castle, stood a building in the same style, appropriated to the instruction of the children of the duke's tenantry. There were a hundred and thirty little creatures, from two years to five or six, and, like all infant schools, in these days of improved education, it was an interesting and affecting sight. The last one I had been in, was at Athens, and though I missed here the dark eyes and Grecian faces of the Ægean, I saw health and beauty, of a kind which stirred up more images of home, and promised, perhaps, more for the future. *

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"The number at the dinner-table of Gordon Castle was seldom less than thirty; but the company was continually varied by departures and arrivals. No sensation was made by either one or the other. A travelling-carriage dashed up to the door, was disburdened of its load, and drove round to the stables, and the question was seldom asked, 'Who is arrived?' You are sure to see at dinner-and an addition of half a dozen to the party, made no perceptible difference in anything. Leave-takings were managed in the same quiet way. Adieus were made to the duke and duchess, and to no one else, except he happened to encounter the parting guest upon the staircase, or were more than a common acquaintance. In short, in every way the gene of life seemed weeded out, and if unhappiness or ennui found its way into the castle, it was introduced in the sufferer's own bosom. For me, I gave myself up to enjoyment with an abandon I could not resist. With kindness and courtesy in every look, the luxurics and comforts of a

regal establishment at my freest disposal;/solitude when I pleased, company when I pleased, the whole visible horizon fenced in for the enjoyment of a household, of which I was a temporary portion, and no enemy except time and the gout, I felt as if I had been spirited into some castle of felicity, and had not come by the royal mail-coach at all."

This is one of the most perfect and graphic descriptions of English aristocratical life in the country, which was ever written. It is, indeed, on the highest and broadest scale, and is not to be equalled by every country gentleman; but in kind and in degree, the same character and spirit extend to all such life, and I have therefore taken the liberty of transcribing Mr. Willis's sketch as completely as my limits would admit. Nothing, were a volume written on the subject, could bring it more palpably and correctly before the mind of the reader; and I think that if there be a perfection in human life it is to be found, so far as all the goods of providence and the easy elegancies of society can make it so, in the rural life of the English nobility and gentry.

IN my last chapter I took a view of the variety given to rural life by the annual visit to town: but if a gentleman have no desire so to vary his existence; if he love the country too well to leave it at all, most plentiful are the resources which offer themselves for pleasantly speeding on the time. If he be attached merely to field sports, not a moment of the whole year but he may fill up with his peculiar enjoyment. Racing, hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, all offer themselves to his choice; and rural sports, as everyD 3

VOL. I.

thing else in English life, are so systematized; everything belonging to them is so exactly regulated; all their necessary implements and accessories, are brought to such an admirable pitch of perfection by the advancement of the arts, that the pleasures of the sportsman are rendered complete, and are diffused over every portion of the year. Field sports have long ceased to be followed in that rude and promiscuous manner which they were when forests overrun the greater part of Europe, and hunting was almost necessary to existence. Parties of hunters no longer go out with dogs of various kinds —greyhounds, hounds, spaniels, and terriers, (all in leash, as our ancestors frequently did, ready to slip them on any kind of game which might present itself, and with bows also ready to make more sure of their prey. We have no battues, such as are still to be found in some parts of the continent, and which used to be the common mode of hunting in the Highlands, when the beasts of a whole district were driven into a small space, and subjected to a promiscuous slaughter; a scene such as Taylor the water-poet, describes himself as witnessing in the Braes of Mar; nor such as those perpetrated by the King of Naples in Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia, in which he killed 5 bears, 1820 boars, 1950 deer, 1145 does, 1625 roe-bucks, 1121 rabbits, 13 wolves, 17 badgers, 16,354 hares, 354 foxes, 15,350 pheasants, and 12,335 partridges. Such scenes are not to be witnessed in this country. Every field sport is here become a science. Hunting, coursing, shooting, each has its own season, its welldefined bounds, its peculiar horses, dogs, and weapons. Our horses and dogs, by long and anxious attention

to the preservation of their specific characters, and to the improvement of their breed, are become preeminent, each in their own department. Our sporting nobility and gentry have not contented themselves with becoming thoroughly skilful in everything relating to field diversions; but have many of them communicated their knowledge through the press to their countrymen, and have thus furnished our libraries with more practical information of this kind than ever was possessed by any one country at any one time; and contributed to make these pursuits as effective, elegant, and attractive as possible. It is not my province to go into the details of any particular sports; for them I refer the reader to Daniel, Beckford, Col. Thornton, Sir John Sebright, Col. Hawker, Tom Oakleigh, Nimrod, and the sporting magazines. My business is to shew how gentlemen may and do spend their time in the country. And in the mere catalogue of out-of-door sports, are there not racing, hunting, coursing, shooting, angling? Hawking once was an elegant addition to this list; but that has nearly fallen into disuse in this country, and may be said to exist only in the practice of Sir John Sebright, and the grand falconer of England, the Duke of St. Albans. Archery too, once the great boast of our forests, and the constant attendant on the hunt, has, as a field exercise, followed hawking. It has of late years been revived and practised by the gentry as a graceful amusement, and an occasion for assembling together at certain periods in the country; but as an adjunct of the field sports it is past for ever. Racing, every one knows, is a matter of intense interest with a great portion of the nobility, gentry,