Western Railway, as the Birmingham is now called. For instance, Wilton and Crick-the cream of this strong country. It is all grass, and fenced in a style that requires a workman and a good nag to help him. This wide range of country of course affords choice of head-quarters of ample scope. Your very fast men, who want to be within reach of three or four packs of hounds six days in the week, are in the habit of patronising Market-Harborough, where they can command not only the Pytchley, but also the Quorn and the Atherstone, nearly at all times. The little town of Brixworth, where the kennel is situated, once upon a time was the resort of some of the best sportsmen that Northamptonshire has known. The little hostel of the Red Lion was the domicile of "the squire," where he showed them how fields were won in the palmy days of his career. Northampton is perhaps the best locality for placing hunters for their masters, now-a-days, it matters but little where they may choose to abide; and in especial cases does this liberty apply to those who select the Pytchley country as the scene of their woodcraft. It is in some sort a railway focus-the centre of a radius of lines, literally from all the ends of the earth. A meet of the Pytchley is within easy distance of Paris or Pekin. Once in a railway carriage, and it makes little difference whether the distance be computed by units, tens, hundreds, or thousands; only secure a train that is fast enough, and a fico for space! They are getting them up at any speed-from the "Parliamentary," as the Brighton direction have unsanctimoniously christened their slow and nasty, to the Express, which shoots you one county to another as if you were blown out of a mortar.

from

For the true lover of fox-hunting as a true old English sport, Northamptonshire abounds with legitimate attraction. The farmers are all men of substance, and almost without exception sportsmen. "They all keep hunters," says Nimrod; and if they can't ride themselves, they have sons that can ride for them." And they have an eye to business in those parts too. Mr. Vyner states that the kennels at Brixworth were built by the joint contributions of four gentlemen of fortune, which, with the paddocks and stables, give each of them a vote for the division of the county in which they are situated, while the greater part of their property lies in the other division.

Excellent, however, as it is in all natural qualities, Northamptonshire has had many discouragements. It has suffered vast vicissitudes of masters. About a quarter of a century ago it was hunted by the celebrated Mr. Musters (it might be too familiar to write him Jack), a pupil of the Socrates of the chase, Hugo Meynell. He was Mr. Osbaldeston's contemporary with the Quorn, the Squire succeeding him in the Pytchley. That was the period of Nimrod's tour, who scarcely speaks very favourably of the posture of affairs at the time. Speaking of the establishment, he says, "Few packs of foxhounds will bear a microscopic scrutiny Mr. Musters' certainly will not. The bitches are handsome and of a good stamp, but the dog-hounds are many of them past their prime, and, as a pack, not so sightly as they should be. A liberal draft is wanted, and a larger supply of three and four year old hounds is necessary for the work Mr. Musters' gives them."

I am not quite sure that the country was not occupied by some one between Squires Muster and Osbaldeston; but the latter had a long reign there-up to 1834, when he abdicated. The state of the public exchequer

was the cause of this resignation; the subscriptions, which had become small by degrees, finally settling down at some twelve hundred pounds per annum-too paltry a revenue to supply even the necessaries of life. The Squire offered to continue if properly supported; but none came forward, and so off he went. According to a writer in a sporting periodical, "Providence then did more for the country than it deserved, seeing the landowners would do so little for themselves, and found a successor in the person of a Welsh gentleman, Mr. Wilkins, M.P. for Radnorshire, a good sportsman, who had kept hounds for some years in his own country, but which"-that is to say, the hounds-"being unsuited for Northamptonshire, and Mr. Osbaldeston's hounds having passed into Mr. Harvey Combe's hands"-to be sure this is a mortal long-winded sentence" Mr. Wilkins reinforced his kennel with a considerable portion of Mr. Grantley Berkeley's pack. Indeed it was generally supposed that Mr. Berkeley had a share in the management. Mr. Wilkins got Jack Stevens from Mr. Osbaldeston for huntsman, and the hounds had very fair sport, all things considered; but at the end of the season the country was again vacant, Mr. Wilkins returning, with the pick of his hounds and horses, to Wales"-and Providence once more parting company with the Pytchley. It should seem that Mr. Wilkins went off for want of countenance. He was a stranger, and they took him in ; that was all. When taken in they left him to his fate, as the custom is in all similar cases. They left him to pay the people just what the people asked. No one cared to put him in the way of buying his corn a good pennyworth; nobody volunteered to cheapen his horse-flesh; no Samaritan counselled him who to trust or who to shun. They also left the subscription to look after itself, which consequently it did in the most unsatisfactory manner. In short, Mr. Wilkins made himself scarce very soon.

very expensive, to have a you, with the promise of But there are two sides People who at first pay

Now it's provoking, no doubt, besides being hunting establishment thrust, as it were, upon funds to carry it on, which are not forthcoming. to the medal in your subscription countries. cheerfully their quota to some scientific stranger who takes the management of the hounds, and comes among them with a vast prestige for kennel knowledge and brilliant field-practice, at length begin to find out, perhaps, that they are not only contributing to support a subscription pack of bow-wows, but a gentleman in difficulties also. Among the many refuges for the destitute that the astute discover in states of extreme civilization, not one has yet been found to answer the purposes of a man of enterprise and spirit so perfectly as farming a pack of hounds, living out of a hunting country." To be sure he has no sinecure of it. Very likely he has a committee to deal with, and then it's diamond cut diamond. The committee keep his nose to the grindingstone, and get all they can out of him for their tenants and tradesfolks, and the like he cajoles the members to their faces, laughs at them behind their backs, and the "country" goes to the wall. And it's to be feared there is no medium. Either the master of a pack of subscription fox-hounds makes a very good thing of it, or a very bad: the latter the rule, the former the exception.

or

(To be continued.)

THE HIGH-METTLED RACER.

PLATE VI.THE STEEPLE CHASE.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY J. F. HERRING, SEN.

The first fall of our Hero, according to the modern version so judiciously acknowledged by Mr. Herring, is by no means a startling one. The High-mettled Racer still retains the greater part of his dignity, still commands the unreserved services of a valet all his own, and can still swagger up to the Turf Hotel in all the pride of fine clothes and good feeding. It is in fact so facilis a descensus as to be almost imperceptible; and, indeed, we very much question whether some of our ramming, cramming friends would not be inclined to look on it as a bit of a rise. The race-horse, as a race-horse, may occasionally manage to totter through a struggle or two on the weakest of understandings; while for the long drops, deep ground, and welter weights, so serious an infirmity must at once condemn him. Again, the nervous, funking, flyaway, that on a fine flat, with fine flattering riding, may be coaxed all the way home, would shut up at the first thorough rousing "a queerish place" brought upon him. In short, the Master Cast-off of the training stable should, for the next appearance, double all his good qualities and forget all his bad ones; he has to carry nearly double the weight, go at least double the distance, chall nge for the pick of places at fence after fence, and then run a rattling set-to in with something as well bred as Eclipse, and as well ridden as Pyrrhus. And really now when we come to consider all this, we feel half afraid that we have misplaced the two scenes in our series, and made number six number five, and number five the six; the blood stock for sale, however, has a great tendency to reassure us, for right in the face of this greater need we have been speaking of, what is it that day after day attracts the eye, if not the attention? Why, if a gentleman has the misfortune to breed or buy a horse with a heart too small for his body, or a body too big for his legs-if he don't win a flat race because he can't bear the whip or the weight; if the T. Y. C. is a little too severe for him, or the two-mile course a little too long for him, mark how the unhappy owner essays to get out of it. As a matter of course he pens an advertisement to the effect that he has the best-bred horse in England for disposal; and then displaying an amiable discretion regarding any reference to the Calendar, as well as to the Stud-book, goes on to say that the lot would make a good stallion to go abroad, or be invaluable to any one in want of a steeple-chaser!

This, though, is an off-hand plan of reaching the next stage, that we ourselves, having nothing at present in the market, are not at all disposed to pursue; we shall the rather try to trace out in the wonderful alteration something of a way as well as a will. To this end, then, we will begin