her-the sound of their panting is never out of her ears, and allows her not the pause of a moment for a hope of deliverance. An idea may be formed of the success with which the little animal exerts herself in this desperate conflict, from the fact, that in a whole day's coursing, at which I was present, with twelve couple of dogs, each couple of which had, at least, one fair course, only three hares were killed.

The greyhounds have no notion of stopping at the cover when they see the hare enter; but, still confident in their legs, keep sweeping on, till the continued non-appearance of their game checks their spirit, when they stand staring about them in a stupid puzzle, as if wondering how they should possibly have been left behind. Though quite without resource, they will stand for a long time before they give up all hope, in defiance of whistling and hallooing; till at last, with many a lingering look they drag themselves away, and return at a snail's space, dispirited and abashed, to their keepers. There are greyhounds who are criminal enough, when the hare is put up, not to follow her, but to repair with all haste at once to her cover, and there wait to receive her. This is called "running cunning," and is not considered fair play-fair enough, perhaps, as between the dogs and the hare, but a direct fraud against the amusement of the sports

men.

Coursing altogether is but a dull business. The actual run is a scene of very anxious interest; but the want of variety and continuous action in the sport makes it very tiresome to those who have followed the harriers or the fox-hounds. There is not exercise enough to keep the blood in motion: the game lies entirely between the dogs and the hare, stripped of the great attraction of all hunting-the competition of horses and riders. I have seen the sport in some perfection too; our downs having been visited the other day by a grand party from London, profound breeders, who came down with a cartload of dogs, on purpose to prove to us that we in the country here know nothing about a greyhound. Willing to reap all sorts of profit from their dogs, they "backed" them with cer

and,

tain sums against any booby mongrels that we could bring against them. The farmers, however, with all their inexperience, contrived to win all the money. The dogs of the Londoners, not to bear malice, were of a fine breed, and in the highest condition; but being accustomed to run in a level country, they could not contend against our long hills, and the vigour and activity of the hares bred upon them. These persons are looked upon in the country rather in the light of dog-fanciers than sportsmen. Their half-crown bets are very town-bred, and betray a spirit that has nothing to do with the true inspiration of the field. They had one individual with them, whom I cannot refrain from mentioning a little more at length-a Cockney all over-who was present at a hunt, on this occasion, for the first time in his life. I shall never forget him, I hope. His dress was charmingly characteristical, without other introduction, expounded him to every one in a moment. The day was bitterly cold; and all of us, save this stranger, were buttoned up to the chins in good fearnought drab coats, that effectually kept out the weather, and looked as if they did so. The appearance was altogether comfortable, and quite in season. The Cockney appeared in a green coat, puffed and puckered at the shoulders-very short, with the skirts pared away into a delicate swallow-tail, exposing more than his hips behind a slight linen waistcoat without buttons, or with only three or four, the space between the stomach and neck opening freely, to give egress to a flaunting frilltight, white, cotton breeches (I speak the bare truth)-kerseymere leggings-pumpish looking shoesand a fur cap. The costume surely was perfect. He was, as may be supposed, very speedily penetrated bone-deep by the cold, though, to do him justice, he made no complaint, except by the chattering of his teeth, and certain involuntary and St. Vitus-like movements that would be taking place now and then in various parts of his body. There was nothing very observable in his mode of riding, only that he turned his knees and toes out like a dancing master, by which act he had a

very loose, detached seat; and, as he made little use of his stirrups, was shot up to a prodigious height from his saddle, at every step of his horse-his white breeches appearing to descend and rebound in the manner of a piece of India rubber. Of course he was the general butt of the company, who all prepared, in the same jovial spirit, to make the most of the unexpected rarity that the chances of the morning had dropped amongst them. When the hare was put up, "Let the gentleman holla," they exclaimed-and forthwith he uttered a cry such as hound never heard: "Let the gentleman put her up," it was next proposed; and he proceeded to frighten away the hare, waving a pocket handkerchief, and crying, huish! huish! as an old woman repels a goose: "Let the gentleman ride-ride, sir, ride," and away he went-bump-bump-over the startled hills, all alone-followed only by shouts of laughter, himself the game -the view the whole hunt of the day. It was not long before he seemed to perceive that he was entertaining the lookers-on; and he bore his exposure with a cheerfulness and good-humour which richly deserved a warmer pair of breeches. He became, at length, quite altered by the cold: his face, which, for some time, had preserved a tolerable paleness, now turned to blue; he positively looked less, and was in a course, it seemed, of disappearing altogether: yet he was still warm of heart-manfully left his little coat unbuttoned, and kept his frill and toes out with as much formality as on his first appearance. When we had been out about five hours, the poor fellow came up to me with his watch in his hand, and, with a voice that could scarcely force its way through his stiffened lips, observed; "Half an hour's more sport, and then it will be dark." He wished me to understand that he regretted this approaching deliverance, which, in my judgment, very nearly concerned his life. I took no part, I beg to say, in the common conspiracy against him. I had my irresistible sense of his preposterousness, and many a rich smile at all his noodling ways; but I manifested no sign, I trust, that could in any way be offensive

to him. I had much talk with him; and, as I have exposed his weak points, I think it but fair to say that I found in him a great deal of intelligence, apart from any relation to his saddle, together with a kindness and urbanity (no uncommon qualities in Cockneyism, let them laugh at it as they please) which would have hesitated, I think, on any provocation, to have wounded the feelings of those who had been so merry at his expense. Even as a sportsman, he had qualities which might have redeemed him from contempt. I defend not his practice in putting up a hare; but there was no lack of spirit and moral courage in the man; and he proved it under a course of protracted suffering, which I truly believe would have daunted any or all of the ruddy, brawny, bull-headed persons, who, in their greater conceit and warmer coats, had laughed at him so unsparingly. He could have had no interest in the sport, except what it was his bitter fortune to be obliged to affect; he was a mere mark for ridicule and a piercing wind; yet I am convinced that he would have sat and perished in his saddle, rather than have uttered a murmur;—an instance of Cockney-heroism, which all Tooleystreet surely may be proud of.

FOX-HUNTING.

As a single pack of fox-hounds perform their regular rounds through the county, for the benefit of all subscribing 'squires, they of course visit us only in our turn; and according to the rarity of their appearance is the sensation that they produce. The news travels from farm to farm, a week beforehand; while contradictory reports take wing, published no one knows how, for the sole purpose, it should seem, of tormenting and trifling with the public anxiety. On the appointed day, the "earths" (certain holes in which the politic fox is prone to hide) are stopped; the shepherds have orders to keep their dogs in hand; the sheep, and suchvermin, are removed; and every preparation is made to give full effect to the coming achievement. By ten o'clock the downs are all alive; little detachments of horse are assembling from all points; some looming up in more than their just dimensions on the misty hills; others seen

only as dim specks, in the distance, and all streaming on towards headquarters. And there are the hounds there-something white, don't you see? glancing amongst the furze; and here come the huntsman and the whipper-in, in their scarlet coats and velvet caps; Gad! but our poor farmers' hunt must not be talked of on this day-and hark! the horn:though that is an instrument of no manner of use; and as the huntsman applies it hastily to his mouth once or twice only in the day, to produce some miserable syncope-passage-a little asthmatic, broken, bleating; it has about as much melody as meaning in it.

The muster may amount to fifty horsemen, of whom twenty may be in red coats-the flower of the field, conspicuous alike for the gaudiness of their dress, the beauty and true hunter-look of their horses, and the completeness of all their appointments. A few, even among the gentlemen, do not affect scarlet, such as the apothecary and the parson, with two or three grey-headed Nimrods, who, though out of uniform, are not to be mistaken from any distance, being made out to be foxhunters, as soon as they are made out to be any thing. Next in rank come the farmers, a jolly set, all for straight-forward work, and "no nonsense;" lower down are a couple of butchers, beef-red, and blue-frocked; lower still an itinerant horse-dealer on his take-in; and last, and lowest, a stranger with a huge shawl-patterned neckcloth, whom nobody knows, whence he came, or what he can be ; a dubious figure, half jockey, half highwayman, mounted on his bit of blood, which can scarcely stand, you see, but which, he assures you, is "a devil to go." A rabble rout of people on foot serve to swell the numbers and noise.

An eye, not quite absorbed by the business of the day, may fall upon some rather grotesque figures, considered in their pretensions to the honours of the chase. I remember one, whom I used to regard with animated wonder, a portly piece of corpulency, whose diameters, from head to foot, and from back to front, must have been nearly equal-a round of beef on horseback. His cubical legs, which scarcely reached

below the flaps of his saddle, were made for any thing but clinging, and afforded no counter weight to the preponderating tonnage of his upper works; so that, at every movement and stop of his horse, he had a fearful proclivity to topple over-reminding me of those little cork tumblers with leaden heels, which will fall on their feet; only that this foxhunter was governed by a pollarity of his own, his tendency being to settle or gravitate on his head. Čontrasted with this spherical gentleman, you might see a lean, lathy figure-nothing but length,-growing up from his saddle like a May-pole, but kept firm by proportionate legs, straightened out like a pair of open compasses, and pegging him down to his stirrups. A horse might as well attempt to dislodge his skin as a rider of this make. There was another individual, whom I always (for he was a constant attendant) took peculiar interest in; an invalid too obviously, though full of the esprit de corps; wearing only one coat like his neighbours, and unconscious, I sincerely hope, that I counted the edges of four waistcoats beneath it. He was miserably crippled in one leg, and rode only with one stirrup; yet he trusted this ill-conditioned frame of his on a most alarming horse, that looked as if just taken up from a winter's riot on a common. The attendance of a person like this, speaks much for the attractions of hunting: if such a one can find his morning's account in it, what must it be to the strong and healthy?

When the fox-hounds pay us a visit, we generally meet at the same place, Firle Hill, the loftiest land in this part of Sussex, and very favourable to the scenery of the hunt, in the command which it gives of a magnificent prospect over nearly the whole county. At the bottom of this hill, which is almost as steep as a wall, is a young plantation, the favourite retreat of the fox, and into this the hounds are let loose, and left, with the co-operation of the huntsman and the whipper-in, to ferret him out, while the gentlemen stand aloof and look on. This is the most picturesque scene of the whole hunt; an artist would go no farther. The horsemen are scattered in groups along the edge of the hill, of all co

lours and conditions; some lolling in their saddles, and out of their stirrups; others pacing about on foot; with here and there a figure, studying attitude as well as ease, one leg crossing the other and resting on the toe, and one arm encircling the neck of his horse, just as we see it at the Exhibition in Somerset House; not to forget the horses, the patient hacks of the farmers, face to face, dozing and nodding, and the hunters of mettle pawing and prancing, or showing off their noble forms like statues against the sky. While these easy and social parties are gossiping on the hill-top, news of the business that is going on below reaches the ear from time to time, in the baying of the dogs, and the cheering of the huntsman; every sound, as it strikes against the hollowed front of the hill, swelling out into a loud report, which penetrates far and wide into the unseen recesses of the wood, and conveys a notion of savage loneliness and vacancy. This part of the sport is often rather tediously protracted, if tediousness can be imputed to two hours of total inactivity, which must be sometimes endured, before the fox can be dislodged from his cover. Perfectly alive to the perils which await him without, his slyship, though he may occasionally show himself to reconnoitre, has no notion of travelling, as long as he has a stratagem left, which can

secure

him the reprieve of a minute at home. At length, baited and worried out of all his cunning and corners, he comes forth in earnest, and fairly trusts his life to his legs. The fox is a beautiful animal, though he certainly carries about him, in his figure, and in all his gestures and motions, very marked signs of that lax morality, that wiliness and treachery, which have gained him a name of infamy through the world. His long low body, with perfect stillness, and with no visible action proportioned to the actual swiftness of his pace, steals along the ground, like a thief as he is, to be hooted at, and hissed, and execrated, as he runs; and, finally, to die without pity, a just atonement to the sheepfold and the hen-roost.

As the fox breaks away, tally-ho! resounds through the air-tremendous warning, the last order-the

"England expects that every man will do his duty." If beating up the cover is the most picturesque scene of the hunt, this is its highest point of excitement-the instant of choaking, tremulous expectation, immediately before action-to be likened to nothing, as any fox-hunter will tell you, but the few moments that precede going into battle. The dismounted have vaulted into their saddles, the loungers have pulled up their bridles, and sent their legs to their quarters-all is ready-intensely ready--when the collected hounds, in full cry, come maddening up the hill, the scent breast-high before them-onward they go; and follows, like a thunder-clap, the wild, tumultuary charge-the brush or a broken neck-Tally-ho!

The

I have little more to say. business of the field has four hours of preparation for one of action; and even so it must be with my narrative. Of the fifty horsemen who joined in the first charge, about six, perhaps, may ride through the chase within sight of the dogs, whom it is their destiny to follow without stop or question; here are no short cuts, no calculation; "follow my leader is their law, over hill and hollow, through mud and water, brake and briar, with as little discrimination, on their part, as if they were moving at the mercy of the wind. Of the remainder of the company, two-thirds are in some ten minutes "thrown out," lost past help and hope; the rest survive a little longer; but, one after another, are lurched at last, though they may still continue to push on, under a sort of necessity of proceeding, and rewarded occasionally, if they have luck, by something like intelligence-a respectable report -so that they may sleep at night with a pretty near guess as to the part of the county that may have been the scene of the death. I have been supposing, that the fox runs gallantly twenty or thirty miles to his end; but he may happen, in no long time after starting, to "take earth," Anglicè, get into a hole, and put the huntsman to an hour's toil before he can be dug out, and induced to take air. Such a check gives the gentlemen behind time to rally and come up, and the business begins again. And this is fox-hunt