HINTS TO SPORTSMEN. 677 



Sweet, sweet bloom our bowpots, in balconies blowing ! 



Resplendent is Holborn, with bright gaslights starred ! 

 Oh ! dear is Cheapside, with its human tide flowing, 



And pensive the poplars in Monument-yard ! 



How soothing the hum of the busy crowd swarming, 

 Harmonious on Sunday the cry of " mack'rel !" 



With its musical falls, and its cadences charming, 

 And touching the tone of the deep dustman's bell ! 



What have you that we have not, sad sentimentalist ? 



We've Short's-gardens, Field-lane--aye, and Green-yards to range, 

 And compare all the creatures, of which you have sent a list, 



With our grasshopper gilt, on the Royal Exchange. 



But what are your roses and lilies, so sickly, 

 Your ague-ish fountains, that cracked poets love 



Your quivering aspens, and furze-bushes prickly, 

 Say, chopstick philosopher ! what do they prove ? 



Cease, then, somnambulist, cease your monotony ! 



'Twere pity, perchance, from your dreams to disturb ye ! 

 Still dose in your cottage, and stick to your botany ! 



Leave me at peace in my own rus in urbe ! 



Penzance. H. 



HINTS TO SPORTSMEN. 



BY CAPTAIN CRAM, H. P. R.H. M. 



I DETEST popping at partridges, and should consider it a disgrace 

 to gallop after even the most stinking fox that ever was cubbed : let 

 it stink ever so attractively to the sense of a British sportsman, it has 

 no charms for me. No ; I have been accustomed to a more extensive 

 field; I have hunted elephants and bagged buffaloes; my taste, 

 therefore, for such " small deer" as Britain boasts, has dwindled into 

 contempt. Time was, however, when I was a great man in the 

 " small way." Few could boast of more extrordinary leaps; and as 

 to bagging game it is no use to mince the matter I was a devil of a 

 shot ! I could relate some anecdotes of sporting in those days which 

 would amuse as well as astonish you, but my object is now to be 

 serious. 



During my experience in foreign countries I have been taught the 

 fallacy of many received rules in sporting, which are here followed 

 with implicit faith. As a sincere and general reformer I wish much 

 to alter all these, although I anticipate the difficulty ; for England is so 

 wedded to prejudices and old customs, that it is lucky for us our fore- 

 fathers did not practise walking upon their heads in a general way, or 



