564 Monthly Review of Literature. [[Nov. 



horses what is called a summer's grass, take them up again in August, and hunt 

 them in October or November. To think of getting a horse into prime condition — 

 that is, for hunting — in eight or ten weeks, seems to the writer, in the face of the 

 maker, absurd. As many months are required for racers, and what difference is 

 there now-a-days between hunters and racers ? As much speed is required in the 

 one as the other. Change has been as active in fox-hunting of late years as in 

 politics. Harriers now go the pace that fox-hounds did forty years back, and 

 fox-hounds that of grey-hounds. Horses must keep up with them, and must be 

 trained accordingly. Nimrod's book, as a piece of literature, fixed our attention 

 — it is written in a familiar, but still forcible style, by a perfect enthusiast, who 

 puts his whole soul into the subject. It is full of anecdote, deeply interesting to 

 amateurs, though to laymen, it must be allowed, they will appear dry facts, suffi- 

 ciently astounding, but utterly destitute of point — calculated only for a late din- 

 ner after a hard-day's run. 



Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, by W. V. Rose, Esq. 8 vols. 



Mr. Rose has at last completed his eternal Ariosto — occupying no less than 

 eight volumes of mortal versification ; and now it is completed, who will, or can, 

 read it ? Ariosto is stript of half his best and most agreeable associations, by 

 being torn from his native language. Mr. Rose has done all that could be done 

 for him in English, but all is not enough to make him attractive. The execution, 

 in itself, is correct, perhaps always — sometimes spirited, often felicitous, but 

 much, much too generally, dull, prosy, lingering, misty, rugged — for all which, 

 however, Ariosto is as much responsible as Mr. Rose. Take Avarice as a 

 specimen : — 



O execrable avarice ! O vile thirst 

 Of sordid gold ! it doth not me astound 

 So easily thou seizest soul, immersed 

 In baseness, or with other taint unsound ; 

 But that thy chain should bind, amidst the worst. 

 And that thy talon should strike down and wound 

 One that for loftiness of mind would be 

 Worthy all praise, if he avoided thee. 



Some earth and sea and heaven above us square, 

 Know Nature's causes, works, and properties ; 

 What her beginnings, what her endings are ; 

 And soar till Heaven is open to their eyes : 

 Yet have no steadier aim, no better care. 

 Stung by thy venom, than, in sordid wise. 

 To gather treasure : such their single scope, 

 Their every comfort, and their every hope. 



Armies by him are broken in his pride. 



And gates of warlike towns in triumph past ; 



The foremost he to breast the furious tide 



Of fearful battle ; to retire the last ; 



Yet cannot save himself from being stied 



Till death, in thy dark dungeon prisoned fast. 



Of others that would shine thou dimm'st the praise; 



Whom other studies, other arts would raise. 



The County of Leicester — The First of a Series of the Coitnties 

 OF England and Wales — by the Rev. I. Curtis, of Ashby de la 

 ZoucH. 

 This is incomparably the best county topography hitherto produced for gene- 

 ral purposes. It is at once brief and full. Not a line is lost in parading— nor 

 a space for a Une in the printing. The writer's purpose has been to condense 

 the greatest mass of information in the smallest compass, compatible with the 

 demands of a County Topography. The whole is comprised in less than 250 



