SEPTEMBER. 267 



in nine cases out of ten it may even be unknown 

 to the man himself, yet it is hot the less true ; the 

 love of Nature, and the silent apprehension of her 

 beauty, is a freely-bestowed and far-spreading gift. 

 It lives in the least cultured heart, as the beautiful 

 wild-flower in the unploughed heath. It lives, often 

 a pleasant though unperceived guest. It spreads 

 the charm of its influence when its possessor has 

 not even a name for it; yet still it lives, and they 

 who cannot talk of it, yet feel it in its sweetness 

 and its power. The sportsman seldom analyses 

 his own feelings ; he cares not to inquire into the 

 causes of his taste and his gratification ; but those 

 causes exist in the secret of his heart, and he 

 follows their delightful impulse with joy. Ask a 

 sportsman if he be an admirer of nature, he has 

 perhaps never thought of the subject ; but the 

 moment he goes forth, he gives a practical testi- 

 mony of his attachment. Whither does he go? 

 To the free and fresh air, to the solitude of the 

 heath and the mountain, to dells and copses, where 

 his fine dogs plunge amid the red fern and the fading 

 leaves, and the pheasant, the partridge, the hare, 

 start forth in their wild beauty ; where the tall, dry 

 grass, and the autumnal tree fill the soul with their 

 richness to the clear and tinkling stream that 

 stretches on alternately through the bowery brake, 

 the obscurity of the wood, and the riant sunshine 

 of open fields. Is it merely the possession of his 

 game that delights him here ? The enthusiasm 

 with which he dwells on a sketch of Landseer's, 



