Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



I remember gammoning a frenchman and a stranger out of a shot at a 

 cock not very long after at Standstead. There was a big rabbiting shoot on, 

 and cocks were the only "feathers" allowable. Trenchy had marked a 

 cock into a strip of covert, and, with a friend, was pointing out the locality. 



" There's a ditch on either side," said I, " and the cock is sure to take to 

 one or the other. You take one ditch and your friend the other, and you'll 

 be sure to see him. I'll walk down the middle part, just for form's sake." 



We did so, and to our great surprise he got up in the middle, and I shot 

 him handsomely, which I am quite sure neither Prenchy nor his friend 

 would, as they were a brace of duffers of the worst sort. Like Leech's 

 other illustrious foreigner, I expect he would have liked to " wait till he 

 stop," before he let loose his lead at a woodcock. 



Some years ago — a goodish many — I met The O'Callaghan at the Cider 

 Cellars, in Mrs. Rhodes' time, when Douglas J^rrold, Albert Smith, Leech, 

 Alexander Lee, Morgan, John O'Connell, Chisholm Anstey, Sidney Cooper, 

 the Kenny s, and now and then the great " Book of Snobs " himself, and 

 fifty other well-known writers, critics, artists, and wits, did congregate 

 there. Ah, what days those were ! What pages I could fill with the 

 reminiscences of that time. There Douglas Jerrold said some of his 

 smartest things, and at the risk of being thought a babbler, I must recall 

 just one. There was present one evening an amateur critic, a gentleman who 

 talked consumedly, and, as is the wont of that sort of animal, fixed himself 

 on to the biggest professional one present, and Jerrold came in for the lion's 

 share of his attention. 



" My opinion about a five-act comedy, Mr. Jerrold, is that it's a mistake — 

 a mistake. No comedy should ever be in more than three acts. My opinion 

 about a farce, Mr. Jerrold, is so and so." At length he came to opera. 

 "My opinion of an opera now, Mr. Jerrold," — and Jerrold looked vicious, for 

 this was of all things the thing he liked least, perhaps, — " My opinion of an 

 opera is that grand choruses are a mistake. I never heard but one grand 

 chorus in my life, that, as I may say, carried me completely away." " I 

 wish to God somebody would sing it now," said Jerrold, in his surliest tones. 

 There were shrieks of laughter, in which, after a minute or two, the victim 

 joined. He had that grace. 



