COLONEL HAWKER'S BOOK. 79 



of old John, I see the backgammon box has not been for- 

 gotten. Come, shall we have a hit ; tie a fly ; cut card- 

 waddings ; play ecarte ; or listen to one of Antony's amatory 

 narratives, showing how a baron's lady left her liege lord 

 for a black- eyed page, and how a holy monk proved in the end 

 to be no better than he ought to be ? And we have books too ; 

 shall we speculate and star- gaze with Sir Humphry, or 

 paddle in a punt with Hawker, after ' blue-billed curres" 

 ' dun-birds and divers/ ' Tommy Loos and Isle of Wight 

 parsons ?' "* 



" Anything for me but Colonel Thornton ; for I am heart- 

 sick of Mrs. T and ' red-legged partridges/ " 



" I confess I would rather wade through the mud with 

 honest Philip, after all, than accompany the Colonel in his 

 researches for French estates, which he never had an in- 

 tention to purchase. I own that Hawker is in many things 

 exquisitely absurd, but he is amusing also, although in his 

 adaptation of matter his work does not precisely exhibit 

 the happiest specimen of good arrangement. See, for ex- 

 ample, page 136 ; here he recommends you to ' dine at one 

 o'clock/ * not to snore away the evening in concert with 

 your dog/ and admits that, ' if a man likes grog, he may 

 finish the evening with a bucket-full ;' assures you that soap 

 and water is ' the sovereignest thing on earth' for soiled 

 hands ; and that kid gloves are sold by Mr. Painter, No. 27, 

 Fleet-street ; concluding with the following valuable recipe : 



" ' If a person is extremely nervous from hearing the report 

 of his gun, or from the noise of the rising game, let him prime 

 his ears with cotton, and his inside with tincture of bark and 

 sal volatile.' 



" This fortification of the ears is, no doubt, an excellent 

 precaution for a cockney, and certainly less hazardous than 

 the aerial mode propounded by the Colonel for killing rabbits. 

 To perch in a tree, I think, would be a sufficient punishment ; 

 and what assistance a dog would render in the branches is 

 inconceivable. 



" What say you also to the association in one sentence, 

 of ' game, flies, rats, red- herrings, and corrosive sublimate ?'f 

 The information, further, that mercury will kill bugs, and a 

 nota^bene, warning the King's subjects against poison ; con- 



* Hawker, p. 177. f Ibid, p. 240. 



