52 KEMINISCENCES OF A SPOKTSMAN". 



ours was the best climate iu Europe, for that a gentle- 

 man might take exercise, either on horseback or on foot, 

 any day in the year. This I cannot admit, for certainly 

 this cannot be done without much discomfort, and on 

 some occasions not without risk. Torrents of rain fall 

 sometimes for twenty-four hours, and the gales of wind 

 from the south-west so violent as nearly to blow a man 

 off his horse, or even off his legs ; and we know from 

 accounts in the newspapers that travellers on foot in 

 the north perish in snow-storms or sometimes in drifts 

 of snow. These, I think, are sufficient proofs that King 

 Charles looked with too favourable an eye on the climate 

 of England. 



The sleepless nights which I passed before the com- 

 mencement of grouse and partridge shooting, I never 

 experienced on the last day of September. A month or 

 six weeks' previous shooting had to a certain extent 

 cooled my sporting ardour, and both men and dogs go 

 to their work with less excitement ; independently of 

 which, I think pheasant shooting is not thoroughly 

 enjoyable before the middle of November, when the 

 covers have been deprived of their foliage*, the brambles, 

 briars, and long grass probably subdued by the frost, 

 and walking less fatiguing for the sportsman in the low 

 fells of three or four years' growth ; although when the 

 woods have been shot in for some time you must make 

 up your mind to beat patiently the fells of ten or twelve 

 years" growth, into which the game then takes refuge. 



* " But see the fading many colonred woods. 



Shade deepening over shade, the country round 

 Imbrown ; a crowded umbrage, dark and dim, 

 Of every hue, from wan declining green 

 To sooty dark." — Thomsox. 



