HIDING '!() llorXDS 37:{ 



These, however, are the men to breed from : " for who," says a very 

 old writer on hunting, "is so hkely to gain a rampart, or mount an 

 entrenchment, as he whose long practice hath been scaling the 

 fortifications of meadows and enclosures ? who so proper to manage 

 his horse with address and intrepidity in time of action, as he whose 

 trade and occupation are leaping over five-bar gates, hedges, and 

 stone walls ? Habit and experience qualify the fox-hunter for the 

 sap or for the storm , to unkennel or to pursue : long custom hath 

 made him acquainted svith all sorts of ground, with hills and valleys, 

 morasses and deserts, streights and precipices ; hath enabled him to 

 excel in march or forage, in ambush or surprise, in attack or retreat. 

 How common was it for champions like these to give terror to a 

 squadron, or to make lanes among legions of Frenchmen ! With what 

 health and vigour did they then return home to the arms of their 

 consorts ! What hopeful, rosy, jolly branches were seen round their 

 table ! What martial heroes, inheritors of their virtues and their 

 valour, did they leave to their country ! ' ' 



As the gallant sportsman to whom I have now ventured to allude 

 has just entered into the holy state of wedlock, some part of the 

 above extract rather aptly applies : and as he has selected a 

 daughter of the late Duke of Eichmond for his wife, I may be 

 allowed to observe, in the language of Nimrod, that the cross 'must 

 be a good one. 



" Age " (says the author of " Easselas ") " looks with anger on the 

 temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of 

 age ! " Nothing can be more true than this, and I once saw it 

 exemplified : — An old lady of my acquaintance was taking an airing 

 one day in her carriage, and, as the song says, " the hounds came 

 by in view." — "You were in luck, madam," said I to her in the 

 evening. "Yes," she replied, "I saw you all daring. Providence." 

 I could not help being struck with the remark, but ventured to tell 

 her ladyship that I was in hopes that " a Providence sat up aloft " 

 to keep w^atch for the life of a sportsman as well as for that of poor 

 Jack. When a man, however, is in the act of riding to hounds, and 

 determined to be with them, being hurt by a fall is only a secondary 

 consideration — the first being whether he may not lose his horse ; 

 for, as Tom Smith says, exclusive of being done for the day, there is 



