THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 165 



few telegraphic signals, at difFerent points, added to a 

 knowledge of country ; by riding alongside leading- 

 hounds, lifting them on, without suffering them to feel 

 a scent, leaving the body to follow as they best can, 

 with the help of the whippers-in, and as many of the 

 field as may consider their utility established by the 

 acknowledged importance of their hunting whips ; by 

 clapping round to the opposite side of a covert through 

 which a fox has gone, in time to view him out, or per- 

 haps meet him, the sanguinary object may be fully 

 accomplished, and the scale of merit regulated by the 

 show of noses on the kennel door. But can any ani- 

 mals, possessing one tithe of the sagacity of foxhounds, 

 be expected to make an effort to do for themselves 

 what is always done for them ? — " Finis coronat opus," — 

 and it is true, that there is no finish comparable to a 

 good kill ; but the loss of a fox is infinitely preferable 

 to his murder, which forms no part of " the Noble Sci- 

 ence." Our fox, however, is worth a million of dead 

 ones — forward again to the chase. He was viewed on 

 yon hill amongst the haulm-cocks, toiling leisurely 

 along, not as yet " with faltering steps and slow/' but 

 with a measured gait, as though husbanding his re- 

 sources for the way before him. For one moment he 

 paused, and sate, with ears erect, listening to ascertain 

 the proximity of his foes ; one sidelong glance behind, 

 and onward, like a guilty thing, he moves — 



— '* Hah ! yet he flies, 



Nor yields to black despair." 



