LORD EVERGREEN 211 



phraseology — "dogs" is a term not allowed in speaking of 

 hounds. However, never mind, he is a pleasant poet, and we 

 forgive him. 



The nobleman now entering the field is a minister — one of 

 the Cabinet and Lord Lieutenant of the county. He seeks 

 relaxation from the toils of office by a run down into his 

 native county. Last night's mail train brought him down, 

 to-morrow night's train takes him up. He is going to enjoy a 

 stolen pleasure. Lord Evergreen has been a sportsman from 

 his youth, and neither age, cares, nor the trammels of office 

 can deaden the feeling within him. Deaden it, forsooth ! they 

 are more likely to cherish it — to increase it. 



What so likely on a mild February morning, when mistaken 

 birds are warbling their premature notes in St. James's or the 

 Green Park, and sprouting shrubs are opening their silly buds 

 — what so likely to awaken the victim of red boxes and 

 Downing Street to the delights of the real country, as the too 

 palpable imitation and efforts of nature in town. 



We are quite certain that the parties who enjoy hunting 

 most are those who cannot command an unlimited quantity of 

 it. The regular five-days-a-week-man looks to the sport and 

 the sport only ; whereas those who only get it by fits and 

 starts — those who exchange the unsporting, unnatural cere- 

 ments of brick and mortar for the broad open enjoyment of 

 unrestricted, unadulterated country — are the people that get 

 the " sermons out of stones," and good out of everything. 



Let people talk as they will of the wild tractable scenery 

 of St. James's or the Regent's Park, the forest-like glades of 

 Kensington Gardens, or the open breadth of Hyde Park, 

 " still, still," as Sterne says, " it is not country," and we 

 cannot divest ourselves of the idea of omnibuses, chimney-pots, 

 and cabbage gardens in the distance. 



But away from London, away from its toils, away from its 

 cramping narrowness, its coldness, its stiff calculating formali- 



