NOTITIA VENATIOA. 171 



John Tliorokl's plautatioii. It Avas thought by many persons that 

 the houiuls must have changed here ; but the only fouuilatiou upon 

 which they could rest this opinion was the impossibility of a run so 

 severe and extensive being the exertion of a single fox. At Muston 

 plantation he was viewed thrice, and by most of the company ; and 

 it was easy to be seen that we had not then changed ; and as there 

 never was at any time the most trifling division of scent, and avc never 

 entered any cover whatever with the exception of the above-mentioned 

 plantation, it is certainly equally fair to presume that wo never did 

 change. It remains only to add, that during the three hours that the 

 hounds were running, they were supposed, on a moderate calculation, to 

 have run for thirty -five to thirty-eight miles ; and that they crossed, 

 during that period, through twenty lordships. Of the extraordinary fox 

 which they pm'sued we can only say, ' Semper honos, nomenque suum, 

 laudesqiie manehunt.^ " 



There is something to me always particularly melancholy in the 

 spring. As the close of the hunting season approaches it invariably 

 brings with it a train of gloomy ideas and reminiscences of by-gone 

 happy days, of the absence of friends who have taken their departure 

 until the revolving year brings winter round again, and perhaps never 

 more to return. Whether it is the consciousness of the departure of 

 life, or feelings imbibed from the soft Favoniau breath of spring, I 

 know not, which makes this period appear so depressing to the spirits, 

 and so pi'oduetive of a desire to reflect and morahzc, but there is un- 

 doubtedly something in the atmosphere of this season wliich is not to be 

 perceived during any other quarter of the year ; although the weather 

 is generally finer than in the previous months, and the new and beau- 

 teous livery with which nature is still in the act of adorning herself 

 seems to impart not only to the vegetable but also to the animal crea- 

 tion, a freshness and splendour which one might suppose woidd awaken 

 difterent ideas and feeUngs in the bosoija of man. 



As Ave ride along the sunny side of some lengthened and impenetrable 

 wood, listening to the monotonous and gloomy sound of the voice of the 

 whippex'-in, or the opening note of some distant hound challenging upon 

 a drag, or the line of a disturbed fox, every vision which rises up before 

 us, and every object upon which we allow the eye to dwell, seems to re- 

 mind us that May is not the season of the year for fox-hunting. The 

 shrill bleating of the helpless lambs as they start from the bank-side on 

 which they were basking, warns us of the danger of their situation. The 

 high notes of the thrush and the lengthened song of the blackbird seem 

 to mock us as we cheer the weU-knoAvn find. Even the modest prim- 

 rose, and the powerfxd scent of the violet, lend their assistance to 

 baflEle our attemjits to pursue our imseasonable amusement, and remind 

 us by their looks, if their voices are mute, that this must be recorded in 

 our jom-nal as the last day of the season. Even the honest farmer, as 

 we pass his homestead or the newly repaired gap — over Avhich he peers 

 with an indignant scowl — greets us Avith a very different expression, 

 both of countenance and voice, to what he did at Christmas ; and in- 

 stead of the accustomed smile and the proftered glass of his Avife's ale, 



