and, like myself, doing battle with the enemy. From him I learned some pleasant particulars of the "driver," into whose hands I was to entrust my safe conduct. "Misther Ryan," said my informant, "is intirely oncommon in respect of licker: bad luck to the bit, but he'll carry as much under his waiskit as would dhrown many a one who purtinds to dhrink. It was ounly last week that he dined wid the officers quartered at Longford, and, after seeing them one by one dhrop under the table, he warmed the wine that was in him wid two-andthirty tumblers of punch, and then walked comfortably home on his hands and knees."

With what a lavish prodigality has nature scattered her riches among the golden valleys that spread, in matchless luxuriance, over every district of this country! Yet here, where tree and shrub revel in beauty and fragrance-where the soft western shower sheds verdure on the hills, and clothes the teeming plains with primrose and violet-here is man to be seen in a state of moral and social debasement, without parallel in the civilized world! Such reflections are out of place here; but I cannot help them. My blood boils as I recal the condition in which I have looked upon my fellow creature in that unhappy land. Ireland! Ireland! think upon what your sons might be, and what they are! . . .

Instead of keeping the high road from Dublin to Sligo, and then taking the line of coast for Donegal, whither I was bound, I turned off at Longford for Granard, with the design of making my passage through the wild mountain ranges of Leitrim and Cavan. A more desolate region can hardly be conceived. I stood upon the battle field, where the latest effort was made to plant the lily of France in the land of the shamrock, and, far as eye could reach, all was one wilderness of moor and mountain. Neither tree, nor habitation fit for the abode of man, was to be seen; and when, from some burrow, behind a ditch, a human being did appear, it was in a guise that was a disgrace to a christian community. The district was very populous—indeed, so is the whole of Leitrim-and yet I was assured that, until within the five or six years preceding, there was not a bookseller's shop in the entire county. Wild and savage as the scene was, one of the marks of civilization had found its way there; the game was preserved with a rigour unknown to the most despotic of our battue promoters. It consisted solely of grouse and hares, but these, particularly the latter, swarmed in prodigious multitudes.

The "great man," for whose pleasure this care was undergone, was Viscount Forbes, heir to the Earl of Granard, both father and son since gathered to their ancestors. Our Viscount, like little Spado, in the play, though of minor physical pretensions, was a Leviathan in

soul; and, as regarded beasts and birds of venery, one whose system was a pure despotism. I had a notable sample of this when near to the mountain hamlet of Drumlish. My terrier had scampered on before the chaise, and returned with his tail between his legs-bristles erect, and similar evidences of something untoward in the wind. Half a mile further on, we overtook a strapping fellow with a gun on his shoulder, who, sans ceremonie, thus accosted me:-" You must keep your dog up, or you'll have him shot: my directions are to destroy all dogs found upon these roads, unless they are tied up." "Indeed!" said I, "and pray, friend, who may you happen to be, and whence do your truculent orders issue?" "I'm James Macdermot, keeper to Lord Forbes, and those are his lordship's instructions." I was weak enough to speak my sentiments thereon to Mr. Macdermot, who, very probably, as a commentary, gave coup de fusil to the first unlucky cur that fell in his path. As everything in Ireland is attributed, by one party or other, to political design, it may be that, to serve some purpose of church or state, the rural roads were suffered to be in the condition in which I found them. At all events, if the object were to interdict internal communication, human ingenuity could not have hit upon a plan so adapted to the end, as that upon which the by-ways were supposed to be constructed and repaired; which was in this wise-A landed proprietor, having certain dissolute tenants, in heavy arrear of rent, causes it to be discovered, that the means of passage, from one particular point on his estate to another, would be a great public convenience; forthwith a presentment is made at the assizes, and as each grand juror supports the jobs of the whole (that his own little affairs may be treated with similar courtesy), the question passes 66 nem. con." Now as the formation of the road is left to the conscience of "certain dissolute parties" as aforesaid, its construction at all is problematical :-that it is of the worst possible description, is matter of course. This is no affair, however, of the landed proprietor—his object being to get an affidavit that the work is done and completed, and in that he is not disappointed. The affidavit, backed by the overseer (the "driver," or bailiff of the estate), is laid before the grand inquest, and an order for the amount duly issues. This the landlord presents to his friend, the treasurer of the county, who pays it in cash, or by a bill at six months (for the treasurer being a great dealer in cattle, turns the county money to account at the Spring fairs) and such is the history of Irish ways and means.

The Granard postboy made but one stage of the six or seven and twenty Irish miles to Mohill, where chaises were among the things that were not; "but sure Paddy Hart had an elegant jaunting-car, would take my honour brave and soon to Drumshambo." From the

latter place they contrived to transport me to Drumkerin, a sort of Hottentot kraal, where I was obliged to heave to for provisions. There, in a wretched hovel, the solitary house of entertainment, I discovered a lieutenant of the line, and his pretty young English wife, who told me mine was the first form, in an entire suit of clothes (barring their own rank and file), they had seen for fifteen months. The Hibernian received me with his country's cordiality: the poor girl's eyes filled at the first sound of my voice, and as the accents of her father-land continued to fall upon her ear, I verily believe she had fallen upon the speaker's neck, but for the presence of monsieur le mari. As it was still some dozen miles to Manorhamilton, where I purposed passing the night, I took a more abrupt farewell of the exiles. than I could have wished. He was a frank spirited fellow-not overburdened with brains, but with just enough (considering the casket that contained them was surmounted by a plume of feathers) to turn the head of a girl of sixteen. I wonder was it the purple sunset that filled me with such tender musings as I journeyed towards Manorhamilton?

A few miles inland from the point where the counties of Donegal and Leitrim meet on the shore of the Atlantic, is Loch Melville, on the banks of which stood the seat of the friend whose invitation had led me so far west. The national "hundred thousand welcomes" hailed me ere the threshold was passed. "Mr. Marston," said the lady of the mansion, "you must lose no time at your toilette-we dine in half an hour-all the world and his wife are to be here in the evening."

Who talks of Irish prudery? Here, by the side of a solitary lake, in the wilds of Connaught, I witnessed as much done in sighs, glances, whispers, and the like, at one ball, as would have stocked May Fair for a season. "Le brave parmi les braves," in that Paphian siege, was the young and handsome Captain C, whose brother long held a distinguished position in the household of a royal duchess.

On the following morning, as I strolled by the lake, he overtook me, rod in hand: his spirits, if possible, more brilliant than on the preceding night. "I'm for an onslaught against the gillaroo trout," said he;" splendid fellows, as long as one's leg, and with gizzards as big as one's hat; but they're plaguy shy. By Jove, how lucky! here's a boat." Now this boat, bleached on the shore of the lake by twenty summer suns, was as much suited for navigation as a sieve. But remonstrance was vain. "There's no fear," said he, launching, and pushing off with the branch of a tree; "you'll see what sport I shall have." His eye beamed wildly-he was soon some distance from the shoreI watched him intently-when, quick as thought, his frail bark disappeared, and the waters closed over the young soldier for ever!

OBSERVATIONS, FROM PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE, ON OLD ENGLISH SPORTS.

THE FOREST, field, and rIVER; THE KENNEL, THE STABLE, AND THE GUN.

BY THE HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY, M.P.

(Continued from page 31.)

66

Old English Sports,"

PREVIOUS to the continuation of my paper on I will here, in passing, recommend to the public generally, a work which has recently appeared from the pen of R. T. Vyner, Esq., under the title of "Notitia Venatica, or a Treatise on Fox-hunting." There is much in this book, which, though I knew it before, I have never seen published in any work of a similar description; I cannot, however, agree in the unlimited praise which the author gives to the systems pursued by the late Mr. Ward, or in those recommended by Mr. Beckford; many of them are faulty in the extreme*. The anecdote which Mr. Vyner gives, also, in the last number of the REVIEW, as to the effect produced on the steadiness of Captain Barclay's hounds, by a "stuffed roe-deer on wheels," is, in my mind, void of any serious claim to consideration, for I am perfectly sure that, in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred, neither stuffed nor live animals, placed before hounds, while within reach of the whip, and not in action, would have any more effect in rendering them steady, than would placing an apple before a schoolboy, and holding a cane over his head, and forbidding him to eat it, have upon his inclination to an orchard, or love of fruit. The whip, as I have elsewhere stated, has very little to do in rendering hounds usefully steady. Example, and encouragement on the right scent, will effect more than a thousand lashes when on the wrong

Mr. Ward has been known to declare, that he liked to see a hound so heavy forward, that when once he put his head down, he could not get it up again, and also to give a gamekeeper a guinea to shoot the fox before his hounds, that they might have blood. This, with the fact of feeding the fast ones, with what he termed "stopping balls," and sending them out with their bellies full to choke, and be sick upon their food, that from physical inability to run, they should match, in pace, with the crippled, the slack, and the slow-cum multis aliis-speaks for itself, and offers a fair ground for disputing the value of such authority, when indiscriminately quoted. Even William Neverd, Mr. Ward's huntsman, as mentioned by Mr. Vyner in his late Treatise on Foxhunting, remarked, at the time, that it had been better for his master to have given the “ glow uns some "quicksilver balls," than to have stopped" the best hounds with

heavy food.

Mr. Vyner also shews that Mr. Beckford was obliged to seek information at his servants' hands, as to the best food for hounds, and how it should be dressed. Added to which, a reference to Mr. Beckford's work will shew that he gave countenance to most erroneous notions regarding the entry of hounds, as well as in other matters.

There is but one description of food on which a foxhound should live; and that is, kiln-dried, coarse, but genuine old oatmeal, boiled in an iron boiler for two hours, and put out to cool in wooden coolers. When cold, it should assume the substance of the thickest pudding; and when taken in the hand and examined, every grit in the meal should have expanded into a white jelly. If the grits have not done so, the meal has not been sufficiently boiled. Let masters of kennels test that fact themselves.

The meal, when made into this wholesome pudding, may then be mixed in the troughs, with soup, or water, and flesh, which flesh should have been dressed in another

boiler.

one. I have known packs of hounds at exercise, as demure among hares and deer as boys at school among girls or fruit, when walking two and two beneath the eye of observant ushers; but let these same hounds loose in a cover, when they know that the whip cannot reach them, and they will have their fun in spite of all the rating of their masters.

I will be bound to put down, in a kennel of foxhounds, a live fox, and let me have the assistance of the whippers-in, and my own hunting whip, not a hound shall touch that fox while we stand by. Leave those hounds to themselves, and they will at once indulge their natural propensities. A hound is just as sensible, and oftentimes more so, than his master, and he knows the time for riot as well as a human creature. He must be made steady by innate perception, and not through bodily fear. The whip is a useful adjunct when applied to a hound caught red mouthed in the fact, but in the way it is too often used, it becomes a great engine of mischief in the hands of very little men. Mr. Vyner deserves the thanks of all sportsmen, for the very matter-of-fact and well written work which he has offered to their notice, and though I have not had time to do so yet, I mean to look through every page, and promise myself pleasure from the perusal of his "Treatise upon Fox-hunting.

It is not generally known that the dog-fox, or parent of a litter of cubs, has any attachment to his offspring, but the fact was ascertained beyond a doubt, a few seasons since, at Berkeley Castle. Some cubs were laid down in a bank, and, ere the litter had shewn at the mouth of the earth, the old vixen was found dead. The servant who had charge of the foxes, wishing to ascertain the fact of the dog-fox caring for the cubs, as well as to observe whether the litter were of an age sufficient to take food, if brought them, ascended a tree to watch circumstances as they might transpire. From the station he had taken, he saw the old dog-fox come to pay his family a visit, go to the earth, call for the vixen fox, after his peculiar manner, and look disturbed and uneasy at not finding her. Having assured himself of her absence, at which he seemed puzzled and melancholy, the dog-fox visited the cubs, and then departed. He was not long absent, and when he returned he brought with him a rabbit, which he took into the earth, and from that time he regularly fed the litter, and reared them. Now it is supposed that there is an affinity between the natures of the dog and the fox, and it has been proved that they will breed together, but we know that the domestic dog cares nothing for a litter of puppies, that he is attached to no particular bitch, is erratic in his affections where the female is concerned, and that he would never be inclined to bring food to his infantine descendants. Here, then, a material difference is established in their respective natures.

On the last season of my hunting Bedfordshire, and on referring to my journal of sport, I find the following entry :-"Saturday, April 5, 1834. Fixture, Melchbourne. Found in Swineshead; no scent. Broke cover over the dry fallows, and could do nothing. We, however, carried the line back again towards the Kimbolton Woods; previously to our entering which, Mr. Fletcher met me with word from the Duke of Manchester's keeper, that there was a vixen there with a litter of cubs. Scarcely having a line of scent to mark our