1823. On Hunting 253 to him. I had much talk with him; very loose, detached seat; and, as he made little use of his stirrups, was shot up to a prodigious height from his saddle, at every step of his horse-his white breeches appearing to descend and rebound in the manner of a piece of India rubber. Of course he was the general butt of the company, who all prepared, in the same jovial spirit, to make the most of the unexpected rarity that the chances of the morning had dropped amongst them. When the hare was put up, "Let the gentleman holla," they exclaimed-and forthwith he uttered a cry such as hound never heard: " Let the gentleman put her up," it was next proposed; and he proceeded to frighten away the hare, waving a pocket handkerchief, and crying, huish! huish! as an old woman repels a goose: "Let the gentleman ride-ride, sir, ride," and away he went-bump-bump-over the startled hills, all alone-followed only by shouts of laughter, himself the game -the view-the whole hunt of the day. It was not long before he seemed to perceive that he was entertaining the lookers-on; and he bore his exposure with a cheerfulness and good-humour which richly deserved a warmer pair of breeches. He became, at length, quite altered by the cold: his face, which, for some time, had preserved a tolerable paleness, now turned to blue; he positively looked less, and was in a course, it seemed, of disappearing altogether: yet he was still warm of heart-manfully left his little coat unbuttoned, and kept his frill and toes out with as much formality as on his first appearance. When we had been out about five hours, the poor fellow came up to me with his watch in his hand, and, with a voice that could scarcely force its way through his stiffened lips, observed; "Half an hour's more sport, and then it will be dark." He wished me to understand that he regretted this approaching deliverance, which, in my judgment, very nearly concerned his life. I took no part, I beg to say, in the common conspiracy against him. I had my irresistible sense of his preposterousness, and many a rich smile at all his noodling ways; but I manifested no sign, I trust, that could in any way be offensive As a single pack of fox-hounds perform their regular rounds through the county, for the benefit of all subscribing 'squires, they of course visit us only in our turn; and according to the rarity of their appearance is the sensation that they produce. The news travels from farm to farm, a week beforehand; while contradictory reports take wing, published no one knows how, for the sole purpose, it should seem, of tormenting and trifling with the public anxiety. On the appointed day, the "earths (certain holes in which the politic fox is prone to hide) are stopped; the shepherds have orders to keep their dogs in hand; the sheep, and such vermin, are removed; and every preparation is made to give full effect. to the coming achievement. By ten o'clock the downs are all alive; little detachments of horse are assembling from all points; some looming up in more than their just dimensions on the misty hills; others seen only as dim specks, in the distance, and all streaming on towards headquarters. And there are the hounds there-something white, don't you see? glancing amongst the furze; and here come the huntsman and the whipper-in, in their scarlet coats and velvet caps; Gad! but our poor farmers' hunt must not be talked of on this day-and hark! the horn:though that is an instrument of no manner of use; and as the huntsman applies it hastily to his mouth once or twice only in the day, to produce some miserable syncope-passage-a little asthmatic, broken, bleating; it has about as much melody as mean ing in it. The muster may amount to fifty horsemen, of whom twenty may be in red coats-the flower of the field, conspicuous alike for the gaudiness of their dress, the beauty and true hunter-look of their horses, and the completeness of all their appointments. A few, even among the gentlemen, do not affect scarlet, such as the apothecary and the parson, with two or three grey-headed Nimrods, who, though out of uniform, are not to be mistaken from any distance, being made out to be foxhunters, as soon as they are made out to be any thing. Next in rank come the farmers, a jolly set, all for straight-forward work, and "no nonsense;" lower down are a couple of butchers, beef-red, and blue-frocked; lower still an itinerant horse-dealer on his take-in; and last, and lowest, a stranger with a huge shawl-patterned neckcloth, whom nobody knows, whence he came, or what he can be ; a dubious figure, half jockey, half highwayman, mounted on his bit of blood, which can scarcely stand, you see, but which, he assures you, is a devil to go." A rabble rout of people on foot serve to swell the numbers and noise. An eye, not quite absorbed by the business of the day, may fall upon some rather grotesque figures, considered in their pretensions to the honours of the chase. I remember one, whom I used to regard with animated wonder, a portly piece of corpulency, whose diameters, from head to foot, and from back to front, must have been nearly equal-a round of beef on horseback. His cubical legs, which scarcely reached below the flaps of his saddle, were made for any thing but clinging, and afforded no counter weight to the preponderating tonnage of his upper works; so that, at every movement and stop of his horse, he had a fearful proclivity to topple over-reminding me of those little cork tumblers with leaden heels, which will fall on their feet; only that this foxhunter was governed by a pollarity of his own, his tendency being to settle or gravitate on his head. Čontrasted with this spherical gentleman, you might see a lean, lathy figure-nothing but length,-growing up from his saddle like a May-pole, but kept firm by proportionate legs, straightened out like a pair of open compasses, and pegging him down to his stirrups. A horse might as well attempt to dislodge his skin as a rider of this make. There was another individual, whom I always (for he was a constant attendant) took peculiar interest in; an invalid too obviously, though full of the esprit de corps; wearing only one coat like his neighbours, and unconscious, I sincerely hope, that I counted the edges of four waistcoats beneath it. He was miserably crippled in one leg, and rode only with one stirrup; yet he trusted this ill-conditioned frame of his on a most alarming horse, that looked as if just taken up from a winter's riot on a common. The attendance of a person like this, speaks much for the attractions of hunting: if such a one can find his morning's account in it, what must it be to the strong and healthy? When the fox-hounds pay us a visit, we generally meet at the same place, Firle Hill, the loftiest land in this part of Sussex, and very favourable to the scenery of the hunt, in the command which it gives of a magnificent prospect over nearly the whole county. At the bottom of this hill, which is almost as steep as a wall, is a young plantation, the favourite retreat of the fox, and into this the hounds are let loose, and left, with the co-operation of the huntsman and the whipper-in, to ferret him out, while the gentlemen stand aloof and look on. This is the most picturesque scene of the whole hunt; an artist would go no farther. The horsemen are scattered in groups along the edge of the hill, of all co lours and conditions; some lolling in their saddles, and out of their stirrups; others pacing about on foot; with here and there a figure, studying attitude as well as ease, one leg crossing the other and resting on the toe, and one arm encircling the neck of his horse, just as we see it at the Exhibition in Somerset House; not to forget the horses, the patient hacks of the farmers, face to face, dozing and nodding, and the hunters of mettle pawing and prancing, or showing off their noble forms like statues against the sky. While these easy and social parties are gossiping on the hill-top, news of the business that is going on below reaches the ear from time to time, in the baying of the dogs, and the cheering of the huntsman; every sound, as it strikes against the hollowed front of the hill, swelling out into a loud report, which penetrates far and wide into the unseen recesses of the wood, and conveys a notion of savage loneliness and vacancy. This part of the sport is often rather tediously protracted, if tediousness can be imputed to two hours of total inactivity, which must be sometimes endured, before the fox can be dislodged from his cover. Perfectly alive to the perils which await him without, his slyship, though he may occasionally show himself to reconnoitre, has no notion of travelling, as long as he has a stratagem left, which can secure him the reprieve of a minute at home. At length, baited and worried out of all his cunning and corners, he comes forth in earnest, and fairly trusts his life to his legs. The fox is a beautiful animal, though he certainly carries about him, in his figure, and in all his gestures and motions, very marked signs of that lax morality, that wiliness and treachery, which have gained him a name of infamy through the world. His long low body, with perfect stillness, and with no visible action proportioned to the actual swiftness of his pace, steals along the ground, like a thief as he is, to be hooted at, and hissed, and execrated, as he runs; and, finally, to die without pity, a just atonement to the sheepfold and the hen-roost. As the fox breaks away, tally-ho! resounds through the air-tremendous warning, the last order-the "England expects that every man will do his duty.” ́If beating up the cover is the most picturesque scene of the hunt, this is its highest point of excitement-the instant of choaking, tremulous expectation, immediately before action-to be likened to nothing, as any fox-hunter will tell you, but the few moments that precede going into battle. The dismounted have vaulted into their saddles, the loungers have pulled up their bridles, and sent their legs to their quarters-all is ready-intensely ready-when the collected hounds, in full cry, come maddening up the hill, the scent breast-high before them-onward they go; and follows, like a thunder-clap, the wild, tumultuary charge-the brush or a broken neck-Tally-ho! The I have little more to say. business of the field has four hours of preparation for one of action; and even so it must be with my narrative. Of the fifty horsemen who joined in the first charge, about six, perhaps, may ride through the chase within sight of the dogs, whom it is their destiny to follow without stop or question; here are no short cuts, no calculation; "follow my leader is their law, over hill and hollow, through mud and water, brake and briar, with as little discrimination, on their part, as if they were moving at the mercy of the wind. Of the remainder of the company, two-thirds are in some ten minutes "thrown out," lost past help and hope; the rest survive a little longer; but, one after another, are lurched at last, though they may still continue to push on, under a sort of necessity of proceeding, and rewarded occasionally, if they have luck, by something like intelligence-a respectable report -so that they may sleep at night with a pretty near guess as to the part of the county that may have been the scene of the death. I have been supposing, that the fox runs gallantly twenty or thirty miles to his end; but he may happen, in no long time after starting, to "take earth," Anglicè, get into a hole, and put the huntsman to an hour's toil before he can be dug out, and induced to take air. Such a check gives the gentlemen behind time to rally and come up, and the business begins again. And this is fox-hunt ing; in my estimation, not comparable, as an amusement, with harehunting, if company, and a friendly coalition of powers and purposes, with a full observation of the actions of the dogs and their game, be, as I take them to be, the agreeable circumstances of hunting. It is mere riding-post-boy's work. There is getting the brush indeed; but then, like the great prize in the lottery, only one can get it. I have the general voice against me. Fox-hunters despise the harriers; there is not speed enough with them, they say; and this is the true secret of their preference: there is no contest of riders-no room for horse-pride, the loftiest pride, I fancy, that is. In my account of these sports, I know not that I have made out any ground for the enthusiasm with which they are pursued. It is necessary, perhaps, to be present to understand this. At all events, as incidental to a morning's ride, hunting may be allowed to be a pleasing diversion. Every body must have felt sometimes the dulness of taking exercise only for its own sake: a hunt gives an object-something to follow; and for my part, with three or four bold fellows in company, I should not care if it were a pig. R. A. THE KING OF PERSIA'S FEMALE GUARDS. Every one has heard, or every one may have heard, that his Majesty the King of Persia has eight hundred wives, or ladies, in his harem, and that every other man in the country has as many as he can keep, and more than he can manage. European husbands, who have only one, and yet find it difficult enough at times to be masters in their own houses, can hardly imagine the straits their eastern brethren in matrimony are sometimes driven to by thus multiplying their domestic blessings. A man can with little propriety, in this country, talk of his rib, or his better half; he is the mere stem of a cluster of dates-a poor dry stick, surrounded and weighed down with rich ripe fruit. Yet he must endeavour to subdue the inveterate animosities of interested rivals, and contrive to preserve some order amidst the discordance of the divided wives of his bosom (peace and quiet he never hopes for). As this must absolutely be effected by his own exertions, it being indecent even to name his wife or wives to a neighbour, or to ask his advice or assistance under any circumstances; the science of managing one's own family has long been the favourite pursuit, and intricate study, of the most learned philosophers and able diplomatists. Many are the schemes, good and bad, to effect this great purpose, which have been proposed, adopted, and rejected in their turn. The last, and perhaps one of the best, is that devised, and at present actually practised, by the Moolah Alaverdi, of the Ibraim Mosque. It is concise, simple, and, as far as it goes, tolerably efficacious; but it is extremely limited in its action. It consists in hanging up a small whip, with a whistle attached, to the right hand door-post of the ladies' apartment. When the venerable Moolah enters, he unhooks his whip, and first gives a neat distinct whistle, which immediately assembles the ladies around him; as the pipe of the shepherd collects together his dispersed flock. He then lays the whip smartly over the back of the first, or head wife, and continues to apply a similar discipline to every one present, till each has received her portion, strictly observing the regular order of precedency and rank, and carefully avoiding all partiality, by giving out his whole strength to each blow. He has hitherto invariably found himself respected, loved, and obeyed at the conclusion of the ceremony by his affectionate and dutiful spouses. He now boasts of his method as infallible, asserts that his theory is now confirmed and established by experiment, and that this is the true and only way to manage a family. The Moolah, like many other men, is the devoted bigot of his own system, and blind to its imperfections as a general practice, or he must feel conscious, as any impartial observer does, that it never could be applied with 1823.7 any advantage in a large marriage This weighty enterprise has been his disobedient child with the rod. To these lady-ministers One of these trials, or courts-martial, (for the offender, it seems, was a military lady) has lately come to my own knowledge; how, I need not explain. I was always inquisitive, and liked to have a friend at court. As the proceedings are rather singular, and in some measure illustrate the interior economy of the royal household, they may not, altogether, be unacceptable to a European reader. I shall therefore transcribe them, de |