HYDE MARSTON; OR, RECOLLECTIONS OF A SPORTSMAN'S LIFE. BY THE EDITOR. 66 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD.-THE CHINE." Fœcundi calices quem non fecere disertum ?-HORAT. Now by this hand, I swear, I scorn the term. ANCIENT PISTOL. Among the modern curiosities of literature likely to win popularity from its convenience and because of its uniqueness, would be a work of fiction constructed upon the principle of an encyclopædia. Surely life may be more naturally and effectively illustrated than by the crayon wielded against an hour of ennui, or the ruddle wherewith the desperate dauber smears out his existence. I would recommend some publisher of spirit to try the experiment, which is as simple as easy of execution. Assuming the work to be one purely of imagination, we will take it to be a volume of travels or biography. In either case it will consist of the usual ingredients: feasting, field sports, fashion, fustian, frolic, pleasure, pain, life, death, motion, and emotion. In the first place, O bibliopolist! feed us as beseemeth a Christian gentleman; let not the author, so often the guest of Duke Humphrey, prepare the bill of fare. We don't insist upon thy going to Gunter-Gunter has something better to do than to cater for the Muses; we forego a French artiste. Even let thy cook be of the feminine gender, but she must rank above plain roast and boiled; she must "understand made dishes;" have a soul capable of a salmi, and a genius soaring to a soufflet. Thus may the reader survive the feasts thy book shall set before him. Next thou wilt have to provide for the woodcraft-by the bow of Apollo a gigantic task! On a late occasion being desirous of a sound night's rest, we sent to the nearest circulating library for a narcotic. The manager of the dispensary could not have prescribed better had he analysed our constitution: he sent "The Young Duke." This is a novel of fashionable life, by Benjamin D'Israeli, Esq., the younger, member of Parliament. Opening it at hazard, as our wont is, we alighted upon the hero at Doncaster, and read as follows: "It rained all night, yet the morrow was serene, nevertheless the odds had shifted. On the evening they had not been more than two to one against the first favourite, the Duke of St. James's ch. c.Sanspareil by Ne Plus Ultra; while they were five to one against the second favourite, Mr. Dash's gr. c. The Dandy, by Banker. This morning, however, affairs were altered; Dandy was at the head of the poll, and as the owner rode his own horse, his backers were sanguine. There were more than NINETY horses, and yet the start was fair!!" The Duke of St. James loses 25,000l. on the raceis bored, and goes to a friend's country seat to muse upon his ladylove. Again Mr. D'Israeli loquitur "For a young gentleman to lie awake on a summer morning, and with his eyes and shutters alike unclosed, to pass six or eight hours in this manner, will to some people, perhaps, appear impossible. I must up,' said the young Duke; damnable delusion; to-morrow I will get up and hunt.' His heart was full, his hopes were sweet, his fate pledged on a die; music rose upon the air; some huntsmen were practising their horns." Spirit of Corbett, of Sundorn, and eke of Forester of Willy, there sitteth a senator for the borough of Salop, who supposeth that gentlemen ride their own horses for the Leger, and go forth a-hunting on summer mornings to the music of the huntsmen's horns!!! Fashion-whether taste or style is understood by the term-will need that great care be bestowed upon the choice of the samples. While it is safest that the simplex munditiis regulate the menage of a gentleman as well as his costume, he must never become the slave of custom or that over-simplicity which is either the offspring of mauvaise honte or affectation: the man of true fashion adopts the maxim that "Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas." On the matter of fustian I need not trouble the publisher, as therein the patient can best minister to himself. Frolic is out of date; pleasure every man contriveth for himself; pain-Beelzebub for us all. Life and death are issues upon which opinion is considerably divided, and there will be a difficulty in treating them so as to suit every palate. Perhaps a little novelty in their discussion might be an interesting feature; something after the manner of Carlyle's rigmarole on man's nature, in his "Hero Worship," for example, would be out of the common, at all events. Motion and emotion will impose on you no trouble: go to the new Patent Atmospheric Pressuremillion-tons-an-inch-thousand-miles-an-hour Company for the first; give your apprentice a month's run of the Victoria, and he'll supply you with any quantity of the latter. The Thus might the bookmonger contrive to have a volume compounded, in which there should be some peculiarities distinguishing his mariners from his men-milliners, his English squires from Italian gentlemen of the third sex. Inasmuch as incident is the consequence of character, it stands towards in the relation of effect to cause. reader will therefore understand to what intent he who thus ventures before him, "in foolscap livery turned up with ink," has been careful at all events that his materials should be genuine, whatever lack of skill might wait upon the composition. We left our dramatis persona setting about their evening sacrifice |