The cloth is gone (at least, if it does go after your dinner), and your claret and biscuits are making their solitary rounds: you've had a pretty good run, and none of you are more spiteful than usual. I hope you liked the dressing you got to-day, Toby: you didn't think the squire so bad, after all, the other day: what do you think of him now?" "Oh! that was outrageous, 'pon my soul! he ought to be pulled up. His language is too bad. If he goes on in that way, I shall leave the country." : "What was that, Widdicombe? Has he been blowing up Toby ?" "Yes! Toby got it to-day he was rather too forward; in fact, he was over the fence before the hounds, or Squareall himself, who was hunting them. He used some strong expressions, and Toby got riled and talked about horse-whipping." "Hang all that!" said Makeshift; "he comes without a subscription, and it is rather annoying to have a hound killed or a run spoilt. "I wish we had somebody with a subscription;" exclaimed Widdicombe and you, both in a breath-"one could do a little as one liked ; and though he isn't a bad fellow, and a very good man across country, he does stay pottering about so. Why the d-1 didn't he give up that fox before?" "Why, he killed him after all." "Yes! he killed him; but who cares about that? He was nearly two hours about it. We might have had a capital run from the Blazeaway woods, and been home before he ran into that dodging brute this morning." "Why doesn't he let that professional of his, hunt the hounds? He's a very clever fellow that!" "Oh! come, Charger! Squareall does hunt those hounds well: I will say that for him; but I shall go down to the Pytchley next year, unless he gives us a little more of his company on this side of the country. I'm not going to get up in the middle of the night three times a week to go sixteen miles to cover, to say nothing of being slanged for riding a little forward, because he don't choose to get on."-(Your notion of a little forward being something under a field before the hounds and as you're most of you a little jealous, the probability is that Widdicombe, Hardup, Charger, and Makeshift are only twenty lengths behind you). One story is good till another is told. Squareall has taken his seat at seven o'clock at the head of his dinner-table : "By Jove! Squareall," says one of his guests, "you gave it that fellow to-day!" "Oh! that man from Milstone? well, I certainly was very much annoyed; for he's not a bad fellow, and I'm afraid I rather forgot myself; but he will ride so confoundedly forward, that the hounds have no chance. It isn't sport: 'pon my soul, it isn't! it isn't sport! The fact is, that they don't care about the sport. They come out to ride, and they do ride like the d-1. All very well in its way; but one can't run a fox on a cold scent in this country. No man likes riding better than I do; but they're too fast-'pon my soul, they're too fast!" You see there's a slight difference of opinion in this case; an easy. one to happen between men of equal rank and power, or between the best fellows in the world in their way. May no such unpleasantnesses occur next season between the new masters of hounds and the old frequenters of a country! There are to be some changes: they may be for the better; they may be for the worse; but they can never do much harm if both sides will remember the provocations of the others, and endeavour to make the allowance for another which they would be glad to claim for themselves. May 31, 1847. Yours, &c., SCRIBBLE. "THE DOG AND DUCK." ENGRAVED BY J. WESTLEY, FROM A PAINTING BY G. ARMField. Fun, according to the notions of boys and girls, most assuredly means mischief more or less; and sport, if left to the free will of spaniels and terriers, might be made to signify much the same sort of thing. Put what Willis, the Yankee poet, calls "a noble, brave, free-hearted, careless boy" into a straight-laced flower garden, or a well-tended hothouse, and just fancy what a mess he would make of them in half an hour or so; on the same terms, "hie in" a rough, ready, varmint "Pepper," or glossy, curly, wriggling, wimpering little Flora, to the garrison of a rabbit warren, or the sacred oziers of the Manor House fish-pond, and estimate the confusion and terror effected thereby. The "mischief" of a full-grown man is too serious a matter for any consideration out of Bow Street, or the Old Bailey, as the eccentricities of a great heavy-headed blood-hound, or strong, active, determined foxhound, such as seldom to be counteracted but by the most terrible remedies. The offence, in fact, is one of that magnitude which must be met with measures proportionately great and decisive-so unlike the little amusing pardonable piece of mischief, that occurs over and over again, with still "sentence deferred," or at most a slight reprimand administered to the offender. Ut, for example, audi either partem, and show in complainant-a six foot surly keeper, looking more than usually unhappy and out of temper. 66 Well, Griffiths, what's the matter now?-the poachers been at you again?" "No, Sir, dang 'em; they 've fought nation shy since transporting Bandy Phillips. "What then, the farmers crying out, I suppose?" "Not as I knows on. But, in course, you know, Sir, I leaves them to the agent." 66 Well, come, it's the hounds, eh? You could'nt show them a fox, and so his lordship drew them through all your pet places, and 66 No, Sir, no; that's all right enough. I put 'em one down in the little spinny, at the back of the lodge, and they was clear off in ten minutes." "Not the hounds, the farmers, nor the poachers! Come, come, let us hear what it is then ?" 66 Why, Sir, in course I don't like bein' everlasting a making complaints; but it's no use at all my going on any longer. It's just this, Sir-almost every morning as ever is, Master Arthur and Miss Ellen takes and puts their 'spanels' into my ponds-as they says-to catch the moor-hens; and naterally them two little devils, Dash and Flora, routs out every blessed corner of the water, yelping and screeching away like mad, and Master Arthur and his sister a hollering 'em on all the time, just as if he was a hunting on 'em. I shan't have a mortal duck on the estate, d—d if I shall, in a fortnight." "Well, but you should speak to Mr. Arthur." "So I did, Sir; but that's no use, for all the notice he takes is ordering me to hold my tongue, or he shall have to lick me for being impertinent." Whereupon keeper grins horribly, master smiles involuntarily, and there's a dog and duck hunt three days a week to the close of the season, or, in sadder phrase, to the end of this jolly, happy midsummer holiday. 99 66 The specta Our print appears in commemoration of the awful fact. tor, however, will be pleased to " picture to himself," in addition to Flora and "neighbour Wildrake, a noble, free-hearted boy," and his lovely laughing little romp of a sister, sharing in all the excitement of this bit of "divilment." PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS OF THE METROPOLIS. "That strain again! It had a dying fall: Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, SHAKSPEARE. Talk as you The star of Apollo brightly beams in the ascendant. will, you cannot, if you estimate your reputation, gainsay that at this particular period the mellifluous sounds of music are listened to more attentively than dull debates, and that a lyrical entertainment takes precedence of every other amusement. Electioneering excitement, potato panics, railway reduplications, Chinese caperings, banquets to the noble hero of Aliwal, Abd-el-Kader's several retreats, and the defeat of Joseph Ady, all, all have their coup de grace by " something more exquisite still." The problem to be solved is not whether the giving extensive" feeds" be a sufficient qualification for a representative of a large constituency. Very different indeed are the leading questions now agitating society; the most popular interrogatives involving your opinion of Jenny Lind and of the new Opera. According to the police reports, the manager of HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE appears to entertain the opinion that disposing of the space before the curtain once is not sufficient; he therefore appropriates the same seat to different persons. The consequence is just that which every rational being would naturally conjecture-that queer bedevilments |