THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE SEASON OF FIELD-SPORTS.

AMONGST the strangest and strongest impulses human nature feels, is that nearly universal instinct which urges man to the pursuit and slaughter of wild animals. Of its strength, indeed, there can be no doubt. At one stage of society it has been seen to constitute the business no less than the pleasure of existence; at another, it impels a monarch to dispossess whole districts, to turn the inhabitants forth to perish, and to reduce the vast tract to a desert, simply for the purpose of gratifying this singular passion in its widest range. In later and more cultivated periods, it has continued to exert the same force in a similar direction and manner, though not to the same extent; to establish the dominion of lords of manors, and to rear a legion of marauders, against whose incursions a still more numerous watch and ward must be kept a-foot. It has engendered increasing disputes, and perpetuated never-ending jars amongst neighbours thoroughly well disposed to each other in every other particular. For a long duration of years it inflamed one, and by far the larger, half of the nation against the exclusive possessors of this envied privilege and commodity; and what is worst of all, it has been the temptation which has brought nearly three-fourths of rustic criminals to the end of their career of vice, by transportation or the gallows. It has thus added enormously to the national expenditure for their subsistence and their punishment, while it has served to introduce a wide-spreading disregard of moral and legal restraints. And all this to enable a man to level an iron tube, stop the flight, and extinguish the life of a bird or a quadruped, with infinite expense, toil, and trouble to himself; for there is scarcely any personal pleasure more costly or more laborious, or which involves so much of mental inquietude. To what class of animals the synonym Fera Natura applies, whether to the feathered biped, or to the implume bipes cum latis unguibus, philosophers

must determine.

The only true definition of happiness perhaps is" the excitement of pleasurable sensation ;" and the more we reflect upon the variety of means, the more wonderful will appear the construction of our faculties for those enjoyments which by general consent are called the amusements of life. I am not about to philosophise more profoundly than to point out that the exercise of our powers, it little matters how, is in almost all instances the object and the end, perhaps, as Sir Walter Scott has pronounced, "It is the conscious pride of art,"

that lies at the bottom of all. But when I see a man thrown into positive ecstasies by the twangling of a string, by the screaming of a female or the grumbling of a male through certain (in themselves) unmeaning intervals or noises which he has learned by habit to admire (for nothing can be further from nature-English nature-than an Italian bravura, Dec.-voL, XLII. NO. CLXVIII.

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or a German fiddle concerto); when I find others galloping over hedge and ditch, across a country purposely selected for affording a superabundance of such hair-breadth scapes, hazarding life and limb" in the imminent deadly breach," for no other ostensible object than the death of a stinking animal with a bushy tail; when I find others toiling through thickets, or wading up to the waist in water, in the hope of finding a bird with a long beak, or alluring a fish with a spotted side, in the most wearisome, or the most patient expectation; when I hear that the young nobles of the land go daily to thrust their fists, enveloped in leather and wool, in the faces of sturdy prize-fighters, or murder their mornings in striking a ball over a net, or into a purse; when every night they risk their fortunes, reputations, health, and happiness upon the chances of a piece of square ivory turning up on one or other side, or the finger of a moveable dial pointing this or that way, or on a ball settling into this or that hole-my lungs would crow like chanticleer, were it not that I at the same time know how much of vice and misery awaits these seekers after the excitement of sensation and their victimized connexions. But still is it not strange that man- -"how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!"-is it not strange that man, being, as he is," made after God's own image," should, in so many instances, wear out his life only for the paltry, the objectless purposes I have enumerated? But why? Aye, there's the rub! for the only reason to be given is, that it is a part of his instinct.

But to come back to whence we started-GAME. It is my intention to put on record some of the curious particulars and effects of this human instinct, and, if I may be so fortunate, to abate its bad, and advance its beneficial tendencies. Its grand evil is in the production of dispute and crime. Nothing can be so difficult as to persuade the owner of land that the game upon it is not exclusively his property (indeed, since it can be transferred by hire or sale, it is become virtually such) or the man who is not possessed of an acre that he has not a natural right to follow the fowl wheresoever he lists. Out of these contradictory claims-feelings we must rather say than claims-the mischief arises, for they are contended for with the earnestness with which a man supports his title to his property and his most coveted enjoyments. The passion often changes the whole disposition of the game-proprietor. Men of high intellect have been known to sacrifice the peace of their lives to their vigilance over their game. I could name one person whose morning and evening employment it was, for the better portion of his life, to direct his keepers and inquire into the transactions of the day. He preserved his pheasants till they died of old age, and not seldom of want, from the bounds to which they were restricted. The sound of a gun fevered him for the day and night; and, from the abundance of his coverts, and the incursions and hostility of trespassers and poachers, he at last went abroad even in open day in positive fear and trembling. Yet he seldom or never shot; and when friends were invited to sport, they were limited comparatively to very small quantities. Another nobleman of the same district, but not rich enough to levy an army of keepers, used in person to watch his fields, and ride up to every trespasser; and so much a matter of family consideration was strict preservation, that one day I was

dining on the grass upon a bordering manor, in company with a highborn young officer who visited in the family, and who had only the night before danced with one of his Lordship's daughters, when the carriage stopped, and a message from Lady requesting Major to her in the adjoining road was delivered. The object was to entreat the Major not to stray upon Lord

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His Lordship soon after fell into a more ludicrous adventure. He saw a man shooting, galloped after and reached him just as the captain (on the recruiting service in one of the cities of the provinces) had shot a hare and jumped into the turnpike road. My Lord demanded his name; the Captain said that he should as soon expect to be required to deliver his purse, being upon the highway. My Lord persisted: the Captain demanded the name of the inquirer. "Lord Braymore." The Captain gave his in turn, "Stirling.""" Stirling!" repeated the noble; "how do you spell it ?" Braymore!" (the nom de guerre we assign to the game-preserver;) "Braymore!" muttered the impenetrable campaigner; "how do you spell it?" "B, R, A, Y, M, O, R, E, Sir," almost screamed the now highly-irritated querist. "Thank your Lordship," politely retorted Stirling. "You have the advantage of me: I am delighted to find that a peer of the realm can spell his own name, while I confess that, unluckily, I cannot spell mine:" and he left his noble friend ready to burst with rage and vexation. Yet upon all other matters there never was a better humoured man than Lord

But it is not to the privileged orders that this eternal irritation is confined. An honest merchant of my acquaintance has hired a manor since the passing of the new Game Act. He lives in the village, at a small distance from "his house of business" in the large town hard by. In his way thither and back all his thoughts and attention are limited to his partridges: if a gate be open, or a gap made in a fence, he attributes it to poachers. He inspects suspiciously every wretch having a bundle and every donkey-cart that passes, under the impression that they are employed in the conveyance of game; and when he can fix his mind upon his more important concerns by the way, his son frequently rouses him with," What the devil is that fellow about?" upon sight of same ragged itinerant, who must perforce be nothing but a poacher. He is harassed every morning by the kind information from some of his neighbours that the gang has been out, or sent off packages to town, and worried out of his sleep by the report of fire-arms.

The cost of game is truly astonishing. The steward of a great gamepreserving nobleman now dead, assured me that, exclusive of keepers, watch, and feeding, and all the etceteras of sporting, his master had sacrificed no less than 18,000/. a-year to the enormous head he kept. It seemed impossible, but it was thus accounted for: the estate consisted of 36,000 acres of land, and the average diminution of rents for the game was ten shillings per acre; i. e. the land with the ordinary quantity of game would have let for that amount more than it obtained. I had opportunity to inquire of his Lordship's heir and successor whether this was true; at first he said it was impossible, but on further investigation admitted it to be probable the amount did reach something near the sum. The charge of a game establishment-keepers*, watch, feed

* One of the things that escape gentlemen is the gain by rabbits, which were once always, and are now often, given to keepers as perquisites. One instance has fallen

for the pheasants (independent of lowered rents), dogs, taxes, powder and shot-amounts, according to its extent, to a sum averaging from a thousand a year downwards; it is rarely less than 3001. No gentleman who preserves, kills a pheasant under two guineas, or in my judgment even a greater sum*.

Were every mere sportsman, gentle or simple, to compute accurately, he would find his shooting stands him in from ten to twenty shillings per diem, according to the frequency, upon the average of those who take out a license. Those who do not keep accounts have no notion of these facts; those who do, are generally prudent enough to conceal them..

Future generations will scarcely believe that in an age boasting its superior illumination-in an age when not alone the superiority of intellectual satisfactions was the universal theme, but a contempt of sporting and sportsmen very often and very powerfully expressed by the master spirits of the time-future generations will scarcely believe that predatory parties of the lower classes have perilled their lives, persons, and liberties—have forfeited every thing like character, and been hunted from the haunts of decent men, to the total sacrifice of every solace in life, save beastly intoxication—have united in gangs or stalked solitarily and in darkness, to snatch a pheasant, hare, or partridge, of which the sale was scarcely less difficult or dangerous than the capture; still less will posterity credit that nobles and gentry have kept on foot companies of men equal almost in number to the free-lances or the freebooters of ancient days, to protect the animals of chace. Such, nevertheless, is the fact. I have known more than one nobleman and gentleman (I know two at this moment) who have constantly on foot bands of from sixty to an hundred watch, ready at a moment's notice to turn out. was once present when the alarm of poachers was given. The men assembled, marched in dead silence to the spot where the enemy were supposed to be met; at the same instant sixty-six leaped over a fence into the nook, and surrounded the party, who proved to be smugglers, and consequently no objects for their caption. I stood at my own door and heard thirty-six shots fired in twenty minutes, between eleven and twelve at night, in a neighbouring plantation, by a gang of poachers,

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under my cognizance where the admitted kill is 40,000 annually, and the real total was probably much larger. A keeper bought an estate in my neighbourhood with the produce of the rabbit skins even upon a comparatively small domain, which was nick-named by the inhabitants of the place, “Coney-skin Hall." Indeed, in all cases, the perquisites of keepers are shamefully extravagant. It is common to give a sovereign after a day's diversion. Two keepers have retired from the service of one gentleman with whom I am acquainted, with ten and fourteen thousand pounds, after about twenty years' service. I have the fact from the master himself.

* The present Lord Suffield, of Gunton Park, in Norfolk, says in his pamphlet (incomparably the best ever written upon the subject, and which probably gave the impulse to ministers that carried the present law), twenty shillings; but I am sure he does not come near the truth. He himself shows an account by which corn to the amount of 1447. 18s. was given in one year to pheasants. The great item of charge is, however, in the diminution of rent. Where the scope is very extensive, and the quantity killed enormous, perhaps like other vast manufactories, they produce pheasants as pounds of cotton thread, at a less cost; but take the average, small proprietors and great, and I am persuaded not a pheasant can be reared for much less than is stated in the text. Hares and rabbits are infinitely more destructive, and therefore more costly, but these are not so much articles of computation, because neither so rare nor of such luxury as pheasants. Twelve rabbits, the farmers say, consume as much as one sheep.