of attention that to so naturally nervous and retiring a gentleman may be almost oppressing. An acquaintance with his art, however, will lead to no harm, but rather imbue them with a greater love for their own homes, and a better appreciation of the beauties of their own stream. By the time a line is fairly wetted, he and ragged Bob are fast friends, and the young rascal returns at length with a better account, both in spoil and toil, for his May morning's employment, than the fondest of mothers could have dared to hope. We were going to add a whole list of baits to be tested and fish to be caught in a May morning's work; but, on second thoughts, we will rest content with showing, like a good advocate, our client for the nonce to be the most agreeable, harmless fellow under the sun. And as a host of witness will speak to the character, we so leave it at once to the jury. A SCRAP OR TWO ON RODS AND GUNS. Μὴ κατόκνει μακρὰν υδὸν κορεύεσθαι προς τοὺς "Lucet, eamus ISOCRATES. Quò ducit gula piscemur, venemur; (non) ut olim Gargilius." HORACE. With no better incentive than a thirst for novelty and amusement, I took a sporting ramble, several years ago, in the wildest and most uncultivated districts of Lower Brittany, then all but untrodden ground to the wandering children of Albion. Although the trip was not undertaken with a view to following the advice of the eloquent Athenian, it so fell out that I did encounter an accomplished sportsman, in whose society I passed some happy days, and gained much valuable information: and, although my sporting turn-out was less pompous than that of my Roman prototype, it so happened that I did kill game, not purchase and parade it. All I took with me, in way of sporting implements, dead and alive, were: a brace of doubles-shot and rifle-by Purday; a couple of rods-salmon and single-handed trout-by Kelly and Eaton; an Irish ex-poacher; a Devonshire pony, and a couple-and-a-half of cockers from the same county. Having named the makers of the rods and guns, I need say nothing in praise of them. With regard to the rest, the man marked like a hawk, and was a good gaffer; the horse had the foot of a Genoese mule, followed me over a hedge like a pet greyhound, and stood fire like a lamp-post; the dogs dropped at the shot, loved furze and brambles, and did not chase flax. the In those days the art of angling was unknown in the district I honoured with a preference: even shooters were only to be found in or near the towns more particularly patronized by the English. Dozens of unsuspecting salmon rolled about like porpoises in every mill-pond, trout swam the streams in shoals, cocks rose in flights from every copse, coveys jugged in every other field, and hares, ducks, teal, and snipes were hardly considered worth powder and shot. Moreover, honest farmers let you fish and shoot when and where you pleased all the year round, out of standing corn and buckwheat. per Now, alas! that aurea ætas is past and gone. The farmers and their friends, having learned from the English how to go to work, have become tenacious and, "vaniloquum genus et mutabile mentis," as Silvius Italicus very properly designates the whole Celtic race, have turned upon their instructors, and warn off a native of the " fidious isle" without either remorse or ceremony. Besides, they were not slow in improving on the mode of sporting practised by the "foreigner;" and though their improved methods be neither fair nor scientific, according to our prejudiced notions, they tend wonderfully to the filling of a game-bag, and that's the main point. Fishers and shooters continue annually to increase in skill and numbers, and flax, feathers, and fins to diminish in a corresponding ratio; and now, A.R. 1o (anno Republicæ primo), Rods line "the brooks, like leaves in Vallombrosa ;" And at each carrefour, or cross-road, there stands But enough, and more than enough, on such a subject: now for more interesting matters. I was crossing, one tolerably fine day in December, the forest that lies between and ("we will break no squares by naming streets," as Byron says), and adds its share of the dull and dreary to the respectable contingent existing in the shape of heath, furze, and broom on every side of it. We had even deviated considerably from our apology for a road, to follow up several confounded woodcocks that kept rising one after the other, as if to tempt us on. After bagging five or six couple of the villains, I happened to catch a glimpse of the sun, and perceived, to my great astonishment, that he was only a few degrees above the horizon. As we had still five or six miles to walk, I called in the spaniels, unfolded a so-so map of the département, mounted an excellent prismatic pocket azimuth compass by Cary, and tried to make out whether it would not be possible, by taking advantage of a clearing in the wood, to steer from our billet, without retracing our steps to the road we had left. The fact is, there was no time to be lost: the prospect of passing a cold winter's night in a wolf-forest, with horse and dog-flesh about us, to say nothing of a bagful of bleeding cocks, was anything but a pleasant one. My topographical studies were interrupted by a sharp, loud shot, fired within a hundred paces of me. I mechanically listened for the "rapport" that never fails to follow the hang-fire slashes of a chasseur in France: great was my astonishment to hear the English word, "Down-charge!" in its place. "By the powers!" said James, "that's no Frinchman." "Not he, indeed," I replied; "and by the way that 'downcharge' was brought in, he is not only English, Scotch, or Irish-and it's all one to me which-but a sportsman, and an old soldier into the bargain." I made up to the firer of the shot in double-quick time. He was ramming down his last shot-wadding, and eyeing his crouching spaniels with evident complacency. A cloud passed over his face on getting sight of me and my dogs: no doubt he expected to see his game partitioned into three equal shares. He raised his hat, however; and lest his spaniels should be tempted to assist mine in the division of his property, he sang out "Down, curs! will you?" 66 Those magic words positively electrified me: so much for the effects of locality. What a contrast, too, between them and the Rapporte, mon bon homme !" of a certain Marquis, with whom I had just been passing a week, every time he sent his fat bobtail Medor after a broken-legged hare! To the evident surprise of the stranger, my spaniels dropped as if they had been shot. "Your dogs are well broke, Sir," he exclaimed in French. But getting a full view of them and me, my servant coming up at the same time with the pony, he stopped short, and then continued in English, "I beg your pardon for taking you for a Frenchman; but really it is so unusual for Englishmen to visit these wilds, I never". I stopped his apologies by saying that, but for the clean report of his piece, and the word that followed it, I should probably have made a similar mistake myself. After a short skirmish in politeness, about pleasure and surprise, &c., he asked me where I intended to pass the night. "At," I replied, "bearing, if my map be correct, S.S.W., between five and six miles." "The place you have named is at least two leagues and a-half from hence." "Then we had better make haste. I presume that you are bound there too, and better qualified than myself to act pilot." "I certainly could pilot you there, though the night promises to be a dark one, and there is a somewhat intricate furze-brake beyond the forest. I even will do it, if you desire it; but it would afford me infinitely greater pleasure to lead you to my own gîte, which is within a rifle-shot of us. Will you accept a sportsman's welcome?" It is superfluous to add that I gladly accepted the invitation; and after securing my compass, we started for his château or chaumière, as the case might be. After walking together about a hundred paces, he recollected that he had left his cock on the ground, and sent his retriever back to look for it. In a couple of minutes Brush returned with the longbill. I paid the dog the compliment he so well deserved, and added that he was a useful animal in that forest. "Yes, in cover like this he is invaluable; but would prove the ruin of every dog that might witness his exploits in heath or stubble." There I perfectly agreed with him. On our road he informed me that he had hired houses and shooting in different parts of France; but had experienced so much annoyance on the part of greedy landlords and poaching gamekeepers, that he had determined to purchase a bit of barren ground in the wildest country he could find, and build a hut upon it. There was not within a couple of leagues of the spot he had selected a single man that knew how to handle either net, rod, or gun; so that there was no need of keeping a garde-a variety of the genus homo that my new acquaintance appeared to hold in most special abhorrence. His "hut" was well situated, snug, and comfortable. An English cook soon provided us with an excellent impromptu dinner. Freshrun salmon, a day or two in salt, roe, and teal. We had a long colloquium over our Medor, bourgeois, on cocks and cockers. Whiskey-punch-brewed in the Connemara mountain-and salmonfishing, followed. Something or other leading to sporting writers, my host asked me if I had read some letters on salmon-fishing and grouse-shooting that had just been published, under the signature of Ŏ. I. F., in a sporting paper. Having replied in the affirmative, he continued "Those letters are not badly written, and contain more practical information than nine-tenths of the professed treatises on angling and shooting that I have read. It certainly is somewhat singular that in this angling age, when every other man you meet styles himself a disciple of Walton, and every other self-styled Waltonian writes about angling, in one shape or another-it is singular, I repeat, that nothing new and to the point should issue from the press. The same ideas, expressed in somewhat different language, appear in almost every work I know. They contain long articles on floats, but short ones on flies. We are drugged ad nauseam with philosophy, the picturesque, natural history, &c.-very good things, I confess, in their way; but poor aids towards filling a salmon-creel. The authors never fail to treat us to a most animated description of a salmon's behaviour' on tasting the steel'his tremendous rushes upstream and down-stream, his awful leaps, his sulky stations-ninetenths of it pure hyperbole, or brought on by the piscator's want of skill and coolness. When a fish is properly managed, he is, 'like a horse that knows his rider,' a much more sober member of the creation than the generality of people imagine. With a tailor on his back, the quietest horse in the world will play tricks: a white fish, on the hook of a philosopher, may be excused if he prove a little restive. But a cool, experienced hand, that holds hard as long as he can with prudence, and gives line freely and without a check, will soon bring the most unruly fish within reach of the gaff. Bear hard, with a low top, down stream, on a sulky salmon; and you will have no need of stones to put him in a good humour. As to the natural history of salmon, it is a perfect quiz to talk about it: all we fancy we know is mere traditional conjecture. What I would wish to see in an angling publication is, something satisfactory on the methods of capturing salmon and trout. I would wish to be told what is the best colour for season, state of the water, distance from the sea, nature of the bed of the river, the length of time the fish have been in fresh water, &c. I would wish to have a plausible reason for the preference given to different-coloured flies in different rivers; where to fish in different times and seasons; when to try the head, centre, and tail of a pool, and when the rapids. I would wish to know why salmon take worms one year, when they will not look at a fly or minnow, and vice versa. Above all, I would wish to be taught the proper way to fish for salmon in clear water with worm. I know no book that contains it, and few salmon-fishers that practise it properly. Most Englishmen, indeed, are, or pretend to be, above such dirty work. No doubt it is an approximation to poaching; but there are times when the most scrupulous would be glad to capture a salmon-when he has just carried away their casting-line, for instance. Nothing is more easy to do-when you know the way to set to work. Again, I should be glad to be informed why".... But I will reserve the remainder of my host's queries, and the replies he made to them himself, for a future number. ̓Αγρεύς. THE LATE DUKE OF BEAUFORT'S HOUNDS IN THE HEYTHROP COUNTRY IN 1825. MR. EDITOR, Among the many noble sports of " merrie" England, none has been so truly identified and blended with the national character and taste, and so devotedly cherished and followed by the higher, while it has been and still is equally popular with all other classes of the people of this country, as the delightful, healthy, and noble sport of foxhunting; from the baronial hall, the mansion of the country gentleman, and the farm-house down to the peasant's cottage, this, by some, aptly deemed "divine" sport, is the rejoicing spirit-stirring theme of every tongue. O, for a "muse of fire," to paint and depict its beauties and soul-ennobling associations!—the very breath of life to a sportsman and a man; rousing the genuine and perhaps otherwise dormant energies of his nature; making him a philanthropist and a Christian, and taking him, when his day's work is over, to a retired and happy home, there with rejoicing family and friends "to fight his battles o'er again;" and in a national light too, when the "blast of war blows in our ears," is the English gentleman less a warrior than a sportsman? Oh, no! when the great Corsican invader first commenced his ravages over Europe, when sceptres shook, and kings and kingdoms lay in mercy at his feet, the task was thine, O, gentlemen of England, to train and lead your gallant countrymen to hunt him from cover to cover, and after one long chase, when you had him dead beat before you, nobly to whip off and sack him to St. Helena. A good day and a good run, with all its "lights and shadows," is like a beautiful summer's day, diffusing life, gladness, and vigour to universal nature. It is a time when man is, as he always ought to be, filled with noble emotions, joyous, generous, and free; when all sordid feelings are banished, and all bad passions are at rest. In the first place, there is something peculiarly striking and interesting in "the |