ration of some creditable traits of character connected with the recital of this sad occurrence, but will reserve them to future opportunity; more particularly, as I purpose putting together (if all is well with me, and I have leisure so to do) some few anecdotes of my own dealings with all classes of mankind, which shew, in bright relief, the better parts of human nature against the preponderating catalogue of those taken from the darker side of the picture.

Already has this letter exceeded far its destined limits; but, even to the addition of my signature, I must add my hope that you may be favoured by more correspondents, who will indulge you with their proper names. There may be reason good why many writers should adopt a style and title not their own; and the mystery still hanging over the letters of Junius, proves that an author is not always so readily identified, as was your friend Nimrod, with his productions. I am inclined, however, to think that, as a general rule, it is more consistent with the principles we would all profess, that a man should be ostensibly responsible, in his own proper person, for anything which the bent of his inclination or fancy may induce him to offer to the world. I am, at all times, for putting the saddle on the right horse. If a man publishes what is censurable, or ridiculous, on him alone be the consequences. With regard to sporting information, it is especially desirable that all data should appear under some authority; and that such gentlemen as Messrs. Trigger, Brush, Piscator, &c., should prefer the example set them, some years since, by Mr. Lethbridge. One only excuse may be found in the diffidence which would desire to conceal the authorship of any paper of such unquestionable excellence as must command the praise from which modesty, the companion of merit, must shrink. But, while my own contributions remain of so inferior a grade, I must be content with the appendage of that which belongs to them, and continue to subscribe myself,

Yours, &c. &c.,

F. P. DELMÉ RADCLIFFE.

ITEMS OF SHOOTING IN HANTS AND WILTS.

THE sportsmen of Hampshire and the adjoining counties (except in a few partial and favoured instances), have been greatly disappointed in their expected shooting during the past and present month. From the number of birds left at the conclusion of last season, and the fine weather we had at the hatching time, we were induced to hope a larger [share of good sport would fall to our lot than we had experienced for some years, particularly as the turnip crop (generally speaking) is far superior to what it has been for the last five or six years; without which, however plentiful the birds may be, we have seldom any great sport after the first fortnight. Many of the birds were full-sized, and strong on the wing, in the early part of September, but the coveys were short in number, and, in many instances, the young ones entirely destroyed. A large landed proprietor, and occupier in the neighbourhood of Winchester, went out on the 3rd or

4th of September, and killed ten brace, eight brace of which were old ones. During the month of July we had some heavy storms, accompanied by much lightning, which, I suppose, destroyed many of the young birds. The pheasants do not appear to have suffered equally with the partridges; from their being hatched earlier, they were better able to contend with the storms; in most places, where any were left, and care has been taken, the breed is considered pretty good. Very little, however, has been yet done with them, as the leaf is particularly strong; and from the partridge-shooting having, in consequence of the lateness of the harvest, been in most places postponed, the pheasantshooting has, necessarily, been later.

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For a man whose pleasure it is to stand still, or nearly so, in a turnip field, with a double-barrelled gun in his hand, and another ready in that of his servant, and to walk up the birds without a dog, certainly Norfolk and Suffolk are the counties to go to, where the stubbles are driven in all directions, and the birds congregated in a few turnip fields not far from the house, nor requiring him to take the field till after luncheon; and two hours will suffice, with a good shot, to fill the bag to overflowing. To the man with broken health, or the sufferer from the gout, whose feet dread the touch of the flinty field, it is delightful to be able to procure such shooting; but give me the healthbreathing hills, and unbounded range of the wide-spreading stubbles, turnip, or rape fields, in the vicinity of Salisbury Plain, with a brace of perfect pointers, not exceeding twenty inches in height. With small round feet, that rarely or never become tender, nothing can tire them they should be light in form, and symmetrical as a greyhound, with sterns nearly as fine; and, when standing at their game, with every nerve and muscle extended, and their very skins bursting with high breed, what can exceed their beauty? I have frequently paused, before I have taken my shot, delighted with the sight: no slaughter, nor over-loaded panniers, can compensate me for the pleasure I experience in watching the action of pointers of this description; and if I get my three or four brace of partridges, and, now and then, a landrail, or quail, I would not exchange it for the best battue-shooting England can afford. Wiltshire is, in my opinion, one of the best shooting counties we have what a perfect manor is Amesbury, the property of Sir Edmund Antrobus. It affords fine partridge-shooting, some very fair sport with pheasants, which are chiefly found in the young plantations, the hedges, and willow beds in the meadows; it has a stream abounding with trout, and some fine pike; good snipeshooting; and it is plentifully supplied with wild fowl. For coursing, it stands almost unrivalled; and was, about thirty years ago, the favourite resort of Lord Rivers and Sir James Mansfield, so celebrated for their greyhounds: at that time it was the property of the Duke of Queensbury, of whom they rented it. Sir Edmund Antrobus, notwithstanding he is so great a preserver of game, has an abundance of foxes; and Mr. Assheton Smith (in whose hunt it is) is never disappointed in a find at Amesbury.

October 19th, 1839.

H. H.

HER MAJESTY'S STAGHOUNDS.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF LETTERS OF A MODERN FOX-HUNTER."

FOR several seasons, with the exception of the last, I have been accustomed to pay an autumnal visit to the Royal kennels at Ascot Heath. There is no excursion to which the year gives existence, that I look forward to with greater pleasure, or from which I am sure to return with more unmixed satisfaction. Independent of the interest which, as a sportsman, I feel in a survey of the most perfect establishment devoted to the chase, probably in the world; as an Englishman my pride of country is ministered to, and flattered, to find so truly national an item in the train of a monarch of this land. It might be a weakness (but it was one in which I did not indulge alone), that made me regard, amid the noble, the brilliant, the gorgeous groups that swelled the pageantry of the late coronation, the plain, but perfectly appointed, band of attendants attached to the Royal hounds, as by no means the least appropriate or characteristic portion in the procession of a British sovereign. But we shall never get to Windsor at this rate, whither I propose leading the reader on my route to Ascot. I have said, I omitted my annual visit in the past year: how different was the transit in the present to that of 1837!" Horresco referens"the Great Western for the Taglioni! Surely she was a peerless drag, that wafted you, pas de zephyr, from the Glos'ter Coffee-house, to the penetralia of Windsor, in two hours, to the chronometrical fraction of a second. Ah, Charley Jones! "Charley was my darling"-and to substitute for thee a two-eyed Cyclops-a horribly begrimed stoker, pestilent with the effluvia of train oil, in lieu of a gentle knight, redolent of the fragrant unction of Macassar. "Oh! what a falling off is there, my friends!"

The ten o'clock Great Western train to Slough received me on a most lovely morning, at the beginning of last month, on my passage to Ascot Heath. I cannot part with the carriage in which I was enclosed without a passing word about its construction, seeing that, to me, it was a curiosity in equipage. The first-class carriages on that line are built to hold eight persons, being two coaches for four inside, stuck laterally together, and divided by a door. Now, as this door may be opened at pleasure (the only one, indeed, that may), and as it is furnished with a most ample window, apparently seldom, if ever, raised, what its end and aim may be I leave to the learned in such matters to decide. It can in no way affect any of the senses of the passengers; and cannot be accounted for, unless as a memorial that its projectors had taken leave of theirs. Apropos, to the pleasures of riding on a rail a friend of mine was lately locked up and launched on the Great Western, with a single voyageur, a lady- as women wish to be who love their lords." They had not journeyed far when his companion besought him to " stop the coach"-to summon aid:" she was ill, very ill" in short, as the French say, she was about "faire un enfant." Here was a pleasant dilemma for a private single gentleman, who, eschewing family embranglements as the pestilence, from boyhood upwards, had "lived at home at ease." Lifting up his voice, he hailed

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the guard to halt-to "open the door, for there was another passenger coming." He might as well have called a parley with the man in the moon; nothing but a steam whistle is heard on "the rail;" and he had no high-pressure engine in his "abominable viscera." On the nick of the crisis, when it was all but "all over but shouting,” a station was reached; and very soon things were as well as could be expected"-more by good luck than good guidance.

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By grace of the Provost of Eton, every impediment and annoyance is provided for the reception of those who make the railway to Slough the means of passing from the metropolis to the regal town of Windsor, and its castle, the principal residence of our lady the Queen. By the rood! but there is a refinement of impudence in a pock-pudding pedagogue, hourly subjecting hundreds of men, women, and children, to difficulty and danger for his own proper caprice, strangely out of keeping with the spirit of the nineteenth century.

However, we are, "post tot discrimina," in Windsor at last, and presently cantering our hack through its noble park, with its goodly company of leafy patriarchs, clothed in gold and russet. Piercing glades that whilom echoed the horn of Herne, the hunter; bowers of the most sylvan of fays and elves that ever poet dreamt, or muse hath sung-is it a marvel that I flung care to the winds, and bounded joyously on my pleasant pilgrimage, with that most excellent of Horatian maxims at my heart and on my lips :

"Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus ?"

I had written, some days previous to my visit, to Mr. Charles Davis, that I purposed being at Ascot Heath on that particular morning, and all who know him will anticipate the consequence. But that I am aware it is his pleasure to do kindness "by stealth"-neither desiring nor approving to "find it fame;" it would be a grateful and a flattering office here to record the kindness that received, and the hospitality that welcomed me. Let it be imagined, then, that those offerings have been made with every courtesy and cordiality; and that, donning the pink, he prepares to present me at that court of Dian, of which he is so experienced and accomplished an usher.

The arrangement of the royal kennels is as tasteful as it is convenient. Just before you reach the race-course on Ascot Heath, from Windsor, on the right hand, is a gate leading over a portion of the heath to a pretty picturesque lodge. That lodge, in a gorgeous setting of choicest dahlias, and every rare and elegant autumnal flower (it is now October), is the residence of her Majesty's huntsman, Mr. Charles Davis. It can be hardly necessary, in these pages, more than to write the name, to give assurance that I am about to introduce the reader to one who stands "first and first" in his profession, both for talent and popularity. He was born and bred to the chase, the office of royal huntsman being, as it were, hereditary in his family; and I can only say, were all hereditary honours similarly supported, it would be a fortune for which we should have cause to be grateful.

Crossing the characteristic little lawn that lies between the lodge and the kennel, flanked on the right by the woodbine-clothed cottages of the whips, feeders, and other domestics of the establishment, we

have arrived in front of that building. What brought it where it is, would be difficult to decide, seeing that it is placed upon the only spot within the enclosure where it ought not to be. However, our business is with it, as we find it, and that is in the highest state of perfection that human care and attention can place it. How it is possible to preserve the yards and lodging-rooms, occupied as they are, in the condition they always exhibit, is positively all but miraculous. visited a large moiety of the kennels in this country, and I never saw one that came within degrees of comparison with it. I am sure none of the masters of hounds to whom I am known will take this assertion amiss. I only allude to it in the hope that the notice may be of good effect. Those men of bergamot who cannot enter a kennel without essenced kerchiefs to their noses, certes have little business with woodcraft; still the purer the atmosphere that hounds live in, the better it must be for that fine faculty which constitutes their excellence in the same ratio that it exists.

"We'll have the hunting hounds out first-the dogs, and then the bitches," said I, to Davis's inquiry; and as one of the attendants went to perform the order, I looked about me to take in the whole of the scene. Had an artist essayed to produce an ideal of such a one, he would scarce have imagined its counterpart. Beneath lay a turf of the purest and brightest green, from which arose, at intervals, stately trees in all the rich and varied livery of the season; and, forming a kind of semicircle around, stood the whips in their brave array of brilliant scarlet. See, a door opens; and out rushes a living torrent, even as the pent-up waters leap when the floodgates are unclosed. In plain language, a more dashing charge, one more eloquent of health and vigour, never greeted eye of sportsman, or spoke more glad and promising tidings; I mean this with reference to the general appearance. I was prepared for instances of that strange and distressing epidemic with which the dog hounds of this noble pack have been so long affected; nor was I astray in my expectations. Many of their best were already exhibiting unequivocal symptoms of confirmed kennel lameness (the only term that can be applied to a malady whose origin and predisposing causes are, as yet, utter mysteries), and among them my old friend Governor, now in his sixth year, who, till a few days before, had passed the ordeal unscathed. When I say that many already shewed symptoms of lameness, I mean to convey that the extent of the visitation had, most probably, not half manifested itself. During the summer there is not a shadow of unsoundness to be discovered; it is when they begin to do work that the evil comes upon them.

To return to the joyous troop that is gamboling before us; without a solitary exception, for symmetry, power, and condition, it was perfect. Many were strangers to me, for in two years great changes must occur in a kennel so obnoxious to casualty. The care and skill bestowed upon breeding was evinced by the industry which had sought and obtained every superior strain of blood existing in the kingdom. The list for last year is now on my desk, but, although the dead and drafted have been marked by Davis, I prefer waiting for this year's list, now being printed, to the chance of giving an It reached us, unluckily, after this article had gone to press it will be given in the next number."-ED.