the most approved method of taking young eyesses from the nest and instructed how to deal with them during their infancy; how to capture passage falcons with the bow-net, and initiated into all the mysteries of hood and leash, training to the lure, flying at hack, with the proper treatment of the birds in health and disease; and all this as applicable to the gyrfalcon, the peregrine falcon, the lanner, the saker, the Barbary falcon, the merlin, the goshawk, and the sparrowhawk; whether the object of pursuit be heron, rook, grouse, partridge, woodcock, snipe, wild-duck, or any other kind of existing quarry: and while to the great experience, skill, characteristic patience and perseverance of one of the authors we owe such elaborate practical instructions as have left little to be done by future writers on the art, we are no less indebted to the gifted pencil of the other for illustrations of every species, which are really life-like portraits of the birds themselves.

Yet a few words more and our task is done. We have attempted to give an outline of the history of falconry in the British Islands from the earliest times, but we cannot conclude even a slight sketch like the present without especially noticing the great services rendered to that noble art by one who, within the last few years, has passed away; one who was in the highest sense of the term a thorough sportsman.' a thorough sportsman.' On field or fen, on moor or mere, by the river-side or on the race-course, no man had more friends or fewer enemies than the late Edward Clough Newcome. But from his own Norfolk bracks' to the bogs of Ireland, from Salisbury Plain to the heaths of Brabant and the fells of Norway, he, from his boyhood, followed the sport of falconry more keenly than any other; sharing its comparative prosperity of fifty years since; keeping alive its traditions when its practice had all but expired; reviving it when his own enthusiasm, by infecting others, had given promise for its continuance; and performing feats hitherto unknown in the annals of the art. Untired in his devotion, even by the drudgery of the labour of love he undertook, as an efficient falconer he was unequalled, whether by professionals or amateurs. Always ready,

tinctness of the English School,' on, as it appears to us, the somewhat slight ground of the use of 'varvels,' anklets, bearing the owner's name. No doubt each country had some practices exclusively its own, but the hawking connection between England and Holland is probably of older standing than our authors would allow. From documents quoted by Schlegel, 'Traité de Fauconnerie,' p. 85, note, we find Leicester-Queen Elizabeth's Leicester, then LieutenantGeneral of the English forces in the Netherlands, and Governor-General of the United Provinces-issuing, in 1586, several ordinances concerning falcons and hawks; ordering them to be caught and brought to the Hague for his choice, and fixing the duties to be paid on those that were exported.

without

without a thought of jealousy-too often the bane of the sportsman-to give, from his large store of experience, advice or information alike to the youngster fresh from school or college, and to the older hand in whom many might see a possible rival. His assiduity and success in the cultivation of the sport is shown by the fact that he trained falcons brought up by hand from the eyrie, to take wild herons on the passage'-i. e., passing overhead in their usual lofty flight—an exploit previously unachieved by any falconer. One other fact may be mentioned, to show his unerring judgment in all that concerned hawks. Many years ago his zeal led him to seek for gyrfalcons in the Dovrefjeld, a range of high mountains in Norway, where it was known that, of old, they used to be taken, but, except the name of the locality, all knowledge of the spot had perished. He surveyed the surrounding country and pitched upon a place as most fitted for the necessary apparatus. The next year he sent thither falconers from Holland, and they, when digging the foundations for their hut, came upon those of the forgotten edifice of byegone generations, thus revealed only by the faculty which led him to detect the most suitable place for the purpose among 'wilds immeasurably spread '—a faculty which becomes, as in this case, instinctive only through long, incessant attention to the habits of wild birds, such as had, no doubt, originally prompted the selection of the same spot by the falconers of yore. It would be out of our province to dwell here on the other qualities of this distinguished sportsman. The kind landlord, the hospitable neighbour, in short, the English squire of the old school, yet exists in plenty; but falconry in the British Islands will scarcely again find such a patron and pillar of strength as in the truehearted gentleman who, before he had obtained the prime of life, was always affectionately greeted by that single English epithet which at once expresses the veneration felt towards a superior, the honest admiration of an equal, and the thorough appreciation of good fellowship; for at lordly board, or lady's bower, doublebarrel in hand, or hawk on fist, the cheerful countenance, the genial humour, and the animating presence of 'Old Clough' were ever welcome.

ART. VII.-Histoire et Mémoires. Par le Général Cte de Ségur Membre de l'Académie Française. Paris, 1873. Seven volumes, 8vo.

IT

T is painful, depressing, degrading to humanity, to believe that greatness is hopelessly incompatible with goodness;

that

that the brightest of mankind must or may be the meanest; that conquerors are no better than robbers on a large scale; that the loftiest pinnacle of soaring ambition is unattainable by the aspirant who is weighted with honour, probity, and truth. When, therefore, these conclusions were forced upon us by the first four volumes of M. Lanfrey's History of Napoleon,' we gave expression to them with reluctance, and we gladly catch at the opportune occasion for modifying them presented by the History and Memoirs' of General Comte de Ségur, who, going over identically the same ground with peculiar facilities of observation, certainly places the personal qualities of his imperial master in a light which contrasts strongly and pleasingly with our preconceived impression of the intense, concentrated, all-pervading egotism of the character. According to this irreproachable and unimpeachable witness, it abounded in traits of amiability and sensibility: the iron despot could unbend like an ordinary mortal, was not inaccessible to remorse, could sympathise with the sufferings of his victims, and shed bitter tears over the ruin he had wrought. Partial as M. de Ségur undoubtedly is, we have the best possible evidence of his good faith in the indignant condemnation which he passes on acts of reckless violence or treachery, like the seizure and execution of the Duc d'Enghien, the treatment of the Pope, or the trap laid for the Spanish Bourbons. In fact, his moral sense, his sense of right and wrong, is as strong, as deep, as true, as M. Lanfrey's; and in the midst of the most enthusiastic devotion to the man of destiny, the self-made ruler and hero, he never forgets that he is himself a noble and that noblesse oblige: that he is the descendant of a long line of chivalrous ancestors, distinguished by unswerving loyalty to the hereditary throne.

His apparent aberration from their principles is fully explained at starting. It was genuine patriotism, combined with military ardour, that first induced him to join the army as a volunteer ; and he may be pardoned for not regarding the brilliant conqueror on the car of Victory, the incarnation of French glory, as the upstart usurper of a crown. Divided in his own despite between opposite creeds, he clings instinctively to truth as his sole preservative against vacillation and inconsistency: he never plays the advocate, never tries to make the case better or worse, but sets down his genuine impressions for evil or for good; and these, it will be remembered, are most fre

6

The Quarterly Review' for April, 1870. The fifth volume, recently published and bringing down the History to the end of 1811, is marked by the same tendency, indeed rather too much marked, as detracting from the appearance of impartiality.

quently

quently the impressions of one who saw and heard what he sets down. The quorum pars magna fui is the keynote of the narrative. It is told of our great captain, the Iron Duke, that after putting some one right as to some incident at Waterloo, he naïvely added, 'I was there!' M. de Ségur might have said the same in reference to most of the campaigns and battles he commemorates-Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino, &c. &c.-'I was there.' He was there, moreover, in immediate attendance on the principal performer in the grand drama or succession of grand dramas; and when not personally present, he heard the most remarkable scenes and occurrences talked over and discussed by his constant companions, the other members of the household and the Staff, whilst the facts were freshly remembered, and there was no immediate motive for misstating or distorting them. He thus contrived to collect an immense amount of valuable information, enlivened by anecdotes: and the style of publication which he chose strikes us to be precisely that which was best adapted to his turn of mind and capacity, as well as best fitted to turn his stock of miscellaneous though rich materials to the best account.

One of his ancestors was the friend and ambassador of Henry IV. Several were distinguished commanders. His grandfather was the Count de Ségur, afterwards Marshal of France and Minister of War, who, when his arm was broken at the battle of Lawfeld, refused to quit the field for fear of discouraging his men, entered the entrenchments at their head, and caused Louis XV. (as quoted by Voltaire) to exclaim that such men deserved to be invulnerable. His father was the well-known author of 'Mémoires ou Souvenirs et Anecdotes,' published in 1823, towards the beginning of which we read:

'Since chance has willed that I should be successively colonel, general, traveller, navigator, son of a minister, ambassador, courtier, prisoner, farmer, soldier, poet, dramatic author, journalist, publicist, historian, deputy, councillor of state, senator, academician, and peer of France, I must have seen men and things under almost all aspects; sometimes through the prism of happiness, sometimes through the crape of misfortune, and tardily by the light of the torch of a mild philosophy.'

These 'Mémoires ou Souvenirs' were left unfinished, and might naturally have suggested the work before us, by way of continuation, to the son, who also had seen enough of men and things under various aspects fully to qualify him for the task. But the constant movement of military life, with the absorbing interest of the political changes or catastrophes in which he was mixed up, prevented him from forming any literary project till

after

“

after his compelled retirement at the second Restoration in 1815. Then he began to look about for the means of employing his leisure hours and diverting his thoughts; and after two or three desultory attempts at detached scenes or passages, he resolved on writing the History of Napoleon and the Grand Army during the year 1812.' He set to work so eagerly that he was speedily brought to a standstill by exhaustion. I well remember (he says) that, at the very commencement, forcing, wildly straining myself to compose without sufficient preparation or rest, I reduced myself to an utter incapacity for producing anything.' This is a well-known and recognised phenomenon amongst men of letters. We find Pope complaining that he had been three weeks waiting for his imagination. But it naturally alarmed a novice :

'I was disconsolate, on the verge of despair at this impotence, when, fortunately, M. de Lacépède, then living in retirement in the neighbouring village, dropped in.

On

"What is the matter with you?" said this celebrated savant. my explaining, he said, "Well, nothing more simple; it is a breakdown (fourberie). The mind may be overworked like the body, dependent as they are on one another, and this is what has happened to you." "And is it for you," I replied, "you, who sleep scarcely three hours, and work twenty-one out of the twenty-four; is it for you to impute this shameful sterility to eight or ten hours of work?"

M. de Lacépède, the well-known writer on natural history, explains to him that, as one man's meat may be another man's poison, so the amount of sleep which sufficed for one might be utterly insufficient for another, and that as for himself, he had suffered so little from his self-imposed régime, that at his advanced age he still composed without writing.

"Ah! probably verses?" "No, prose." "What!" I rejoined, jocularly; "your work, Sur l'Homme, for example?" "Precisely; and to prove it to you, I will, if you have time to listen to me, repeat the whole of my first volume! and not only the original copy, but all the alterations, all the corrections! I have at this moment all the erasures in my mind's eye; yet I have not yet written a word, and I have almost finished the second volume in the same manner." Whilst I remained struck dumb by astonishment, he added: "But do not, for all that, suppose that I work consecutively twenty-one hours a-day; on the contrary, I take care not to continue more than two hours without interruption, without relieving my brain by some diversion—a few household arrangements, a few tunes on my piano, a few turns in my garden, suffice-after which, refreshed and well disposed, I resume my task."

'I endeavoured to follow his advice, and benefited by it; I even sought distractions, some came in my despite.'

He