pull the left reign stronger than the right, and is therefore cruelly rated and flogged, can it be wondered that he should confound the word with the blow, and construe toho as 1710? or is he to be led to the halter because, when thus scared and discouraged, the next time he winds birds he either sulks or sculks ?* urge your horse strongest on the opposite side to On the nosology of the pointer, the colonel, although less technically erudite than Mr. Delabere Blaine, the father, as he tells us himself, of canine pathology, is brief and satisfactory; quack yourself, if you have a fancy for it, but never throw physic to your dog; a little grass and his own tongue are his best remedies; let the patient minister to himself, and nature, unobstructed by art, will work wonders. For the overfed darlings of fine ladies solitary confinement in a garret for three days, with a pan of water, may be advantageously prescribed;-but this is only giving nature a fair chance. Apropos of ladies; they may take a leaf from Ille meos primus qui me sibi junxit amores This Hutchinsonian system is in all essentials that of Hieover-but simple and sensible, and justly favored by all gentle spirits, as the system is, professional dog-breakers generally reverse it altogether; they begin out of doors; their plan is to inspire fear, not love-to effect by fatigue and punishment what is far easier and better done by reward; for no work is so well done as that which is done cheerfully and voluntarily. Alas! that the horse and dog, the two noblest of animals, should so often be consigned to the veriest brutes of the human race; and yet the Sir Oracles, who let no dog or master bark when they open their mouths, prefer to drive with a ramrod, rather than guide by a straw; they add the tyrant's spirit to a giant's strength. *We have read the lively pages of Frank Forester Colonel Greenwood, when discussing cognate colt-tunity of introducing them also to our readers' acquaintwith so much pleasure that we could not lose this opporbreaking, "put off the evil day of force; forgive ance; but it is only a small part of them that is given to seventy times seventy, and be assured what does the doctrinal department; wherefore we must content ourselves with expressing our satisfaction that he in that not come to-day will to-morrow." But then it department pretty generally, but especially as to humansaves trouble, for those who never think, to cudgelity, agrees with the two senior campaigners on our list; the backs of others rather than their own brains. They begin by expecting their young dog to know his business, and guess the mysterious meaning of words of command by instinct; and if, when he for the first time sniffs the delicious odor of game, and, obedient to untaught nature, rushes in and springs the covey in spite of sohos and tohos, he "Oh !" says and congratulating him on the success with which he has handled in detail the rich and unhackneyed subject of field-sports in North America. "Frank Forester," of course, is a nom de chasse. The Preface is signed by Mr. Henry William Herbert, a son of the late accomplished Dean of Manchester. We do not know whether the colonel is, like Captain Hieover, the illustrator of his own text; but if he he, the woodcuts at pp. 48 and 49 do credit to his pencil, and will gratify the ladies. And here we would remind all surly, and some "voilà un grand mot," as M. Thiers would say. Surty Hall scholars, who, full of Virgil and Mr. Lead perfidious Albion as he may in cookery, Youatt on the Dog, growl at the injury done to poodle-clipping and civilization, after hounds he is hound and history by giving the name of fickle" nowhere."-Accordingly, he votes our Christian Dido to a faithful bitch, that it is only by this country-craft une chasse diabolique; and denounces kennel nomenclature, that coveys of country gen- as unmilitary those peninsular red-coats who took tlemen keep up their connection with the classics to hunting in winter-quarters, and who, being at all. We wish them to live and learn, and there- somehow the first over stone-walls, were not the fore point out a pretty wrinkle of the colonel's how last in charging certain colonnes de granite to their to gain and rivet canine affection. An old hand, hearts' content. Now that the temple of Janus whenever he gets a young and untaught pupil, for is shut, a good day's run is followed by a better some time never lets any one play with his Venus dinner; then," according to the gay though or Dido but himself; the first come are the best half-pay hero, Hieover, "fairy fingers of sylphserved in these matters, as in pottages: so says like forms fly over the particolored keys of the hungry and beloved Sancho Panza. "On revient piano. Lovely, thrice lovely woman! this is thy toujours à ses premiers amours," sighs the fickle bright prerogative; this thy empire; this is the Frenchman. But we must conclude, and cannot scene of all thy many conquests; thy self-created do so better than by quoting the 229th section, Elysium, where none but the manly should be perwith which the colonel terminates his treatise : mitted to enter!" (Ibid. 333.) These aspirations, 66 I have one very important direction to give-glowing and gallant as they are, may pass; neverNEVER LEND YOUR DOG. If you are a theless, we must, in duty bound, lament the capmarried man you will not, I presume, lend your tain's too frequent departures from the decorous wife's horse to any man who had a coarse hand handling of his colleague the field-officer, whose [Cato, we fear, lent both to Hortensius,] and (I chapters may be safely scanned by the purest, hope she will forgive me for saying so) you should brightest eyes, though we question whether the feel far more reluctance and much more grief should most sporting lady or gentleman would trust him you be obliged to lend a good dog to an ignorant with their daughters. As the other heads every sportsman, or to one who shoots for the pot. page with some motto, it is a pity some friend did Thus loan oft loseth both itself and friend, and in not suggest for his first and last ones, "Swear not a bad cause, for, "Tout pour le pot," your for- at all." In rapping out oaths a cad outcaps a eigner's full cry, turns the plain stomach of an Chesterfield; scarcely bearable in a buss, oaths in English sportsman, to whom the chase for its own type are too bad, and at such malice prepense prindear self is whet enough; his object is rather the ters' devils recoil. We admit that words not fit sport than the larder; the run, not the "varmint," to be thrown at a dog form, unfortunately, part whom Ude could hardly cook, or an omniverous and parcel of kennel vernacular; yet the custom table d'hôte abonné consume; except, it is true, in-more honored in the breach than the observance the Abbruzzi, where Mr. Lear, himself taken for -can be corrected. "Williams," said his grace Palmerstoni, found roast fox considered cibo squisito, the delicacy of the season. Our chase from beginning to end is modern and insular; it belongs to us, and to us alone. All the pursuits of the savage, the classical, and the continental sportsman are marked by a constant eye to the kitchen; We have less quarrel to find with his sporting by them eternal war to the knife and fork too was terminology, not to say slang, with a soupçon of and is waged against fish, flesh, and fowl: all-which we have larded these remarks. As to his provided it be eatable-is fair game, from the wild boar of Apicius to the plural larks shot over a well-clipped poodle by a sous-préfet, or the single and singular thrush, which formed the whole bag of a French baron, who nevertheless was considered by his compatriots as the "premier chasseur de son arrondissement." For the full and true particulars of this feat, we must refer to Hieover, who was in at the death and dinner. His Stable-talk and Table-talk or "Le Chasse Etrangére" (ii. 330) affords capital sport; and it is high time to turn over the rest of his pages. A foxite and Briton to the back-bone, he dotes on our hounds, horses, and ladies: at their very mention the patriot and sportsman warms. "Hail to thy name, oh chase! Hail-doubly hail-to my country, honest England, land of the chase; thou only Elysium of the lover of true sport!" (Ibid.) "No Frenchman is a fox-hunter," he adds: mildly to his huntsman, whose discourse was less polished than his stirrups, "do you hunt the hounds, and I will swear at the gentlemen." Hieover will take, we trust, this punishment in good part, and henceforward use a martingale. other sayings and doings, it must suffice to say that he writes as he rides, straight across the country, neither style nor stiles stopping his racy bursts; he published, we conceive, for brother "bricks" in scarlet, trumps who seldom take offence at fence or phrase, but hie over everything. But whether he held cheap the praise or blame of grave, potent, and reverend signiors in black, who fish not, flute not, hunt not, shoot not, one thing is certain-he is perfect master of his art, and up to all the knavish tricks of trade by which her majesty's lieges are circumvented. We learn from the preface to the "Pocket and the Stud❞—a brief but remarkable bit of autobiography-how this knowledge was "forced upon him," and at what cost he purchased practical experience, a valuable commodity, which many who spend their whole fortunes never contrive to buy. Captain Hieover's has truly been a many-colored life; checkered and exchequered was the apprentice- "wide awake”—with no particle of nap on it ship he served by birth a gentleman of a spend- may thank himself if "digged;" so legibly is ing, not money-making, race, raised on Enfield notice given of the traps by which kennels and Chase in an old hunting-lodge, and bred within stables are beset, and the possible compatibility of half a mile of Dog-kennel Farm, the genius loci stud and pocket confirmed. marked him in the cradle for his own, and mamma This adventurous adept's intervention with pen coöperated. Loth to part with her only one, in- and pitchfork for the public good has maddened stead of sending him to a public school-best every horsefly of booth and yard. The hundred workshop of men—she gave him a vulpicide tutor, and more legs, whose cloven hoofs he has bared, and a private, or what Lord Dudley said was its and for whom double irons at Newgate are too equivalent, no education at all. So the docile light, threaten to drag him at Smithfield with its pupil ended by "loving horses and hunting en- four worst screws, thereby adding horrors to the thusiastically, and hating Homer and Horace cor-idea of death, as a noble English ex-chancellor is dially." Gifted with much natural-not to say said to have exclaimed on hearing that a noble mother-wit, provided with a decided bump of Irish ex-chancellor had already begun his Life. philippotiveness in his upper story, and with Hieover dares his centipede tormentors to do their whippers-in for under-masters, the child was ear-best; he wants the loan of a bark from no man's dog; catch him who can— ly trained which way to go, and reared by accidence altogether equestrian. He rode before he could well walk, saw a fox killed with Lady Salisbury when he was six years old, had two horses of his own at twelve, and a stud at sixteen. The toga virilis and top-boots once put on, so long as his good dog-star shone in the ascendant, he steeple-chased the years away, and distanced care so completely, that he outran the constable also; caught then at fault, a galloping consumption of cash-no fox goes faster-arrested his career; duns and distresses ran into him—until chancery suits settled what tallyhoing, coupled with drags, dragooning, and concomitant et ceteras, commenced; then fickle fortune, as might be expected, stole away, leaving him nought save a stable mind. Blow wind, come wrack, At least he'll die with harness on his back. Having introduced the captain to our readers, densed experiences-pearls, albeit picked from the we proceed to string together some of his condunghill, and wrinkles precious alike to young and old. To begin-a faux pas, but especially a false start, is fatal in the affairs of men, women, and horses-c'est le premier pas qui coute. Few perthe touch of truth, says Hieover, (Stud, p. 19,) is sons, except in church, like being told their faults; too rude for sensitive vanity, and self-love resents the superiority implied by givers of unasked-for advice; all this, however, he is ready to risk, and leads gallantly off with a golden rule, and prints it in capital letters NEVER BUY FOR YOURSELF. 'There is little new under the sun; the downfall of Phaeton, a fast man, and the death of Acteon, eaten up by his own dogs, indicate, if there be meaning in myths, that driving four-in-hand and keep- He presumes that every one must have some friend ing hounds have from time immemorial conduced on whose judgment he can rely, and whom he can to untimely ends. Master Harry Hieover's alac- commission to look out for him. Thus a purrity in sinking was prodigious; his screws once chaser has a chance of escaping the Scylla of beloose, he broke down from ducal domes to dealers' ing taken in by an oleaginous dealer, and the dens, from the court of Carlton House to the rack- Charybdis of being captivated by some whim of et-court of the King's Bench and Fleet. On his own which hoodwinks judgment, or of being emerging from the slough of despond, our tennis- bitten by some fancy which, as in fairer and ball of the capricious goddess tried boldly to pull more fascinating pursuits, seduces those who act himself up; first he took to farming, which, we for themselves; meanwhile a cold-blooded, firm need not say, did not answer; next he kept com- friend, who knows well that whistles must be mission stables and "went into harness," Anglicè paid for, falls only in love with points of intrinsic turned stage-coachman. Even a deeper bathos value, and so matches his customer that "the still awaited him; he passed to driving the quill, money is likely to be kept together" when the and became, poor fellow! an author. But all's illusion-dispelling day arrives of parting, or selling well that ends well, and he has now made books may be with a rope in market overt. N. B.-ALbetter in many respects for others than those which, ways buy the wardrobe, the saddle and bridle, to when on betting bent, he made for himself. In- which your acquisition has been accustomed. We deed, "Sugden on Purchases" excepted, we hard-omit the curious but painful details, how the most ly know a more pregnant treatise in its way than bewitching bargains are got up, being at a loss "The Pocket and the Stud." Few have been fated to fill the parts of gentleman and professional horse-master; characters as unlike as gentleman and real farmer-performances as distinct as a campaign at Waterloo or Wormwood Scrubs. He has now, however, made a clean breast of it for the benefit of others; and whoever hereafter meddles in horseflesh, without first donning his which mystery of iniquity most to admire the consummate thimble-rigging by which a regular screw is converted into " quite a nice one," when Mr. Green wishes to buy, or how his really good horse is changed into a brute when Mr. Green must sell for what he will fetch. The legerdemain practised in certain repositories is most dramatically and grammatically described by Hie over; all the moods and tenses of the verb "to do" are conjugated; all the logic of scoundrels, major and minor, is chopped better than by Archbishop Whately. Let the galled jade wince; and he does indeed "double thong and over the ears" those Grecians who to this day carry on the Attic dodge of diddling the Trojans by a made-up horse; and, by this process of bringing the dealers on their own stage, he lets them trot themselves out for our inspection and benefit. In common with all dealers, high or low, the 'cute chapman instantly gauges his customer's amount of horse-knowledge, and shapes his tactics accordingly, for alligators are not to be tickled like trouts; woe waits the horse-fancier who thinks himself up to their weight; quickly is he done, and as nicely as côtelette à la minute by Carême; the partnership of a fool and his money is never of slighter duration than in these equine transactions, nor can we now be surprised that such a yard, and those who practise in it, should stand almost as low in general dislike and disrepute as the court of chancery-" not," says Hieover, "that I mean or intend that there is any affinity between the honesty of a huntsman and a denizen of stone buildings; God forbid that there should be!" This state of things is bad enough, we admit; let not clients, however, totally despair, but specially retain Hieover. According to him, those who, like Richard, want a horse! a horse!" and have neither friend nor even Sir George Stephen's luminous hoof-book, "Caveat Emptor," will find the least dear and dangerous chance to be this :— 66 Go to a first-rate dealer-state what is wished for -trust to him—and give a good price. Money is the momentum in faciliating horse causes; a customer appearing in a crack yard in formû pauperis is welcomed precisely as he would be if he went to the London Tavern or the court of law just alluded to. There is no economizing luxuries. Many of our readers will be agreeably surprised to learn that the popular belief, no trust is to be placed in horse-dealers, is not orthodox; the withers of the merchant-princes in the west are unwrung; and, unless a fellow-feeling makes him wondrous kind, Hieover is warranted in saying that "they do business to the full as uprightly as any other of the upper tradesmen of London." It is no business of ours to decide whether these analogies be complimentary, or these comparisons odious; at least we agree in our author's eulogy, of admittedly the first seller of horses in Europe. He, take him for all in all, is " a man as incapable of making a guinea by any means that could be construed as bordering on what was dishonorable, as of neglecting to make one where it was to be got in a perfectly honorable way." like bundles of asparagus in spring, or laid in at a profit equally certain as mahogany dining-tables. Review the cost of breeding, the risk of bringing up and out a young thing, which eats its head off if long on hand, and seldom improves in the using; consider the moving accidents that will happen in field, flood, and the best-regulated stables, which become certainties when the poor creature is handed over to a new master, who never fails to impute the inevitable diminution of value, that has been occasioned by his own ignorance or ill usage, to A dealer's the dealer's having deceived him. business is to find horses of all sorts and sizes to suit every variety of customer, and he has other things to do besides pointing out the blemishes of his animals; neither can he be expected to give lessons how to ride or manage them. Possibly, although he cannot construct a horse as the Greek carpenters did, he is up to manufacturing the raw material, and can adjust a screw quite as well as Sinon, and teach a step or two like a dancingmaster. A two-legged donkey, whether he buy a watch or a Pegasus, is more likely to injure than improve their going; nor does it much signifyhe can buy another-but to sell is the sum and substance of a dealer; so he gets his nags into tip-top condition, "round and shining as a bottle," (so Hieover phrases it,) "and only shows them when in full blow, as a florist does tulips." He knows his trade from beginning to end, and does everything in the right way. Gentlemen and ladies, on the contrary, mostly go on the other tack; they commence by paying too much, and, having bought a bad sort, they manage them badly, drive them badly, and employ bad people to look after them. Sad is the change which comes over the spirits and coats of horses when bought, sold, and driven like bullocks from pastures fat to straw-yards lean; no animal loses condition, and, consequently, value, so fast as a horse; and the finer he is the faster he goes back; at all times his real value is what mathematicians call indeterminate-racers and cart-horses excepted. In other sorts value becomes nominal when it exceeds a certain point, on so many local and accidental circumstances does it depend. Buying and selling are distinct operations; and the turn of the market favors the jobber, whether the bargain be for three per cent. consols in Capel Court, or for fourfooted beasts in a Piccadilly yard. The section, "How a first-rate horse-broker purchases his stock," may be quoted as a fair specimen of doing business, and of the style of description which soon attracted notice to Mr. Hieover's Stable-talk. Decision marks the man; our dealer cannot afford to lose his time or money indeed they are convertible terms; he minds the main chance and looks to averages, well To give dealers their due, it must be remem- knowing, if some horses turn out worse, others bered, be they all honorable men or not, they will turn out better than was expected. Welldrive a ticklish trade at best. If good men are the lots as soon as they are purchased are started scarce, good horses are not common; first-rate off to some neighboring village, and thither-the articles, whatever readers or riders may be pleased horse-fair over-he comes in person, to have a to think, are not to be had at a moment's notice, private and more careful view ;-and there, if the reader were in his confidence, he would hear after all, a rocking-horse offers a cheaper and something like the following remarks made on safer vehicle for peristaltic exercise. the different horses as they are led out. You are to suppose the broker has a friend or a brother of the craft with him overlooking the lot : 66 66 On the points of a really fine horse this Hotspur is entitled to attention in prose or verse, page or picture-his songs, set to the music of hounds in full cry, partake, 't is true, more of Anacreon than Somerville; but ride, drive, and keep a horse he can, and "hit him off" with a brush too, or "make a good cast" in clay. But in contrasting animal-painters as they were, such as Sneyders, Stubbs, and Sartorius, with those that are- -Ward, Marshall, and Landseer, for choice against the field our amateur comes to pretty near the conclusions broached by the "Oxford Graduate," when comparing the true and careful representation of nature, never wanting in Turner's works, (unless when Turner chooses to play crazy,) with the vague and general conventionalities observable in the old masters : "That's a useful sort of nag, and not much too dear. Run on, Jack; that horse goes well; that 'Il do, go in." Something like this, perhaps, is said of four or five: " Come on, Jack; now I like this horse a great deal better than I did when I saw him yesterday. I was very near losing him. I am glad now I did not; he is a better nag than I thought he was; he'll do; go in."-" Now here's a horse wants but little to be quite a nice one; I booked him the minute I saw him. Run on, he can go; he cost a hundred, and cheap at the money; come on." The next alters the tone a little : Why, Jack, that ain't the grey I got of the parson.' Yes it is, sir." Why, I thought him a bigger horse; but then he makes a deal of himself when going, and that deceived me. The parson got the best of me; he ain't a bit too cheap, and not a very Look (says he) at an original by Sneyders-two bad one neither; there, go in."-"Now here comes dogs running, their shoulders looking as if they had one of the best nags I have bought for some time. been driven back into their ribs from the animal I look on him as the best horse in the fair for leath-having attempted to run through some iron gate er. I gave a good deal of money for him-a hun- too narrow to allow him to pass; a third or fourth dred and fifty; but he is sold at three hundred, lying on his back with his bowels protruding, with (N. B., being sold in this case does not mean that a great red open mouth as large as an alligator's; he is actually so, but that he will be sold to some while two more appear coming up, with their bodparticular customer so soon as he gets home.) Iies half cut off by the frame of the picture, holding offered a hundred for him last year he was only a forth two pair of fore-legs in about the same anibaby then; I like him better now at the odd fifty; mated position as the poles of a sedan-chair-their there, go in."-" Come on; why, that horse is only earthly merit being that they look so decidedlame. I said yesterday I was sure he did not goly and (as Jonathan would say) so everlastingly level; but the gentleman said he never was lame in his life; I dare say he thought so he must go back. Let him be put in a loose box, and I will write about him."-"Ah! there comes one I was sure I should not like. I hated the devil the minute I saw him; but I was a fool to be tempted by price; I thought him cheap-sarves me right. There, take him away; we'll ship him, as soon as he gets home, to somebody at some price.""Here's a horse I gave plenty of money for; but he's a nice nag; I wanted him for a match for Lady She is a good customer, and I mean to let her have him just for his expenses. Go in, Jack, and bring out the pony. There now, if I know what a nice pony is, there's one; I gave eighty for him. He'll roll over, (roll over means just double his cost price.) I mean him for Lord ; he won't ride one over fourteen hands, and rides eighteen stone; he 's cheap to him at a hundred and sixty. If such men won't pay and want to ride, let them go by the road-wagon."-StableTalk, vol. i., p. 226. stationary, that we are under no apprehension of ever being treated by the appearance of the rest of their bodies. Ward would have hanged himself if, by mistake, he had manufactured such beasts; he might have copied, but he could not have conceived such for the life of him.-Stable-Talk, ii. 284. The hunters of Seymour and Sartorius match these hounds by Sneyders Two-and-twenty couple to wit, and a given number of horses, all, if galloping, resting on their hindlegs, and looking as if they would rest forever; the horses behind them resting in their gallop on the balanced by a piece of curved wire stuck into their toes of their hind-feet, like those we see as toys bellies by one end, with a weight at the other. All this is lively, but the point may be pushed too far. Undoubtedly, the closer the mirror is held up to nature the truer will be the imitation; but to our minds, great artists like Rubens, Sneyders, and Velasques, flew at nobler game than Such ponies "sell themselves," and, we admit, mere servile animal portrait-painting. Pigmalionrequire no puffing. Corpulent and contemplative like, they breathed their own living spirit into riders will think our author presses elsewhere too brute beasts, and in their action, energy, and riotheavily on cobs, towards which, in Devonshire ous animal impulse there is no mistake; hence and out, we plead a long-standing partiality. Besonians and Meltonians, all the world in short, Hieover-gracilis puer-whose horse must be whether they can or cannot ride, are carried away brisk as a bottle of champagne, handy as a fiddle, with equal satisfaction and sympathy, dissecting and over five-barred gates like a bird, would soon- "vets" to the contrary notwithstanding. "Ne er ride a rhinoceros than a comfortable cob. Ac-sutor ultra crepidam," said Apelles, who would cording to him, these "hundred-guinea pigs, with be pretty well "placed" too in any painter handibodies like butts of sherry," were constructed cap. The croaching subjects by Henderson, the to carry tons of congenial diners out, to whom, Derby-winners by Herring, and the hunting scenes |