there certainly are particular manifestations | severe-indulgent to faults which do not imof each of these faults which deserve that mediately interfere with social enjoyment, or reproach. A man might be a thorough gen- of which the pleasant consequences are imtleman who was in the habit of systematically mortifying and wounding others by sarcastic exposures of their folly or ignorance, but it would be inconsistent with the character of a gentleman to produce the very same effects by ridiculing a personal defect or a domestic calamity. mediate, and the unpleasant ones remote, and severe upon every thing which tends to make the act of association uncomfortable or insecure. This explains the reason why lying and breaches of trust of all sorts are inconsistent with the character of a gentleman, whilst incontinence and debauchery are not. It may be said that this is mere caprice, It must be observed, however, that the moral and that such distinctions-which are but element in the conception of the character of a specimens of a very numerous class-rest gentleman is really moral, though it is partial. upon no principle whatever. But this is not It stigmatizes lying, not merely because it is the case. Almost all, if not all, the ques-unpleasant, nor merely because it is immoral, tions which can be raised upon the subject but because it is unpleasant, immoral, and may be solved upon a single principle. inartistic at one and the same time. These When people are in the habit of associating considerations tend rather to explain what is together, they inevitably, though unconsciously, set up a certain standard of conduct, conformity with which is a condition of being a member of the society. This standard is not fixed with exclusive reference to any one element of human nature, but embraces all those which are concerned in the objects of the association. Those who sympathize with the temper of the society often imbibe thoroughly the spirit of this standard, and constantly show its influence in their conduct. Societies, however, whatever may be their object, have not only a pervading tone and temper, but have almost always definite laws, which are of more or less importance according to the ends to which they are directed; and a man may implicitly and habitually obey them without entering in any degree into the spirit in accordance with which they were framed, just as a judge might rigorously carry into execution laws of which he entirely disapproved, or as a secretary might put into shape reasonings or conclusions which he considered altogether absurd. These remarks apply to all associations whatever. But they will throw considerable light upon the different questions suggested above, and upon others of the same kind, if what is in popular language called "society" is considered as an association of a number of different people, not for purposes of business, or of direct advantage, but for the sake of enjoying the pleasure of each other's company. The general standard of conduct which such an association would set up would be partly moral, partly artistic, and partly intellectual. It would be somewhat narrow in its range, embracing only those departments of life which come frequently into view, and would thus have little or no application to strange, occasional actions, like murder or arson, which tend not so much to disturb the harmony of social intercourse as to put an end to it altogether. It is natural that it should be a standard at once indulgent and/ meant by the spirit of a gentlemam than what conduct is specifically gentleman-like. The solution of that question depends not so much upon the standard of conduct set up by society as upon its laws of conduct. A man who has but little sympathy with the one may pass muster well enough by obserying the other. The laws of society apply rather to the minor than to the greater morals, and, like all other laws, they are capable of being observed almost mechanically and by mere abstinence. There are, for example, a great number of social rules which are founded upon the principle that social intercourse implies respect. Thus it is against all the laws of civilized society to call a man names, and it is against the spirit of civilized society on most occasions to give him pain. A man who said ill-natured things might be a worse man than one who called his neighbor a fool or a liar, but he would have kept the law, whilst the other would have broken it. This explains why many trifles are ungentleman-like, whilst many serious offences are not. It appears from all this that a real, though not perhaps a very definite, meaning can be attached to one of the assertions which, as has been observed, is included under the word gentleman-the assertion, namely, that a certain set of good qualities usually go together. Whether the second assertion which it includes is true-namely, that those qualities are characteristic of a particular class of society-is quite another question. It is one which every one must answer for himself from his own experience. Perhaps the opinion which is at once the most charitable and the least extravagant is, that though there is no position in life in which a man may not be a gentleman if he has it in him, there is also none which makes him one of itself, and not many which are very favorable to his being one. MY FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY. BY MRS. FRANCIS D. GAGE. I USED to think, when I, a child, That rolled before my father's door, I looked at grandma as she sat, Her forehead decked with silvery rime, And thought "When I'm as old as that, Must I darn stockings all the time? Must I sit in an arm-chair so, A white frilled cap around my face, With dull drab strings, and ne'er a bow, And keep things always in their place?" The lines of care, the sigh of pain, The "Hush!" her lips so oft let fall, Would ofttimes join our sports and mirth; Nor make a spring-time of the hours. So, when she said, one sunny morn, You will be old, like me, some day," I wept like one of hope forlorn, And threw my playthings all away. Be old! like grandma, and not roam The glen in spring, for violets blue, Or bring the bright May blossoms home, Or pick the strawberries 'mong the dew? Be old! and in the summer time Take weary naps in midday hours, Upon the hillside, rustling brown, I thought 'twere better not to be. Till now I'm fifty-now I'm old. Spectacles lic upon my nose, But no white frill looks prim and cold; To play among the pebbles, I Would love, on that familiar shore, Where once I watched the swallows fly The dancing, rippling waters o'er. I'd like to climb the apple-tree, Where once the spicy sweeting grew, Make grape-vine swings, and have a glee; But I am fifty-twouldn't do. I'd like to go a-nutting now, And gather violets in the glen And wreathe the wild flowers round my brow, As well as e'er I did at ten. I'd like to slide upon the pond, To watch the old mill struggling there In icy chains, while all beyond Was one broad mirror, cold and glare. I'd like to see the noisy school, Let out a-nooning, as of old, Play "Lost my glove," and "Mind the rule;" My heart throbs quick-it is not cold. I hear the cry of Kate and Jane, Of Lottie, Lina, Helen and SueAh, yes! (I'll own it) in between Come George, and Dan, and William, too. I'm fifty, but I am not sad; I see no gloom in ripening years; Of silvery stream and woodland bill. Than childhood's play, with all its zest, For woodland walks and violets blue, Have never chilled my spirit's flow, Than in the spring-time long ago. The paths I trod were sometimes rough, And sharp and piercing to my feet; Yet there were daisied walks enough To make it all scem smooth and sweet. Friends that I loved have passed from sight Before me to the spirit home; But in the day that knows no night, I know they'll greet me when I come. Hopes that I cherished, too, were vain ; But I have lived to feel and know That were life to live o'er again, "Twere better that it should be so. At every winding of the way, I've sought for love, and love have given ; For love can cheer the darkest day, And make the poorest home a heaven. O ye who're passing down, like me, Life's autumn side, be brave and strong, And teach the lisper at your knce That fifty years is not so long; Broken and shattered o'er and o'er, Gives forth a loftier, clearer song Than that which greeted us at morn, When it was new, and brave, and strong. Father, I thank thee for them all, These fifty years which now are passed; Oh! guide me, guard me, till the fall Of death my form shall hide at last. Let me in love and kindness still Live on, nor e'er grow hard and cold; Bend me and break me to thy will, But may my spirit ne'er grow old! TRANS MARE. Mr spirit droops beneath these unloved skies, Trod by the shining feet of many rills; Yea! lovely as the new-made carth of God, When through its unpressed grass the first flow mancs; And soft the night-winds murmur through the reeds, And bend the long grass rippling o'er the plains. Starts from the forest path, the shy, filcet fawn. Brushing the heavy dew from strange wild flowers; And glows warm summer over lake and lawn, Not with the half-veiled loveliness of ours. But oh! 'tis all too present, and too real: No memories crown the green and gorgeous land, No magic shadows from the old ideal Haunt the lone vale-the mountain gorges grand; Floats o'er the bosom of the fair blue lake No Dryads linger in the scented woods, Nor long it listens with undoubting eyes, Nor long they weep above the leaves that shade Hood." This is the twilight land of thought, whereon The spent waves of old Europe's glory pour, Flinging the dancing foam afar that shone, A soiled and ragged selvage on the shore. O dreamer! make not here thy rapt delay. Or watch the pallid glory of a star, THE RETURNED LETTERS. I. How she strives her grief to smother! Till at last there comes a letter: 'Tis her own, she traces there,Better she had died,-far better,"Gone away, and not known where." II. From her home across the ocean, Blotted with repentant tears, Writes the daughter her emotion— How she turns to carlier years; Prays that Heav'n may bless her mother, Tells her of her wedded joy, How she left her for anotherSends the picture of her boy. Then she waits to be forgiven, Till another year has fled; Back her letter, torn and riven, From The Saturday Review. THE HUNTING-GROUNDS OF THE OLD WORLD.* hand across his eyes, rushed into the jungle, saying, 'Do not let him linger.' When his back was turned I placed the muzzle of my pistol to the suffering animal's temple, and pulled the trigger." THE sporting recollections of the gentleman who, with a modesty which appears to be somewhat superfluous, conceals his name Boars introduce the subject of tigers; and under the initials H. A. L., are even more H. A. L., like Captain Shakespear, whose extensive and diversified than is usually the work we recently noticed, has a great deal case with Indian officers. They extend not to say upon that subject. He has the satonly over all parts of India, but to Circassia isfaction of being able to recollect that he and Algeria; and they conclude, appropri- put to death a confirmed man-eater, which ately enough, with a chapter upon the use was supposed to have devoured about a hunand different descriptions of fire-arms. H. dred persons, and was proved to have killed A. L.'s style is less simple, and aims rather twenty-two, as parts of that number of bodies more at fine writing, than that of most of were found in his lair by H. A. L. and his his fellow-sportsmen; but on the whole his companions who beat the jungle for him. book is exceedingly amusing, and its blem- The sight was one of the most revolting that ishes are very few and very pardonable. could possibly be witnessed. The comments Since the year 184-,- for he seems as mod- of the party appear to have been singularly est about the precise dates as he is about his characteristic. "What a fearfully sickening name, he has been a hunter, constantly sight it is," said the first. I wish we had growing by practice mightier and mightier. brought some beer with us," added the secHis earlier feats were performed upon sam- ond. "Poor woman," remarked the third bur or jungle deer, which are not unlike the "here is a lock of her hair I found sticking Scotch red deer, except that they are consid-to my boot. I shall keep it." A day or erably larger. Some of these he contrived, with the assistance of a friend, to shoot, by way of initiation into Indian sporting. His account of the pursuit of them reads very like parts of Fenimore Cooper's novels, as the deer have to be followed with all sorts of precautions through jungles which are al-abled him, whilst a second laid him dead. most impassable, and in which the track is followed up with a tact only attainable either by practice so early and continuous as to resemble an instinct, or by long and careful study and observation. two afterwards H. A. L. went alone in the evening to a place where the tiger was in the habit of springing on passers-by, and was fortunate enough to attract his attention. The man-eater sprung into the path close by him, and was met by a rifle ball which dis Another tiger was at any rate somewhat more fortunate in his death-in so far, that is, as it can be considered a comfort to be revenged of one's enemies in such a case. He struck down one of H. A. L.'s native From deer H. A. L., promoted himself to servants and killed him on the stop, immewild boars, which are ridden upon with diately after which he was himself shot spears, after a fashion which can only be through the head. The hunt at which this compared to fox-hunting without hounds incident took place is excellently described. the fox being replaced by an animal which H. A. L., with a friend and his native seris perfectly qualified, both by his strength vants, encamped for a day or two near a and by his fierceness, to put both the men large pool formed by a mountain stream deand the horses who pursue him into the scending from the Neilgherry hills, which most imminent danger. On one occasion, was the resort of all the animals of the the horse of one of H. A. L.'s companions neighboring forest for the purpose of drinkwas cut down by the rush of a boar which ing. A sort of hut was erected on the top had just received a spear through the loins, of a huge black boulder ten feet high, in such and the painful duty of shooting him de- a manner that the rifles commanded all apvolved on H. A. L. himself. The story is proaches, either to the rock or the pool. All told in a really affecting manner. "I saw at day and all night the pool was visited by difa glance that it was a hopeless case, and tap- ferent birds and beasts, each animal selectping N on the shoulder, I gave a signif-ing its appropriate time. At midday all aniicant look to the small pistol that I always carried loaded in my belt. The poor animal, in spite of his agony, recognized his master, for he raised himself up partly from the ground, and rubbed his nose against his shoulder in a most affectionate manner. N kissed his forehead, and passing his *The Hunting-Grounds of the Old World. By the "Old Shekarry," H. A. L. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co. 1860. mated nature appears to be overcome by the fierce heat; but as the day wears on, butterflies flutter about, whilst bees, beetles, and myriads of insects keep up a perpetual hum, which "produces an effect singularly strange, soothing, and dreamy." This sound is varied at times by the cries of peacocks and jungle fowl, the chattering of monkeys, and the screams of paroquets. Towards evening the birds return homeward from their feed 66 ing grounds-flamingoes, pelicans, ibises, a wonderfully beautiful and interesting counstorks, herons, egrets, and plovers; and as try, and is prolific in strange adventures. the night comes on, moths flit about, frogs One of the stories which H. A. L. heard croak, and crickets chirp, "keeping up a there sounds like an exaggeration of the perpetual screnade." "Then is heard the well-known anecdote of the bird-catcher of whooping of the great rock-monkeys, the the Hebrides, who to save his own life cut bark of the elk, the mournful howling of the away from under him the rope by which his hyena, the unearthly shrieking of jackals, father and brother were suspended. Eleven the trumpeting of elephants as they crash Abbassians, with five Russian prisonersthrough the underwood. At intervals, the four men and a woman-were returning distant roar of a prowling tiger is re-echoed home from an expedition across a steppe among the hollow arches of the forest, as he covered with snow. After a time they found leaves his lair in its inmost recesses to search that they were pursued by a horde of wolves. in the plains for prey, and great horned owls They hastened at their utmost speed towards flit past on muffled wings with strange se- the nearest hamlet, which was seven miles pulchral cries, like evil spirits of darkness."off, but their horses were tired, and the Whilst encamped in this romantic situation, wolves gained on them. They then "deterthe hunters shot two tigers, a deer, and a mined to sacrifice the prisoners one by one, huge carp weighing upwards of sixty pounds. so as to gain time for the rest to escape.' This creature met its death from a ramrod They began by hamstringing the woman's which was fired at it out of a common musket, horse, and she and it were in a moment torn with a cord and some wire attached. The to pieces, but ground was gained. After a ramrod passed completely through it, and time the wolves again approached, and all carried the wire and part of the cord with it, the prisoners were sacrificed, one after the but such was its strength that it took an other. Two of their own party then fell; a hour's work to get it landed. The whole of third-an old man whose sons were present this hunt was successful, several bisons and-killed his horse, and so gave himself up to some wild elephants forming part of the the beasts. Another man and horse were spoil. One of the latter was a rogue "- shot by the leader of the party; and at last that is, he was a beast who had been turned the remainder, with one exception, reached out of the herd by the other elephants, and a hut and barricaded themselves in it. The was marked in various places with the scars remaining man was devoured with his horse which he had received in fighting with them. before their eyes. The wolves stayed round These rogues, from their solitary life, become the hut for nearly two days, trying to get in, morose and vicious, and will, without provo- and eating up such of their own number as cation, attack any one they happen to meet. were killed or wounded by the fire from H. A. L.'s Circassian experience has more within; but in the course of the second night novelty than his Indian stories. After the a violent storm arose, and they took themconclusion of peace with the Russians, he selves off, leaving the six survivors to escape. made his way into Circassia with six attendants-an Arnout, a Koord, a Nubian, a Khabyle, a Hindoo fakeer, and another Hindoo who had been sold as a slave in his childhood to the Circassians. This motley group was the remnant of a troop of BashiBazouks which H. A. L. commanded on the Danube before our troops landed at Varna, and which was composed of men of twentyseven different nations. Circassia abounds in all sorts of game. "It is my belief," says the author, "that swans, ducks, geese of all kinds, besides snipe and woodcock, choose these secluded and almost inaccessible spots to herd in, migrating here for that purpose from all the other countries of Europe." "I killed in one day in a jheel (marsh), near The concluding chapter relates to Algeria, the foot of the Abassadagh mountain, four- and is less interesting than its predecessors, teen miles from Tshamshira, thirty-four brace as H. A. L. could not persuade the lions of woodcock, eleven couple of snipe, seven geese, and sixty-one ducks, and could have continued the slaughter, were it not that the villagers, for whose benefit it was intended, declared that they could not carry more away." The east coast of the Black Sea is H. A. L.'s principal feat in Circassia (besides shooting an enormous bear, four feet high at the shoulder) was the ascent of Mount El-Bruz, the highest mountain in the country. He did not get to the top, but only to one of the lower peaks, from which, however, he had a magnificent view extending from the Black Sea to a dense mist in the opposite direction, which as he supposed overhung the Caspian. The ascent was adventurous enough, as a huge lammergeier, measuring nearly ten feet across his wings, was shot, as well as an ibex with horns thirtyfour inches long. One of the party, a Nubian, died in the descent-probably from heart disease. which he hunted to come and be killed. He had the pleasure of hearing one of them snore and grunt, and he very nearly fell on the top of him in a ditch some six feet deep. The lion was dreadfully frightened, and ran away; and H. A. L. got an attack of fever. |