(which God forbid should at present take place!) shall once more introduce him into the arena of official life? Or will he look out for the first favorable opening which may take place, for the first propitious gale which may blow, holding that the means are consecrated by the end, and that "all's well that ends well?" I think this will be his line of policy. It is in perfect accordance with his past; and I should not be astonished to find him buckling his little body to the triumphal car of the Count Molé or the Duke de Broglie. In fact, "all by myself, and for myself," is the phrase that will best explain his policy and his life. Whether that policy will eventually place him in the ranks of statesmen time only can decide; but I have a sincere conviction that the contrary will be the result of his multitudinous and incongruous courses.

But there he is, little man, there he is, rushing to the Chamber of Deputies. He has a roll of paper in his hand, and Jollivet, the deputy, is almost galloping by his side. The ex-minister is in a passion. What is it about? He is still ferocious against England; but he has another ground of fury now, either real or assumed. There he goes, there he goes; he enters the chamber, takes his seat, looks sardonically around him, screws up his little mouth, and bites his little lips; you may be sure that something is brewing Oh, yes!-he ascends the tribune, and declares himself once more "a man of the centres!" He denounces the opposition! they are incompetent, they know not how to rule, they are weak and wishy-washy; and he bids them adieu in the face of France and of the world. But for how long? I cannot tell; since M. Thiers will always be regarded as the very condensed essence of weathercockism. Alas! alas! he is not the only GIROUETTE in France, as we shall unhappily see in an early sketch of DE LANAR

HANDLEY-CROSS.
From the Quarterly Review-April.

Handley-Cross; or the Spa-Hunt. London. 1843. 3 vols. 12mo.

FROM the days of John Gilpin down to those of John Jorrocks the doings of our citizens have had interest for country as well as for town. The furthest removed, whether in station or location, like to know how the Londoners proper live-how and where they ride, fish, shoot-above all, whereabouts, and after what fashion, they hunt. Still there has always been an unworthy leaning to disparage and ridicule the pow ers of the East; as if it were not hard enough in all conscience for people to be cooped up in bricks and mortar all the year, without having the slow pointing finger of scorn proclaiming them cockneys whenever they venture forth for a breath of fresh air. "The unkindest cut of all" is, that city sportsmen are mainly indebted to city pencils and city pens for this unenviable notoriety.

The late Mr. Seymour, for instance, (a thorough-bred cockney), published as many sketches as filled half-a-dozen volumes, of which the field-sports of Londoners formed the staple, and which will outlive his more elaborate productions. Nobody can resist the fun of some of these delineations-especially in the fishing and shooting departments. At one page we have a country practitioner (a jolly-looking clown in a smock-frock) about "to serve an ejectment;" that is to say, shove a smart fisherman into a river in which he is poaching; and hard by we have a City swell, with shotbelt and gun, pointing to a dead sparrow across a piece of water, and exclaiming to a plethoric pugdog-"Fetch it, Prim; fetch it: vy, vot a perverse dog you are!" We have two urchins with one gun, tugging along a poodle pup with a great heavy chain; the puller observing to the shooter"Vot vith buying powder and shot, and keeping that 'ere sporting dog, shooting's werry expensive!" A few Numbers furto the zodiac of Denderah has chiefly occupied the ther on, we have a sportsman taking a delate meetings of the Académie des Inscriptions et liberate aim at a Billy-goat on a bank by a Belles Lettres. As an episode of his essay on the cottage; while his companion, as he opens zodiac, M. Biot read some observations on certain dates in the Rosetta inscription, in the explanation a sack, exclaims-" Make sure of him, Bob; of which he differs from M. Letronne, to which M. Letronne made a brief answer. M. Lenormant proposes to read, at a subsequent meeting, some observations in support of M. Biot's opinions on this subject. M. de Sauley has succeeded in deciphering the whole of the Demotic text of the Rosetta inscription, which he explains directly by means of the Coptic. It was stated to the Académie by M. Letronne, that a complete explanation of this inscription had formerly been made by Champollion,

TINE!

M. Thiers!-farewell!

ZODIAC OF DENDERAH.-The discussion relating

but not published -Literary Gazette. VOL. II. No. I. 9

I'm told it's as good as wenison." Then comes a tattered ruffian seizing a commoncouncilman just about to fire-" Vot the divil are you shooting at through the hedge ?" "Ares!" "Them 'ere brown things arn't hares-them's gipsy babbies !!”

the recreations of the Londoners in his own Strype enumerates respectfully among day (the reign of George I.) "riding on

horseback and hunting with my Lord Mayor's hounds when the common hunt goes out." We need hardly say, indeed, that the maintenance of a pack of hounds formed a part of the expenses of many of the corporations in former times, just as the donation of purses or pieces of plate to the race meetings does at present. But even in Strype's day the joking had begun-witness Tom D'Urfey on the Lord Mayor's field-day :"Once a year into Essex a hunting they do go;lowing the occupation, think it incumbent to

To see 'em pass along O'tis a most pretty show:
Through Cheapside and Fenchurch street and so to
Aldgate pump.

Each man with 's spurs in 's horse's sides, and his
backsword cross his rump

is a street-lounging, leather plating idiot, who feels quite unhappy" off the stones." If railroads had effected no greater good, they had yet earned our eternal gratitude for diminishing, if not annihilating, that most disgusting of all disgusting animals, the would-be stagecoachman. Not that we object to gentlemen driving four in hand-if well, so much the better for their own necks-but we groan over those benighted youths who, while foldescend to the manners, the gestures, and the articulation of the " regulars," who touch their hats to ladies, and turn their toes and jerk out an elbow to their male friends.

My Lord he takes a staff in hand to beat the bush-There was a smart paper in a recent number

A creature bounceth from the bush, which made them all to laugh;

My lord he cried. A hare, a hare! but it proved an

Essex calf."

We like the Londoners-their joyous enthusiasm is like the hearty gaiety of a girl at her first ball, while the listlessness of many of what are called regular sportsmen resembles the inertness of the belle of many seasons. Colonel Cook, who hunted what may be called a cockney country-part of Essex-bears testimony to the excellence of their characters:

of that justly popular miscellany, the New Sporting Magazine, wherein this " Sporting Tiger" is well portrayed

in judging of him by his skin may be in taking "The only possible mistake that may be made him for an opulent book-keeper at a coach-office, or for an omnibus cad who has inherited largely. He usually wears a broadish-brimmed hat, furnished with a loop and string to secure it to his ed dark coat, with a widish hem in lieu of a colhead in tempestuous weather, and a long-waistlar, and with astoundingly wide-apart hind buttons, but very loose and ample in the skirts; his neck-cloth is generally white, and tied so as to display as much of his poll as possible; his waistcoat is easy, long, and groomish in cut, whilst his trousers are close-fitting, short, and secured "Should you happen to keep hounds," says he, under a thick, round-toed, well-cleaned boot, by at no great distance from London, you will find a long narrow strap. His great coat, wrapper, many of the inhabitants of that capital (cockneys, coatoon, pea-jacket, or whatever he may please if you please) good sportsmen, well mounted, and to call it, is indescribably bepatched, bestiched, riding well to hounds: they never interfere with and bepocketed-constructed on the plan best the management of them in the field, contribute calculated to afford extraordinary facilities liberally to the expense, and pay their subscrip for getting at halfpence to pay turnpikes tions regularly.... Whenever I went to town I with rapidity, and for withstanding unusual inreceived the greatest kindness and hospitality clemency of weather in an exposed situation. from these gentlemen; capital dinners, and the He saunters about with a sort of jaunty swagger, choicest wines. We occasionally went the best twitching his head on one side about thrice in a pace over the mahogany, often ran the Portuguese minute; he carries a slight switch in his hand, a sharp burst, and whoo-whooped many a long-with which he deliberately rehearses, as he corked Frenchman !Ӡ

Be it observed, that there is a wide difference between the London sportsman and the London sporting-man. The former loves the country, and rushes eagerly at early dawn to enjoy a long day's diversion, while the latter

*Pills to purge Melancholy-1719.

strolls along, the outline of a severe double-
thonging with which he means to surprise his
What appears to
team-when he sets up one.
interest him above all things in this sublunary
scene are the family affairs of stage-coachmen,
and the success or failure of the coaches commit-
ted to their charge. He would rather be accost-
ed familiarly before witnesses by Brighton Bill
than by the Duke of Wellington."

Such figures as this used to be very familiar to all who saw the arrival or the departure of" The Age" or " The Times;" but they are now rare. There survives, however, another and a still lower grade of London sporting

+ Observations on Fox-Hunting, p. 148. The derivation of cockney has gravelled our philologists.Meric Casaubon is clear for oikoyevns-not a bad bit of pedantry;-but we have little doubt it is a dimintive of coke, i. e. cook; and from the same root probably are the French coquin and coquette: for the levities and vices of the townsfolk are all associated in the primitive rustic mind with the one over-men-lower in rank-lower in every thingwhelming idea of devotion to delicate fare.

Dr. Richardson's earliest example is from Chaucer's Reeve's Tale:

"And when this jape is tald another day,
I shall be halden a daffe [fool] or a Cokenay."

who tend materially to bring the fair fame of our citizens into disrepute. We allude to the steeple-chase and hurdle-race riders. We denounce the whole system. It is bad in every

A

point of view-cruel, dangerous, and useless- We know not if Tom Rounding felt the cruel to horses, dangerous to riders, and use- contempt that most old fox-hunters do for less in all its results except, indeed, the fre- stag-hunting-but certainly, the day we had quent riddance it makes of fools. What can the honor of attending, there was not much be more cruel than rewarding a noble ani- energy in the out-of-doors department. mal who has carried his rider gallantly stupid-looking hind, its head garnished with throughout the winter, when his legs want dingy ribbons, was uncarted before a dozen rest and refreshment, by a butchering race yelping unsizeable hounds, whom no exeracross country, without the wonted stimu- tions or persuasions of a blowsy whipper-in lus in the cry of hounds and all for a few clad in green, with the peak of his cap Sovereigns sweepstake? What can be more turned behind to conduct the rain down his dangerous than the pranks of a set of hot-back, could induce to pack together; and headed youths, roused perhaps with the false after a circuitous struggle of a mile or so, courage of brandy, setting off to gallop hind, hounds, and horsemen found themstraight across an artificially-fenced country, selves at the back of the Horse and Groomagainst captains who don their titles with with the real business of the day yet to their jackets, and retire after the race into commence. the privacy of grooms or stable-men? If it is the speed of the horse that the owner wishes to ascertain, the smooth race-course is the place for that; and as to saying that hunters must be able to go the pace," we answer, that hounds must go even faster than they do to require the pace that steeple-chases are ridden at. Every day sees the hunting countries becoming more inclosed; and it is supposing that the hedges are no impediment to the fox and hounds to say it is necessary to ride a horse "full tilt," and "at score" while they are running. No doubt there are bursts, but there are few without some breathing time and at any rate the excitement of the hounds lends an impetus to the horse, which the spur of the steeple-chaser can never supply.

An amusing book might be written on the "genuine sportsmen" of this our great city; and we heartily wish Mr. Surtees of Hemsterly Hall, Northumberland, to whom we are indebted for the volumes named at the head of this paper, would undertake the job.

We believe the Epping Hunt was taken up after the downfall of the city pack by Tom Rounding and his brother Dick. Dick died in 1813, leaving Tom, who, though now, alas! dead too, will never die in the annals of the chase. He has been celebrated by Hood-but the greatest compliment perhaps that could be paid him was that the Epping Hunt died with him. Happy we are to think that with our editorial ubiquity we once joined the Epping Hunt. Though somewhat shorn of its glory-still Tom Rounding was there-the living likeness of George III.-the courteous host of the Horse and Groom at Woodford Wells :

"A snow-white head, a merry eye,
A cheek of jolly blush,
A claret tint laid on by Health
With Master Reynard's brush !"

But Surrey was the great scene of action. Ten years ago, in that county, there were three packs of fox-hounds, one of staghounds, and innumerable packs of harriers. When Mr. Jorrocks, whose exploits we are now approaching, wanted to astonish his friend the Yorkshireman with the brilliancy of Surrey doings, and mounted him for a day with "them 'ounds," they overtook near Croydon a gentleman reading a long list decorated with a stag-hunt at the top, choosing which pack he should go to, just as one reads the play-bills during a "Temperance Corner" dinner, to see which theatre is best worth patronizing.

We cannot allude to those days without giving a word to the late "Parson Harvey of Pimlico," as he was generally called. Many of our readers will remember a tall, eccentric, horse-breaker-looking individual, dressed in an old black coat, with drab breeches and gaiters, lounging up and down the Park on a thorough-bred and frequently hooded horse: that was the Rev. Mr. Harvey, an enthusiastic lover of the animal, and the owner of many valuable horses. He was an amiable, inoffensive man, and an oracle in horse-flesh, particularly where racing matters were concerned. His last appearance in public was on Newmarket Heath, whither he was drawn in a bed-carriage, his feeble head propped up with pillows, to see the produce of some favorite win his race. But let it not be supposed that Mr. Harvey had no regard for religious duties: far from it. Though without preferment, and long before the Tracts were heard of, he was a daily attendant at Church: morning-service at Westminster Abbey invariably included him among its congregation. His style of doing this, however, had something of peculiarity about it. Disdaining to walk, and being, moreover, an economist, he hit upon an expedient for provid

ing shelter for his horse without the expense of a livery-stable. His long equestrian exercises wearing out much iron, he always rode that horse to the Abbey which most wanted shoeing, and so got standing room at a neighboring smithy; but as a set of shoes a-day would more than supply his stud, the worthy parson had only one shoe put on at a time, so that each horse got four turns!

Mr. Daniel (in his "Rural Sports") relates a singular instance of London keenness and management, which may be placed in contrast with the extravagance of modern establishments:

The choicest morsels of this he selected for him

Many hasty critics accused the author of "Jorrocks's Jaunts and Jollities" (1838) of plagiarizing Pickwick and Co., regardless of the preface, which stated that the chapters were reprinted from the New Sporting Magazine, wherein they had appeared between the years 1831 and 1834," long before Mr. Dickens emerged into public notice. We will venture to say that the sire of Jorrocks would no more think of such a thing as filching another man's style than would the more prolific "Boz." How far the popularity of "The Jaunts" may have induced certain publishers to wish for a Cockney sportsman of their own is another matter: but the dialect of Jorrocks was and is his own; and we must equally disclaim on the part of our independent friend, as respects character, all clanship or sympathy with the soft Mr. Pickwick. Jorrocks is a sportsman to the backbone. Pickwick's real merits are many and great: but thorough ignorance of all appertaining to sporting was his prime qualification for the chairmanship of the club-a true cockney according to Skinner's definition, “Vir urbanus, rerum rusticarum prorsus ignarus;" nor need Hickes's addition be omitted, "Gulæ et ventri deditus."

"Mr. Osbaldeston, clerk to an attorney [a connexion, no doubt, of the modern "squire"] supported himself, with half-a-dozen children, as many couple of hounds, and two hunters, upon sixty pounds per annum. This also was effected in London, without running in debt, and with always a good coat on his back. To explain this seeming impossibility, it should be observed that, after the expiration of office-hours, Mr. Osbaldeston acted as an acountant for the butchers in Clare-market, who paid him in offal. self and family, and with the rest he fed his hounds, which were kept in the garret. His horses were lodged in his cellar, and fed on grains from a neighboring brewhouse, and on damaged corn, with which he was supplied by In these volumes the character of the a cornchandler, whose books he kept in order. sporting grocer is brought out in still more Once or twice a week in the season he hunted; perfect developement than in the producand by giving a hare now and then to the farm-tion of 1838; but they embrace a view of ers over whose ground he sported, he secured their good will and permission; and several the history of Handley Cross, both as a gentlemen (struck with the extraordinary eco- watering-place and a rival to Melton Mownomical mode of his hunting arrangements, which were generally known) winked at his going over their manors. Mr. Osbaldeston was the younger son of a gentleman of good family but small fortune in the north of England; and, having imprudently married one of his father's servants, was turned out of doors, with no other fortune than a southern hound big with pup, and whose offspring from that time became a source of amusement to him."

We have already alluded to one change that railroads have effected in the sporting department of London life; but that was a trifle. All England has been contracted, as it were, within the span of our metropolis. Sportsmen who rose by candlelight, and with difficulty accomplished a Croydon or Barnet meet by eleven, can now start, horse and all, by the early train, and take the cream of Leicestershire for their day! The Yorkshire hills resound to the guns that formerly alarmed only Hampstead and Highgate; and the lazy Lea is deserted for the rushing Tweed or sparkling Teviot. No wonder, therefore, that we should now find our old friend Mr. Jorrocks on a new and comparatively distant field of action.

many

bray, previous to his advent in the locality of his new adventures. We are willing to quote freely from this preliminary part, as little about hunts, but few or none of them of our readers may know and care can have avoided some acquaintance with spas; and we wish to show them that our author, though a crack sportsman, is quite awake upon a variety of subjects besides. For example, we believe the following account of the medical worthies who first made the Handley waters famous will be allowed to equal in accuracy and far surpass in spirit any parallel record that could be cited from the pages of Granville :

"One Roger Swizzle, a roistering, red-faced, roundabout apothecary, who had somewhat impaired his constitution by his jolly performances while walking the hospitals in London, had settled at Appledove, a small market-town in the vale, where he enjoyed a considerable want of practice in common with two or three other fortunate brethren. Hearing of a mineral spring at Handley Cross, which, according to usual country tradition, was capable of 'curing every thing," he tried it on himself, and either the water or the exercise in walking to and fro had a

very beneficial effect on his digestive powers. fruit after. Turtle-soup is very wholesome, so He analyzed its contents, and, finding the ingre- is venison. Don't let the punch be too acid dients he expected, he set himself to work to turn though. Drink the waters, live on a regimen, it to his own advantage. Having secured a lease and you'll be well in no time.' of the spring, he took the late Stephen Dump- "We beg pardon for not having drawn a more ling's house on the green, where, at one or other elaborate sketch of Mr. Swizzle before. In of its four front windows, a numerous tribe of height he was exactly five feet eight, and forty little Swizzles might be seen flattening their years of age. He had a long, fat, red face, with noses against the panes. Roger possessed eve-little twinkling black eyes, set high in his forery requisite for a great experimental practition-head, surmounted by fullish eyebrows and short er-assurance, a wife and large family, and bristly iron-gray hair, brushed up like a hedgescarcely any thing to keep them on. hog's back. His nose was snub, and he rejoiced "Being a shrewd sort of fellow, he knew there in an ample double chin, rendered more conwas nothing like striking out a new light for at-spicuous by the tightness of an ill-tied white tracting notice, and the more that light was in neckcloth, and the absence of all whisker or hair accordance with the wishes of the world, the from his face. A country-made snuff-colored more likely was it to turn to his own advantage. coat, black waistcoat, and short greenish-drab Half the complaints of the upper classes he knew trousers, with high-lows, were the adjuncts of arose from over-eating and indolence, so he his short ungainly figure. A peculiarly goodthought, if he could originate a doctrine that natured smile hovered round the dimples of his with the use of Handley Cross waters people fat cheeks, which set a patient at ease on the might eat and drink what they pleased, his for-instant. This, with his unaffected, cherry, free tune would be as good as made. Aided by the and easy manner, and the comfortable nature of local press, he succeeded in drawing a certain his prescriptions, gained him innumerable paattention to the water, the benefit of which soon tients. That to some he did good there is no began to be felt by the villagers of the place; doubt. The mere early rising and exercise he and the landlord of the Fox and Grapes had his insisted upon would renovate a constitution imstable constantly filled with gigs and horses of paired by too close application to business and the visitors. Presently lodgings were sought bad air; while the gourmands, among whom his after, and carpeting began to cover the before principal practice lay, would be benefitted by sanded staircases of the cottages. These were abstinence and regular hours. The water, no soon found insufficient; and an enterprising doubt, had its merits, but, as usual, was greatly bricklayer got up a building society for the erec-aided by early rising, pure air, the absence of tion of a row of four-roomed cottages, called the cares, regular habits, and the other advantages Grand Esplanade. Others quickly followed, which mineral waters invariably claim as their the last undertaking always eclipsing its prede-own. One thing the Doctor never wanted-a

cessor.

reason why it did not cure. If a patient went "Ah, I see how it is, he would say, as a back on his hands, he soon hit off an excusegouty alderman slowly disclosed the symptoms. you surely didn't dine off goose on MichaelmasSoon set you on your legs again. Was far day?' or 'Hadn't you some filberts for dessert?' worse myself. All stomach sir-all stomach-- &c.-all which information he got from the serthree-fourths of our complaints arise from stom-vants or shopkeepers of the place. When a ach; stroking his corpulent protuberancy with patient died on his hands, he would say, 'He one hand, and twisting his patient's button with was as good as dead when he came."—vol. i. the other. 'Clean you well out, and then p. 23. strengthen the system. Dine with me at five, and we will talk it all over.'

It is an old adage, that wherever there is room for one great doctor there must be an opening for a second. Accordingly, the hearty John Bull of the faculty is soon elbowed by an interesting foreigner :

"To the great and dignified he was more ceremonious. You see, Sir Harry,' he would say, 'i's all done by eating! More people dig their graves with their teeth than we imagine. Not that I would deny you the good things of this world, but I would recommend a few at a "Determined to be Swizzle's opposite in every time, and no mixing. No side dishes. No particular, he was studiously attentive to his liqueurs-only two or three wines. Whatever dress. Not that he indulged in gay colors, but your stomach fancies, give it! Begin now, to- his black suit fitted without a wrinkle, and his morrow, with the waters. A pint before break-thin dress boots shone with patent polish; turnedfast-half an hour after, tea, fried ham and eggs, brown bread, and a walk. Luncheon-another piat-a roast pigeon and fried potatoes, then a ride. Dinner at six, not later, mind; gravy soup, glass of sherry, nic fresh turbot and lobstersauce-wouldn't recommend salmon-another glass of sherry-then a good cut out of the middle of a well-browned saddle of mutton-wash it over with a few glasses of iced champagneand if you like a little light pastry to wind up with, well and good. A pint of old port and a deviled biscuit can hurt no man. Mind, no salads, or cucumbers, or celery, at dinner, or

back cambric wristbands displayed the snowy whiteness of his hand, and set off a massive antique ring or two. He had four small frills to his shirt, and an auburn-hair chain crossed his broad roll-collared waistcoat, and passed a most diminutive Geneva watch into his pocket. He was a widower. Mystery being his object, he avoided the public gaze. Unlike Roger Swizzle, who either trudged from patient to patient, or whisked about in a gig, Dr. Sebastian Mello drove to and fro in a claret-colored fly, drawn by dun ponies. Through the plate-glass windows a glimpse of his reclining figure might be caught, lolling lux