the signal which shall summon her to the covert, (and yet I think a lady possessing a delicate mind can never become a foxhunter,) while the dogs express their impatience by whines and looks: to witness the whole procession filing through a picturesque gate overhung with old trees, to trace their forms until they reach the wild-wood-side, and, one by one, clear the straggling fence the hounds dispersed the while in fanciful positions, each making an entrance where he pleases, by the red fern, the straggling ivy, or the long withered grass; to hear them bay the vaulted heavens, opening their voices upon the silence of the forest when they have discovered their prey, while the hunter's horn rings out a merry note to which the listening valleys make answer; and then to catch a first glimpse of the startled fox before even a dog appears in sight, stealing along by some hedge, or passing under a stile, then doubling to elude his enemies. Now we see the first hound: he has leaped the low hedge, and bounding along with his nose to the earth, opens his deep voice in full cry;—

"Another and another still succeeds,"

each baying to his companion, who flings the news behind him to his follower, like an evil report, which, having run the round of a neighbourhood, branches into the distant streets, and at length reaches the suburbs,-for even those dogs which are not yet in scent bark on the strength of the rumour.

Now the foremost huntsman appears: his noble steed has cleared the rough barrier of brambles at a bound, and while the horn again sounds, he stretches his slender limbs in the pride of speed, and dashes over the open fields. Now the fat old squire is thrown into the hedge, and you can scarcely distinguish the red hips of the wild-rose from his redder nose. The young lady's veil also has caught the branch of a thorn, and hangs waving there like a banner. Now a new-booted young farmer, thinking to do something clever, makes a leap over the five-barred gate-breaks his horse's knees, ploughs up

the earth with his own head, and gets laughed at for his pains. Now an old farmer, who is surveying his fields, places his hands in his pockets, and looks unutterable things at those who are breaking down his fences, and mutters something about broken necks. Now a group of famished pedestrians, who came out to see the hounds throw off," having found a mighty appetite, invade the first turnip-field, and looking with hungry eyes on the sheep, think of gipsies, great fires, and pots boiling in green lanes. Now little boys run to open gates, and if a few pence are not thrown them, whistle a long unmeaning note, and begin to kick the dead reeds and nettles fiercely. Now old publicans, who have caught sight of the cavalcade from some distant eminence, wonder if the fox will be killed near to their houses, and begin to reckon the profits of cigars at threepence each which cost one halfpenny, and how little brandy will colour a goblet of water. Now the hounds are at fault; and, during the short pause, gentlemen who have lost their hats tie handkerchiefs around their heads; and those who have been thrown laugh very loud, but look uncommonly pale, and make wry faces when they are the least noticed. Now the gentleman who staked a horse which cost him one hundred guineas comes up on foot, and biting the end of his whip, says "Devilish good sport!" Lastly, the fox is killed; and a tailor who went round on his little pony to avoid the fences chances to come in at the death in another direction, and is in time to secure the brush, before the others can arrive.

"The country," says Forster, "is said about this time to be ready for fox-hunting; and the still and damp intervals of weather, with only a gentle or almost imperceptible air from south and south-west which occurs at this time of the year, often favour a good day's hunting, as the scent remains. Scent, however, at best is but an uncertain thing, and the most promising mornings often disappoint the sportsman: it is caused by the suspension in the air of the odorous effluvia

of the hunted beast, and is liable to be washed down by the rain, or blown away with the wind, which often happens, and spoils the chace. Even those calm days on which the huntsman expects the best scent frequently deceive-so that we might infer some other cause in the air besides the stillness of the wind: it falls at times, too, nearer the ground than at others. A raw frosty morning, when the white rime goes off, has often given as good a run to hounds as a calm, warm, cloudy sky; and though southerly winds are preferred for hunting, yet we have known some of the best chases to happen with the wind from the north; for then

'We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

Once in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry ;—I never heard

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.'"

In the "Raven's Almanack for 1609," by Thomas Decker, there is a quaint description "Of Autumn, on the Fall of the Leaf," which runs thus: "Autumn's the barber of the year, that shears bushes, hedges, and trees; the ragged prodigal that consumes all and leaves himself nothing; the arrantest beggar amongst all the four quarters, and the most diseased, as being always troubled with the falling sickness. This murderer of the spring, this thief to summer and bad companion to winter, seems to come in, according to his old custom, when the sun sits like Justice with a pair of scales in his hand, weighing no more hours to the day than he does to the night, as he did before in his vernal progress when he rode on a ram. But this baldpated Autumn will be seen walking up and down groves, meadows, fields, woods, parks, and pastures, blasting of fruits, and beating leaves from their trees. When common highways

shall be strewed with boughs in mockery of Summer and in triumph of her death; and when the doors of usurers shall be strewed with green herbs, to do honour to poor brides that have no dowry (but their honesty) to their marriage; when the world looks like old Chaos, and that plenty is turned into penury, and beauty into ugliness; when men ride (the second time) to Bath; and when unthrifts fly amongst hen-sparrows, yet bring home all the feathers they carried out ;-then say that autumn reigns-then is the true fall of the leaf, because the world and the year turn over a new leaf.'"

From these amusing conceits we turn to the following instructive passages by Dr. Drake, in his "Autumnal Evenings:"

"No period of the year is better entitled to the appellation of 'the Season of Philosophic Enthusiasm' than the close of autumn. There is in the aspect of everything which surrounds us, as the sun is sinking below the horizon on a fine evening of November, all that can hush the troubled passions to repose, yet all which, at the same time, is calculated to elevate the mind and awaken the imagination. The gently agitated and refreshing state of the atmosphere, though at intervals broken in upon by the fitful and protracted moaning of the wind; the deep brown shadows which are gradully enveloping the manycoloured woods, and diffusing over the extended landscape a solemn and not unpleasing obscurity; the faint and farewell music of the latest warblers, and the waning splendour of the western sky,—almost insensibly dispose the intellectual man to serious and sublime associations. It is then we people the retiring scene with more than earthly forms: it is then we love

To listen to the hollow sighs

Through the half-leafless wood that breathes the gale:
For at such hours the shadowy phantom pale

Oft seems to fleet before the poet's eyes;
Strange sounds are heard, and mournful melodies
As of night wanderers who their woes bewail.'

"It is scarcely possible not to prostrate ourselves with deep humility before the throne of that Almighty Being who wields, directs, and limits the career of an element which, if let loose on this firm globe, would winnow it to dust.

"When we behold the birds that wing their way through this immeasurable void, through what vast tracts and undiscovered paths they seek their distant food; with what love and gratitude should we not reflect, that if He in mercy has become their pilot and their guide, how much more will he prove to us a sure and never-failing protector!

"And when we turn our eyes from earth, its falling leaves and fading aspect, its gathering gloom and treacherous meteors, to that great and glorious vault where burn the steady lamps of heaven, or where, shooting into interminable space, flow streams of inextinguishable lustre ; we are almost instinctively reminded, that here our days are numbered, that on this low planet brief is the time the oldest being lives, and that, passing from this transitory state, we are destined to pursue our course in regions of ever-during light, in worlds of never-changing beauty.

"It is owing to these and similar reflections which it has been the business of this paper to accumulate, that autumn has been ever felt as more peculiarly the season of religious hope. Amid vicissitude and decay, amid apparent ruin and destruction, we behold the seeds of life and renovation; for He who pervades and dwells with all things-the unchangeable and immortal Spirit, has so ordained the course of organised nature, that not only is life the precursor of death, but the latter is essential to the renewal of existence,—a chain and catenation—a cycle, as it were, of vitality, which tells us, in the strongest language of analogy, that if such seem the destiny of irrational nature— if thus she dies to live again, how assured should be the hope of intellectual being.

"To him who views the temporary desolation of the year with no consolatory thought-who sees not, in the seeming ruin which surrounds him, any hope or emblem of a better world—