to the merry notes of the manytongued hounds. In this month expired Shooting, after a so-so sort of a season, leaving many sincere mourners for its loss. Now the lambs begin to shew them selves in this troublesome world, the birds to arrange their matrimonial affairs, and men and maids to convey to each other those tender epistles, decorated with all sorts of hearts and darts, cupids and graces, which are intended to lay the foundation of an excursion to the Temple of Hymen. ; Soon, however, is this loving month jostled out of existence by blustering March, with its winds and its rains and as it brings one so near the end of one's joys, every moment becomes precious, and sport on any terms must be had. Every covert is brushed, and Master Reynard saluted with more than ordinary affection. Hares this month afford capital sport ; indeed I think it the best time of the year for Puss, although they give her the credit of being mad. April still gives the stag and otter hound occupation; but for the rest, it is oblivion. Upon the whole then I consider the past season to have been a good oneexcellent in some countries. The scent was not always prime, which I attribute to the cold winds from the north and east, which are much oftener the cause of bad scent than the variation in soil, although that may occasionally be the reason. All I hope is, that next season may be as good; that the same brave fellows may live, again to distinguish themselves; and that you and I, Mr. Editor, may be here to record their deeds! "And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands, and part." GILBERT FORESTER. MAZEPPA. Engraved by ROMNEY, from a Picture by the YOUNGER MARSHALL. THIS Portrait is considered an excellent likeness of MAZEPPA as he appeared on the Oxford Course in 1831, and does equal credit to both Painter and Engraver. MAZEPPA, first called Confederacy, a ches. colt, foaled in 1827, bred by the Duke of Richmond, was got by Godolphin (a son of Partisan), dam (Frogmore's dam) by Rubens; grandam, Sister to Parisot by Sir Peter; great grandam, Deceit by Tandem; great great grandam, Perdita by Herod; great great great grandam, Fair Forester by Sloe-Forester Partner- Croft's Bay - Brimmer Barb - Makeless PERFORMANCES. 1830, at Goodwood, August 11th, CONFEDERACY, 3 yrs, 7st. 7lb. beat Mr. Day's b. f. Caradori by Centaur, 4 yrs, 8st. 7lb. T.Y.C. 100, h. ft. September 1st, at Egham, CONFEDERACY won a Sweepstakes of five sovs. each, with 30 added, weight for age, the winner to be sold for 150 sovs. if demanded, mile heats, beating Mr. W. Day's b. m. Profile, aged, Lord Mountcharles's Brother to Gayhurst, 3 yrs, and Mr. Laurence's Fury, 3 yrs.-Seven to 4 on CONFEDERACY, who was claimed. September 7th, Mr. Heard's CONFEDERACY won a Plate of 501. at Chatham, heats two miles and a distance, at three heats, beating Mr. Rush's b. f. by Partisan out of Chintz, 3 yrs, and Lord W. Lennox's ro. m. Miss Craven, 6 yrs, who was drawn after the second heat. 1831, June 16th, Mr. Watts's CoxFEDERACY Won the Original Five Sovs. Stakes, with 501. added, at Bath, two miles and a distance, 17 subs., beating Mr. Sadler's Keepsake and Mr. Biggs's Little Red Rover.-Mr. Day's Little Boy Blue and Mr. Corbet's Lady Blanche also started but were not placed :-two to 1 on Little Red Rover, and 4 to 1 agst the winner. July 19th, Mr. Watts's MAZEPPA (late Confederacy), 7st. 6lb., won the Gloucestershire Stakes at Cheltenham, two miles, beating Sir L. Glyn's Bryan, 4 yrs, 8st. 2lb., Mr. Bristow's Dr. Faustus, agel, 9st. 2lb., and Mr. Sadler's Device, 5y rs, 8st. 7lb. Four others started but not placed. August 3d, MAZEPPA Wo the Cup at Oxford, value 140 sovs., given by the Gentlemen of the County, by subscribers of 10 sovs. each, added to a Sweepstakes of 10 sovs. each, two miles and a quarter, nine subs., beating Mr. Blandy's b. m. Anna by Godolphin, 5 yrs, and Mr. E. Peel's br. h. Cadland, 6 yrs. September 14th, MAZEPPA won the Cup at Abingdon, three miles, 16 subs. at 10 sovs. each, beating Mr. Day's Liston, aged, Mr. Dundas's Honest Robin, 5 yrs, Mr. Blandy's Anna, 5 yrs (broke down), and Mr. Thornhill's Africanus, 3 yrs. Next day MAZEPPA won a Handicap Stakes of five sovs. each, with 50 added, at three heats, about a mile and a quarter, nine subs., beating Mr. Saller's Design, Mr. Day's Augur, Mr. Watson's Fidget, and a half-bred mare distanced the first heat. 1830, April 15th, Newmarket Craven Meeting, CONFEDERACY, 7st. paid forfeit to Mr. F. Mills's ro. f. Jungfrau, by Skim, Sst. 7lb. First Half of Ab. M. 100, h. ft.-May 25th, started for the Shirley Stakes at Epsom, but not placed.-July 28th, started for the Brighton Stakes at Brighton, but not placed.--August 2d, beat by Taglioni by Whisker, and Donzelli by Bustard or Orville, at Lewes, for a Sweepstakes of 50 sovs. each, h. ft. one mile, five subs.-August 10th, ran second to Donzelli, at Goodwood, for the Cowdroy Stakes of 25 sovs. each, T.Y.C., beating Mr. Gardnor's King William, by Rubens.-September 8th, ran second to Mr. Coleman's b. f. Tiny by Wanderer, at Chatham, for a Plate of 50gs., beating Mr. Rush's f. by Whalebone out of Discord, Mr. Wickham's f. by Waterloo, and Mr. Ricardo's Lancastrian. 1831, June 15th, Mr. Watts's CONFEDERACY, 4 yrs, 7st. 10lb., ran second to Mr. Houldsworth's Crescent, by Blacklock, 4 yrs, 7st. 12lb. at Bath, for the First Class of the Somersetshire Stakes, beating Mr. Wiltshire's b. h. Lawrence, aged, 8st. 4lb. Five others started but were not placed:-3 to 1 agst the winner, 5 to 1 agst CONFEDERACY.— September 6th, MAZEPPA (late Confederacy), 8st. 3lb., ran second to Mr. Chapman's br. c. The Cardinal, by Waxy Pope, 4 yrs, 8st. 5lb. at Warwick, for the Leamington Stakes, two miles. Nine others started but were nowhere:-4 to 1 agst the winner, 7 to 4 agst MAZEPPA.-September 8th, MAZEPPA started for the King's Plate at Warwick, and drawn after the first heat:-won by Mr. Sadler's Jocko by Filho da Puta. 1332, April 21th, MAZEPPA, carrying 8st. 4lb., ran second to the Duke of Grafton's Oxygen, by Emilius, 3 yrs, 7st. 9lb. at the Newmarket Craven Meeting, for the First Class of the Oatlands Stakes of 50 sovs. each, h. ft. D. I. (nine subs.); General Grosvenor's Sarpedon, 3 yrs, 7st. 9lb. third. The following also started but were not placed :-Colonel Wilson's br. c. by Comus, out of Rotterdam, 4 yrs, 9st.; Sir M. Wood's ch. c. Captain Arthur, 4 yrs, 8st. 10lb.; Mr. Chifney's br. c. Snarl, 4 yrs, 7st. 13lb.; and Lord Exeter's ch. c. Anthony, 3 yrs, 7st. 6lb.:-2 to 1 agst Oxygen, 4 to 1 agst MAZEPPA, 5 to 1 agst Captain Arthur, 5 to 1 agst Rotterdam, and 6 to 1 agst Snarl.-May 10th, MAZEPPA, 7st. 13lb., ran second to Mr. Vansittart's Rubini, by St. Patrick, 3 yrs, 7st. 4lb., in a Sweepstakes of 30 sovs. each, 20 ft. T.M.M. seven subs., beating Mr. Rush's Guildford, 5 yrs, 7st. 7lb., and three others, at the Newmarket First Spring Meeting:-even betting on MAZEPPA, 7 to 1 agst Rubini. TASSEL TO" A YOUNGSTER," IN CONTINUATION. DEAR TOM, I Promised in my last letter to give you some hints as to rearing your young birds; but I think it may be a better plan to delay doing so until the breeding season, when you shall receive what memoranda I may think worth noting down, and which I shall keep in a sort of diary form. With regard to the proceedings in my own breeding mew, one main maxim is, that hen pheasants are not like loaded guns, but always ought to be kept full cocked: three hens are too many for one cock (particularly if he is under two years old), and you will find many eggs ungifted with Powlett Thomson's invention - fructification. A friend of mine, who has what some people call good luck with his birds, but what I call good sense in their management, keeps a spare cock bird, who is occasionally turned in to the hens. With regard to your mew, a dozen raddled hurdles set up endwise, and partly covered in, will, under good regulations, produce as many eggs as an edifice reared on the plan of Buckingham House, and under the surveillance of Mr. Nash, with the sole exception of the temporary building being more exposed to the devastations of those banes of poultry-yards— rats. Didst ever see a rat wire ? It is the neatest trap that ever was invented, and the most destructive; and, although no great adept at either describing or drawing such an affair, I must try to explain it to you. Let your bender be a good stiff hazel of about five feet long, and your wire strong and single: put the loop at about an inch from the ground in the runs of these accursed vermin, and they must be more than ordinarily cunning if, before morning, you do not find some sharing the fate of Haman.-I dare say you have ere now, when perch were biting forty miles an hour, let one slip off your hook: in that case good bye to your sport from that hole. Exactly the same is it with rats: if your tackle break, or should one escape from any other accident, your chance of success is out for some time. Unde hoc? have irrational animals the faculty of warning each other of impending danger? I verily believe they have. Mind that you donot make your birds too fat: this is a very general fault, and produces wind eggs, no eggs at all, and various mischances. Let them eat up all *These cursed animals are, however, occasionally to be found in the most stately mansions, and most regal habitations. VOL. V-SECOND SERIES.No. 26, M their food clean: any left lying about is but a bait for vermin. I always pinion my breeding birds at once: if you only cut the wing feathers, they moult, are forgotten, and, if your mew is open at the top, one fine morning you find it empty. Besides, if a bird gets out by any other means, the odds against catching him again are materially increased if he possesses two wings instead of one. Keep constant fresh water with them, and plenty of it, and put in a shallow pan full of ashes, in which they delight to rake and dust themselves: look at the coal hearths in your woods, and you will soon discover how pleasing such a proceeding is to them. Round these, by the way, are generally placed wires. Keep them narrowly watched. It has never been my lot to possess game enough to allow my keeper to shoot it: his province has always hitherto been to preserve, and mine to destroy. Still I do not undervalue a good shot as a gamekeeper. It is a provoking thing to hear of his just missing a lurcher, or a hawk; and if you want a brace of birds when you are away from home, you do not wish a whole farm to be disturbed and a dozen coveys frightened and dispersed before the desired bag is obtained. Nevertheless, I am very jealous of these gentry with a gun; and I have reason to believe that much more harm than good is done by trusting most of them with one You laud one of the applicants for your place by saying that he is a very handy fellow: if he be handy in his vocation, tant mieux; but if by handiness you imply that he is a Jack-of-all-trades, he is by no means improved by possessing the quality. I had a handy keeper some years ago: he was an adept at manufacturing mouse-traps, pre-eminent in the construction of paper kites, a top-sawyer at grafting apple trees, a brewer, a coach-maker, a farmer, a doctor, a carpenter. You may guess my game-book was a meagre one for the he lived with me. year "If the game be loo, play loo:" if you hire a keeper, make him stick to his business, which ought to amply employ him. Every servant and every servant's master is but too apt to follow each "maggot which may bite," to use an elegant expression, instead of the occupation which ought to engross his attention. "Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus." I never knew a carter who did not fancy he should like to superintend an ox-team, or a footman who did not envy the groom: the butler longs to inhale the fresh air as bailiff; the bailiff sighs for the sweets of the ale cellar and if the fates should will that you, my dear Tom, should at some, not remote, period be blest with sundry and manifold olive branches round your table, rely upon it that the solicitude for change will pervade the female as well as the masculine part of your establishment; and that the maiden (so called Kar'eos) who dandles the scions of the Lfamily, will desire other employ than that which her mistress has allotted her, and sigh for another "rolet." кат An excellent sportsman and old friend of mine, who has ere now been celebrated in the pages I heard a running fire one summer's day in a little home wood, and going down to find out the cause, I came upon my Adonis of a gamekeeper (de quo suprà) shooting snakes!! He said handling them made his gloves smell." ! ! + Role," character, Fr.......not "roll," the act of rolling, Johnson. 66 "I of the Sporting Magazine as the Beware of a very generally received opinion, of "setting a thief to catch a thief," and of enlisting a reformed poacher in your service. Jonathan Wild, I dispute not, made an excellent blood-hound, but this will not hold good in our case: it is impossible that a man, contaminated by the association with vagabonds of the lowest class, polluted by intercourse with felons and convicts on the tread-wheel, in the closest connection with receivers of stolen goods, and who most probably for years has considered every man's hand against him, and his hand against every one, can be a fit person to be placed in a situation of trust and responsibility, or can-with due deference to many of my friends, be it spoken, who entertain different ideas on this head-be a proper person to be honored with the confidence and familiarity (if I may use the word) which in some degree must exist between this sort of servant and his master. Practice before theory for me all the world over. I have seen the experiment tried repeatedly, and never knew it answer. I say nothing here of the thousand ill effects that the example of promoting a man merely on account of his known infamy must necessarily produce; although at a penny a line I might fill a sheet with their enumeration: but they are far too evident to escape your notice. Still I am open to conviction, and may be in error; and this I shall believe when the first act of a reformed poacher turned gamekeeper shall be informing against the receiving houses for game: he must of course know each and every one of them ; therefore his refusing or neglecting to perform this first ordeal can only savour of a strong wish of making to himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when he shall be discovered stealing his master's game, they may receive him into their beer shops. It has always ap peared rather strange that more discoveries on this score have never taken place on the part of regular gamekeepers; but "there are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy;" and there is doubtless some cogent reason to the contrary. Well, indeed, might the Prince of Satirists ask, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?” Lay not the flattering unction to your soul that any single act of his predecessor's can possibly be approved by a new gamekeeper. The woods are roaded diametrically contrary to all good sense and rationality, although you in vain assert that you killed ten brace of pheasants and three couple of woodcocks on one December's day under the old regime: a loaded wagon might pass over the bridge of every gin and never move it, although you protest that the smallest weasel never escaped: the hutch hedges must be entirely remodelled, although no night has passed for months without their being replete |