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worse deductions, if the matter is not fairly oath you ever heard. He had champed a shot, with an old tooth. Now that's meat and drink to you, Harry, for all your tenderness." "Why, it was only a shot in a black coat, Jack, instead of a black cock." That's famous. I'll tell him of that. Oh, Hal, your laugh is savage. See-you enjoy the sport now yourself." "It ought to be a lesson to him.' "Oh yes! mighty considerate persons you Tatler and Spectator men are, and would make fine havoc with our amusements." "Excuse

However, wishing to let Jack have his ease in perfection, as far as he could, I was for postponing the argument to another day, and seeing him relish his birds and claret in peace. But the more he drank, the less he would hear of it. "Besides," says he, "I've been talking about it to Bilson-you know Bilson, the Christ Church man, and he's been putting me up to some prime good arguments, 'faith. I hope I shan't forget 'em. By the by, I'll tell you a good joke about Bilson-But you don't eat anything. What, is your leg so bad as that comes to? You don't pretend, I hope, not to eat partridge, because of your love of the birds?" "No, Jack, but I'd rather know that you had killed 'em than Bilson, because you are a jollier hand; you don't go to the sport with such reverend sophistry." "That's famous. Bilson, to be sure,-But stop, don't let me forget another thing, now I think of it. Bilson says you eat poultry. What do you say to that? You eat chicken." "I am not sure that I can apologize for eating grouse, except, as I said before, when you kill 'em. Evil communications corrupt good platters. I can only say that no grouse should be killed for me, unless a perfect Tomkins an unerring shot-had the bringing of them down. I could give up poultry too; but death is common to all; a fowl is soon despatched; and many a fowl would not exist, if death for the dinner-table were not part of his charter. I confess I should not like to keep poultry. There is a violation of fellowship and domesticity in killing the sharers of our homestead, and especially in keeping them to kill. It would make me seem like an ogre. this is one sentiment: that violated by making a sport of cruelty is another. But I will not argue this matter with you now, Jack. It would be a cruelty itself. It would be inhospitable, and a foppery. I wish to put wine down your throat, and not to thrust my arguments. Besides, as you say, I never shall convince you; so drink your claret, and tell me where you were yesterday." "Why at Bilson's, I tell you, and so I must talk while I think of it. We had a famous joke with BilSince he went into orders, he is very anxious not to swear; and so he laid a wager he'd never swear again; and yesterday, in the middle of dinner, while he was champing his bird, and cutting up your argument about cruelty, all of a sudden what does our Vicar but clap his hand to his jaw as if he was going to give a view holla, and rap out the d-dest

But

me.

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It is you that make fine havoc. I would have you amuse yourself to your heart's content, if you would do it without breaking the bones and hearts of your fellow-creatures." "Fellow-creatures!' and their 'hearts!' The hearts of woodcocks and partridges! Pooh, pooh! Bilson might have borne his pain better, I own, but what he says is very true;he says, if you come to think of it, there must be pain in the world, and it would be unmanly to think of it in this light." "Very well. Then do you, Jack, who are so manly, and so willing to encourage one's sports, stand a little farther, and let me crack your shin with this poker." "Nonsense. That's a very different thing." Perhaps you'd prefer a good crack on the skull?" "Nonsense." "Or a thrustout of your eye?" "No, no; all that's very different." Well, you know what you have been about this morning. Go and pick your way again along the palings there; and leave me your fowling-piece, and I'll endeavour to shoot you handsomely through the body." "Nonsense, nonsense. I'm a man, you know; and a bird's a bird. Besides, birds don't feel as we do. They're not Christians. They are not reasoning beings. They're not made of the same sort of stuff. In short, it's no use talking. There's no end of these things." "Just so. This is precisely the way I should argue if I had the winging of you. 'Here,' I should say, 'is Mr. John Tomkins.' Mind, I am standing with my manning-piece by a hedge." "With your what?" With my manning-piece. You cannot say fowling-piece, when it is men that are to be brought down." "Oh, now you're joking.' "I beg your pardon; you will find it no joke presently. Here,' says I, 'is Mr. John Tomkins coming;' or, 'Here is a Tomkins. Look at him. He's in fine coat and waistcoat (we can't say feather, you know:) keep close: now for my Joe Manton: you shall see how I'll pepper him.' 'Pray don't,' says my companion. A Tomkins is a Tomkins after all, and has his feelings as we have.' 'Stuff!' says I: Tomkinses don't feel as we do. They're not Christians, for they do

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not do as they would be done by. They're not reasoning beings, for they do not see that a leg's a leg. They're not made of the same sort of stuff; and so if they bleed, it does not signify if they die of a torturing fracture, who cares? In short, it's no use talking. There's no end of these things. So here goes. Now if I hit him, he is killed outright, which is no harm to anybody; and if I wound him, why he only goes groaning and writhing for three or four days, and who cares for that?'" Upon my soul, if I listen, you'll make a milk-sop of me. Consider think of the advantages of fresh air and exercise; of getting up in the morning, and scouring the country, and all that." Excellent: but, my dear Tomkins, the birds are not bound to suffer, because you want fresh air." "But it's the only time of the year, perhaps, that I can get out: and I must have something to do-something to occupy me and lead me about." "The birds, Tomkins, are not bound to have their legs and thighs broken, because you are in want of something to lead you about." "Well, you know what I mean. I mean that we must not look too nicely into these things, as somebody said about fish; or we should fret ourselves for nothing. The birds kill one another." "Yes, from necessity; for the want of a meal. But they do not torture or if they did, that would be because they did not reason as well as you and I, Tomkins." "What I mean to say is, that there's pain in the world already: we cannot help it; and if we can turn it to pleasure, so much the better. This is manly, I think." "Well said, indeed. But to turn pain into pleasure, and to add to it by more pain, are two different things, are they not? To bear pain like a man, and to inflict it like a sportsman, are two different things." "A sportsman can bear pain as well as anybody.' "Then why does he not begin by turning his own pain into a pleasure? As it is, he turns his own pleasure to another's pain. Why does he not begin with himself?" "How with himself?" "Why, you talk of the want of amusement and excitement. Now to say nothing of cricket, and golf, and boating, and other sports, are there no such things to be had as quarter-staves, single-stick, and broken heads? A good handsome pain there is a gallant thing, and strengthens the soul as well as the body. If there must be a certain portion of pain in the world, these were the ways to share it. But to sneak about, safe one's self, with a gun and a dog, and inflict all sorts of wounds and torments upon a parcel of little helpless birds,--Tomkins, you know not what

you are at, when you do it; or you are too much of a man to go on." "I cannot think that we inflict those tortures you speak of." "How many birds do you wound instead of kill? Say, upon an average, twenty to one, which is a generous computation. How many hundred birds would this make in the course of the day? How many thousands in the course of a season? To bring them down, and then be obliged to kill them, is butcherly enough: but to lame, and dislocate, and shatter the joints and bodies of so many that fly off, and leave them to die a lingering death in their agony,I think it would not be unworthy of some philosophers and teachers, if they were to think a little of all this as they go, and not talk of the 'sport' and the 'amusement' like others; as if men were to be trained up at once into thought and want of thought, into humanity and cruelty. Really, men are not the only creatures in existence; and the laugh of mutual complacency and approbation is apt to contain very sorry and shallow things, even among the 'celebrated' and 'highly respectable.' I don't speak of you, Jack; but of those who make a profession of thinking, which you know you are not under the necessity of doing. But what's the matter?" "I've got the d-dest toothache come upon me. It's this cursed draught. Of all pains the toothache is the most horrible. I've no patience with it." "I'll shut the door. There now never mind the toothache, for I'll bear it capitally." "You bear it! That's a good one. Very easy for you to bear it; but how the devil can I?Hm! hm! (writhing about) it's the cursedest pain." "Stay-here's some oil of cloves Mrs. Wilson has brought you. How does it feel now?" Wonderfully. The pain is quite gone. It was very bad, I assure you. You must not think I am wanting in proper courage as a man, because it hurt me so. You know, Harry, I can be as bold as most men, though I say it who shouldn't." "My dear Jack, you have as much right to speak the truth as I have. The boldest of men is not expected to be without feeling. An officer may go bravely into battle, and bear it bravely too, but he must feel it: he cannot be insensible to a shattered knee." "Certainly not.' 'Or to a jaw blown away-" By no means." "Or four of his ribs jammed in-" "Horrible!" "Or a face mashed, and his nose forced in-" "Don't speak of it!" "Or his two legs taken off by a cannon-ball, he being left to fester to death on a winter's night on a large plain.' Upon my soul, you make my flesh creep on my bones." "A gallant spirit is not bound to

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A COUNTRY LODGING.

academical closet would have been of no avail.""

"Well now, Harry, that's touching. He's right about the precepts. You have saved 'em from being dry, eh, with your claret; but all that you have said hasn't touched me like that story. A lapwing! hang me if I shall have "But the heart to touch another lapwing." other birds, Jack, have feelings, as well as lapwings. "What do you say, though, about Providence? Bilson said some famous things about Providence. What do you say to that?" Oh, ho! what! he

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feel all this, or even to hear of it, without | no wish to forget, for it had power to touch my heart, shuddering, even though the battle may be whilst yet a boy, when a thousand dry precepts in the necessary, and a great good produced by it to society." "Certainly, certainly, God knows." "It is only a woodcock or a snipe that ought to bear it without complaining: your partridge is the only piece of flesh and blood that we may put into such a state for no necessity, but purely for our sport and pleasure." "How? What's that you say?" "I say it is none but birds that we may, with a perfect conscience, lame, lacerate, mash, and blow their legs and beaks away, and leave, God knows where, to perish of neglect and torture, they being the only masculine creatures living, and not to be lowered into comparison with soldiers and gallant men." "Hey?-Why as to that?Hey? What? 'Fore George, you bewilder me with your list of tortures. But how am I to be sure that a bird feels as you say?" "It is As enough that you know nothing certain. you are not sure, you have no right to hazard the injustice, especially as you cannot help being sure of one thing; which is, that birds have flesh and blood like ourselves, and that they afford similar evidences of feeling and suffering. Allow me to read you a passage that I cut the other day out of an old review. It is taken from Fothergill's Essay on the Philosophy, Study, and Use of Natural His tory; a book which I shall make acquaintance with as soon as I can. Here it is.

"It may perhaps be said, that a discourse on the iniquity and evil consequences of murder would come with a bad grace from one who was himself a murderer,

and so it would: but not if it came from the lips of a
repentant murderer. Who can describe that which he
has not seen, or give utterance to that which he has not
felt? Never shall I forget the remembrance of a little
incident which occured to me during my boyish days
an incident which many will deem trifling and unim-
portant, but which has been particularly interesting to
my heart, as giving origin to sentiments, and rules of
action, which have since been very dear to me.-Besides
a singular elegance of form and beauty of plumage, the
eye of the common lapwing is peculiarly soft and ex-
pressive: it is large, black, and full of lustre, rolling, as

it seems to do, in liquid gems of dew. I had shot a bird
of this beautiful species; but, on taking it up, I found
that it was not dead. I had wounded its breast; and
some big drops of blood stained the pure whiteness of
its feathers. As I held the hapless bird in my hand,
hundreds of its companions hovered around my head,
uttering continued shrieks of distress, and, by their
plaintive cries, appeared to bemoan the fate of one to
whom they were connected by ties of the most tender
and interesting nature; whilst the poor wounded bird
continually moaned, with a kind of inward wailing
note, expressive of the keenest anguish; and, ever and
anon, it raised its drooping head, and turning towards
the wound in its breast, touched it with its bill, and
then looked up in my face with an expression that I have

'Admits and leaves them Providence's care'Does he? You remember the passage, Jack, in Pope :

"God cannot love (cries Blunt with tearless eyes):
The wretch he starves; and piously denies.
The humbler bishop, with a meeker air,
Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care.

"But we are Providence, Jack-nay, don't start: I mean that our own feelings, our own regulated feelings and instructed benevolence, are a part of the general action of Providence, a consequence and furtherance of the Divine Spirit. You see I can preach as well as Bilson. Humanity is the most visible putting forth of the Deity's hand; the noblest tool it works with. Or if this theology doesn't serve, recollect the fable of Jupiter and the Waggoner. Are we content with abstract references to Providence, when we can work out any good for ourselves, or save ourselves from any evil? Did Bilson wait for Providence to induct him to his living? Did he not make a good stir about it himself? Push him into a ditch the next time you meet him, and see if he will not bustle to get out of it. Leave him to get out by himself, and see if he does not think you a hard-hearted fellow. Wing him, Jack, wing him; and see if he'll apply to Providence or a surgeon.". "Eh? that would be famous. I say—I must be going though; it's getting dark, Well, Harry, and I must be in town by nine. my boy, good-by. I can't say you've convinced me; you know I told you I wasn't to be convinced; but I plainly confess I don't like the story of the lapwing; it makes the bird look like a sort of human creature; and that's not to be resisted. So I'm taken in about lapwings. Adieu." "Well, Jack, you shall say that in print, and perhaps do more good than you are Have you any objection?" "Not I, 'faith; I'd say any where, if it came into my head.-But how? In the Sporting Magazine?"

aware.

"Why I'm afraid we can hardly attain to such
eminence as that, especially on such a subject."
"I was thinking so. Oh, I see:--you'll pull
your hive about my ears. Well, so be it.
Adieu, Harry; I'll send you the books."
Adieu, honest Jack, jolliest of the myr-
midons of 'young-eyed Massacre.'"

LEIGH HUNT.

LITTLE RACHEL.1

on their best clothes and cleanest faces, they were the handsomest youths in the parish. Robert Ford was proud of his boys, as well he might be, and Dinah was still prouder.

Altogether it was a happy family and a pretty scene; especially of an evening, when the forge was at work, and when the bright firelight shone through the large unglazed window, illumining with its strange, red, unearthly light the group that stood round the anvil; showers of sparks flying from the heated iron, and the loud strokes of the sledge-hammer resounding over all the talking and laughing of the workmen, re-enforced by three or four idlers who were lounging about the shop. It formed a picture, which in a summer evening we could seldom pass without stopping to contemplate; beside, I had a roadside acquaint

cottage from thunder-storms and snow-storms, and even by daylight could not walk by without a friendly "How d'ye do?"

In one of the wild nooks of heath land, which are set so prettily amidst our richly timbered valleys, stands the cottage of Robert Ford, an industrious and substantial blacksmith. There is a striking appearance of dingy comfort about the whole demesne, form-ance with Mrs. Ford, had taken shelter in her ing as it does a sort of detached and isolated territory in the midst of the uninclosed common. by which it is surrounded. The ample garden, whose thick, dusty, quickset hedge runs along the highroad; the snug cottage, whose gable-end abuts on the causeway; the neat court, which parts the house from the long, low-browed shop and forge; and the stable, cart-shed, and piggeries behind, have all an air of rustic opulence: even the clear, irregular pond, half covered with ducks and geese that adjoins, and the old pollard oak, with a milestone leaning against it, that overhangs the dwelling, seem in accordance with its consequence and character, and give finish and harmony to the picture.

Mrs.

Late in last autumn we observed an addition to the family, in the person of a pretty little shy lass of some eight years old, a fair, slim, small-boned child, with delicate features, large blue eyes, a soft colour, light shining hair, and a remarkable neatness in her whole appearance. She seemed constantly busy, either sitting on a low stool by Dinah's side at needle-work, or gliding about the kitchen, engaged in some household employment-for the wide open door generally favoured the passengers with a full view of the interior, from the fully stored bacon-rack to the nicely swept hearth; and the little girl, if she perceived herself to be looked at, would slip behind the clock-case, or creep under the dresser to avoid notice. Ford, when questioned as to her new inmate, said that she was her husband's niece, the daughter of a younger brother, who had worked somewhere London-way, and had died lately, leaving a widow with eleven children in distressed circumstances. She added, that having no girl of their own, they had taken little Rachel for good and all; and vaunted much of her handiness, her seamstresship, and her scholarship, how she could read a chapter with the parish clerk, or make a shirt with the schoolmistress. Hereupon she called her to display her work, which was indeed extraordinary for so young a needle-woman; and would fain have had her exhibit her other acillus-complishment of reading: but the poor little maid hung down her head, and blushed up to her white temples, and almost cried, and though too frightened to run away, shrank back, till she was fairly hidden behind her

The inhabitants were also in excellent keep ing. Robert Ford, a stout, hearty middleaged man, sooty and grim as a collier, paced backward and forward between the house and the forge with the step of a man of substance -his very leather apron had an air of importance; his wife Dinah, a merry, comely woman, sat at the open door, in an amplitude of cap and gown and handkerchief, darning an eternal worsted stocking, and hailed the passers-by with the cheerful freedom of one well to do in the world; and their three sons, well-grown lads from sixteen to twenty, were the pride of the village for industry and good humour to say nothing of their hereditary love of cricket. On a Sunday, when they had

1 From Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery, by Mary Russell Mitford. As another tration of the mistakes which the most able editors will sometimes make, it may be mentioned that the MS. of Our Village was offered to Thomas Campbell, then editing the New Monthly Magazine, and rejected by

him.

portly aunt; so that that performance was perforce pretermitted. Mrs. Ford was rather scandalized at this shyness; and expostulated, coaxed, and scolded, after the customary fashion on such occasions. "Shamefacedness was," she said, "Rachel's only fault, and she be lieved the child could not help it. Her uncle and cousins were as fond of her as fond could be, but she was afraid of them all, and had never entered the shop since there she had been. Rachel," she added, "was singular in all her ways, and never spent a farthing on apples or gingerbread, though she had a bran new sixpence which her uncle had given her for hemming his cravats; she believed that she was saving it to send home."

A month passed away, during which time, from the mere habit of seeing us frequently, Rachel became so far tamed as to behold me and my usual walking companion without much dismay; would drop her little curtsey without colouring so very deeply, and was even won to accept a bun from that dear companion's pocket, and to answer yes or no to his questions.

At the end of that period, as we were returning home in the twilight from a round of morning visits, we perceived a sort of confusion in the forge, and heard loud sounds of scolding from within the shop, mixed with bitter lamentations from without. On a nearer approach, we discovered that the object in distress was an old acquaintance, a young Italian boy, such a wanderer from the Lake of Como as he whom Wordsworth has addressed so beautifully :

-"Or on thy head to poise a show
Of plaster craft in seemly row;

The graceful form of milk-white steed,
Or bird that soared with Ganymede;
Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear
The sightless Milton with his hair
Around his placid temples curled,
And Shakspeare at his side- -a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!"

He passed us almost every day, carrying his tray full of images into every quarter of the village. We had often wondered how he could find vent for his commodities; but our farmers' wives patronize that branch of art; and Stefano, with his light firm step, his upright carriage, his dancing eyes, and his broken English, was a universal favourite.

At present the poor boy's keen Italian features and bright dark eyes were disfigured by crying; and his loud wailings and southern gesticulations bore witness to the extremity of his distress. The cause of his grief was visible

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in the half empty tray that rested on the window of the forge, and the green parrot which lay in fragments on the footpath. The wrath of Robert Ford required some further explanation, which the presence of his worship instantly brought forth, although the enraged blacksmith was almost too angry to speak intelligibly.

It appeared that his youngest and favourite son, William, had been chaffering with Stefano for this identical green parrot, to present to Rachel, when a mischievous lad, running along the road, had knocked it from the window-sill, and reduced it to the state which we saw. So far was mere misfortune; and undoubtedly if left to himself our good neighbour would have indemnified the little merchant, but poor Stefano, startled at the suddenness of the accident, trembling at the anger of the severe master on whose account he travelled the country, and probably in the darkness really mistaking the offender, unluckily accused William Ford of the overthrow; which accusation, although the assertion was instantly and humbly retracted on William's denial, so aroused the English blood of the father, a complete John Bull, that he was raving, till black in the face, against cheats and foreigners, and threatening the young Italian with whipping, and the treadmill, and justices, and stocks, when we made our appearance, and the storm, having nearly exhausted its fury, gradually abated.

By this time, however, the clamour had attracted a little crowd of lookers-on from the house and the road, amongst the rest Mrs. Ford, and, peeping behind her aunt, little Rachel. Stefano continued to exclaim in his imperfect accent, "He will beat me!" and to sob and crouch and shiver, as if actually suffering under the impending chastisement. It was impossible not to sympathize with such a reality of distress, although we felt that an English boy, similarly situated, would have been too stout-hearted not to restrain its expression. "Sixpence!" and "my master will beat me,' intermixed with fresh bursts of crying, were all his answers to the various inquiries as to the amount of his loss, with which he was assailed; and young William Ford, 'a lad of grace,' was approaching his hand to his pocket, and my dear companion had just drawn forth his purse, when the good intentions of the one were arrested by the stern commands of his father, and the other was stopped by the reappearance of Rachel, who had run back to the house, and now darted through the group holding out her own new sixpence—her hoarded sixpence—and put it into Stefano's hand!

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