their lives. Horses' heads should always be turned the way hounds are going, or, in a check, the way the hounds are wanted to go.

It may appear strange, considering the enormous increase in wealth, and the much greater number of horsemen-sportsmen, we perhaps, cannot call them-who now take the field, that the difficulty of keeping up packs of hounds has increased, instead of diminished. When any of the old veterans of the chase, men who have held countries thirty or forty or fifty years, principally if not wholly at their own expense, drop off, what chopping and changing takes place! what offering and pressing and begging before any one will bite, and how soon the same scene is repeated, in consequence of relinquishment. The best countries seem to fare the worst in this respect. Leicestershire has had seven masters in fourteen years; and Northamptonshire, we believe, rather more. If we look through the list, taking the counties alphabetically, what changes we shall find! We will begin with Col. Cook's time, 1826.

In Bedfordshire, we had the Marquis of Tavistock, now Duke of Bedford, with the Oakley. Since then they have been in the hands of Mr. Dansey, Mr. Grantley Berkeley, of the Marquis again, and are now, we believe, in the hands of Mr. Magniac. The Marquis of Salisbury, too, figures as hunting part of it, though Hertfordshire was more the arena of his operations.

In Berkshire came the Old Berkeley, now extinct, and Mr. Horlock, with the Craven, who, on taking his present country in the neighbourhood of Bath, was succeeded by Mr. Smith, who was replaced by Mr. F. Villebois.

In Buckinghamshire we had the late Duke of Grafton, with his sombre livery of Lincoln-green, and Sir Thomas Mostyn. The Duke sold his hounds a few seasons since to Lord Southampton, and Sir Thomas was replaced by Mr. Drake, a gentleman now getting up in the list of masters of hounds. Cambridgeshire had Mr. Hurrell, with the Gransden, long since replaced by Mr. Barnett.

The north-west part of Cheshire has long flourished under the sporting family of Stanley, and the "Cheshire Hunt" had a long reign under Sir Henry Mainwaring, and has had two or three short ones since his time. Mr. Leche, of Carden, on the Welsh side, has retired from the list of masters of hounds within these dozen years.

In Derbyshire, Mr. Meynell holds on, with the addition to his name of Ingram. The name of Meynell should never be lost to the sporting world. Sir George Sitwell, who also figures as a master in Col. Cook's book, has long been off the list, nor must the popular and ever-to-be-lamented Marquis of Hastings be forgotten, whose hounds hunted parts of three counties in the neighbourhood of Castle Donnington, situate on the confines of Leicestershire and Derbyshire. His lordship was a pattern of what a master of hounds and an English nobleman ought to be. No one ever died more truly or sincerely regretted.

In Dorsetshire, Mr. Farquharson stands proudly conspicuous. He is one of the oldest masters of hounds now going, and has long hunted his country in a most superior manner, four and sometimes

five days a week at his sole expense. Mr. Yeatman, Lord Portman, and Mr. Drax have all been on the list, but the latter gentleman only remains. Lord Portman's health was unequal to the fatigue, and Mr. Yeatman fell back on his harriers.

Durham, in Col. Cook's time, had two of the first sportsmen of the day, Mr. Ralph Lambton and Lord Darlington. Each has since paid the debt of nature; but the former has been replaced by his son, the present Duke of Cleveland, while Mr. Lambton's country has become as conspicuous for its changes as it was before for the permanence of its occupation.

Essex, and its next initial neighbour Gloucestershire, have both fared better than many more aspiring counties in the sporting line. In the former we have Mr. Conyers going steadily on, season after season; and in the latter, through a variety of names, we have the Colonel Berkeley of Colonel Cook's time in the Earl Fitzhardinge of the present day. The Earl's is one of the finest establishments going. The men, the hounds, the horses, all look part and parcel of each other. No trimming of tails to suit the varying fashion of the day; the old square docks have lived through both "short-cuts" and "swiches:" long may they flourish.

In Essex we should have noticed the retirement of Lord Petre from the field-a nobleman who did the thing as well as ever we saw it done and also Mr. Charles Newman, one of the keenest of the keen. Nor should the accession of Mr. Sheffield Neave and his stag-hounds be forgotten, a gentleman who last year completed his twelfth season.

In Gloucestershire still stands the princely Duke of Beaufort, a worthy son of a worthy sire, with his magnificent establishment and his unbounded hospitality. The uniform of the Duke's hunt is peculiar: the servants in green plush, with red waistcoats, if we recollect right; the field in dark blue coats lined with buff.

Hampshire, for so woody, so hilly, so flinty, and so cold-scenting a country, has been singularly fortunate in the matter of hounds. There were half-a-dozen packs of foxhounds there in Colonel Cook's time; and we believe there are as many now-regular fox-hunting establishments, hunting their three and four days a week, not the rough-and-ready sets out of rough-and-ready countries. The late Mr. Villebois kept the "H.H.," or Hampshire hounds, entirely at his own expense, we believe. Sir John Cope, if we mistake not, does the same; and the Leicestershire first-rate, Assheton Smith-the Tom Smith-has an establishment in this second-rate provincial worthy of Melton itself. Besides these, Hampshire has the Vine and the Hambledon, with Major Shedden in the Forest. The latter country has seen many changes within these dozen years.

(To be continued.)

LEATHERLUNGS THE "LEG."

BY THE EDITOR.

CHAP. II.—“ DUM VIVIMUS, VIVAMUS.”

"Without money, down comes the squire-body and breeches."

SAM SLICK.

English travellers, who frequent foreign hotels when they cross to the continent, wholly mistake the reading of the maxim which recommends association with the natives of the places one visits. By all means let them cultivate an acquaintance-a familiarity if you will-with the people of foreign countries, but not in-doors. "Sub Jove," you may herd with a Hottentot, or an Esquimaux manured for a high holiday, but avoid the hut of the savage and the hotel of the Parisian, meublé essentially, and essencially, according to the fashion of France, as you would a pest house. I must be excused particulars; if the reader don't take me at my word, let him lodge. for a week in the dog-days at any indigenous hostelry from Boulogne to Bayonne. I wish him no severer penance for his incredulity. This preface will prepare him for the fact, that after the breakfast which succeeded the "good night" I bade him in the last chapter in the Rue Revoli, I was seen making the best of my way to Meurice's, the most civilized caravansara of the Faubourg St. Germain, take my word for it. It was at noon, and at the best table in the coffee-room, discussing the best served déjeuné a la fourchette, sat Leatherlungs the Leg. I confess I wished him some where else. "This is the only house in Paris to stop at," said he, looking up from his plate as I passed, and speaking with his mouth full of ris de veau au gratin. "they understand a little of English comfort, and, what is absolutely necessary, a little of the English language. What's the use of a bill of fare as big as the Times and supplement together, without a dish in it that one's not afraid to order, if one don't wish to run the risk of being poisoned? What's the use of a set of fellows polka-ing at your side, who don't know whether you call for buttermilk or Burgundy? I dined the other day at the Trois Frères"-but as Leatherlungs is the real primitive original of the story, I must tell it for him, lest he might not grace his own tale.

The coffee-room of the Trois Frères Provenceaux was filled with the elite of the gourmands and gourmets of Paris, when a massive man descended from a stylish cab-a thorough English equipageand taking very decided possession of a chair, thus bespoke a waiter"Garçon (his pronunciation was villanous, the reader perhaps may form an idea of it by reference to his own), garçon, apportez moi un beefstake."