bination of perseverance in man and of sagacity in a brute indicates a philosophical spirit in a people. Banks's horse was the great wonder of Elizabeth's time. He and his master have even found a niche in Raleigh's' History of the World:'—" If Banks had lived in older times, he would have shamed all the enchanters in the world; for whosoever was most famous among them could never master or instruct any beast as he did." This famous animal was a bay gelding, and he was named Morocco. In 'Love's Labour's Lost,' Moth, puzzling Armado with his arithmetic, says, "The Dancing Horse will tell you.” Hall, in his Satires,' notices "Strange Morocco's dumb arithmetic." Sir Kenelm Digby informs us that Banks's horse would restore a glove to the due owner after the master had whispered the man's name in his ear; and would tell the just number of pence in any piece of silver coin, newly showed him by his master." The Sieur de Melleray, in the notes to his translation of the 'Golden Ass' of Apuleius, tells us that he saw this wonderful horse in the Rue St. Jacques at Paris; and he is astonished that the animal could tell how many francs there were in a crown, but his astonishment was measureless that, the crown being then of a depreciated currency, the horse should be able to tell the exact amount of the depreciation, in that same month of March, 1608. Banks had fallen among a people who did not quite understand how far the animal and his keeper might employ the language of signs; and he got into trouble accordingly. The better instructed English multitude had been familiar with "Holden's camel," famed for "ingenuous studies ;" and they had seen Morocco himself go up to the top of St. Paul's. Though they lived in an age of belief in wizards, they had no desire to burn Banks as a professor of the black art. But he had a narrow escape in France; and his contrivance for the justification of his horse's character and his own shows him to have been as familiar with the human as with the brute nature. The story is told by Bishop Morton :-"Which bringeth into my remem brance a story which Banks told me at Frankfort, from his own experience in France among the Capuchins, by whom he was brought into suspicion of magic, because of the strange feats which his horse Morocco played (as I take it) at Orleans, where he, to redeem his credit, promised to manifest to the world that his horse was nothing less than a devil. To this end he commanded his horse to seek out one in the press of the people who had a crucifix on his hat; which done, he bade him kneel down unto it; and not this only, but also to rise up again and to kiss it. 'And now, gentlemen (quoth he), I think my horse hath acquitted both me and himself;' and so his adversaries rested satisfied; conceiving (as it might seem) that the devil had no power to come near the cross. The people of Orleans were imperfectly civilized; but Banks and Morocco were destined to fall into barbarous hands. We have no precise record of his fate; but some humorous lines of Jonson have been accepted as containing a tragical truth: "But 'mongst these Tiberts,* who do you think there was? Old Banks the juggler, our Pythagoras, Grave tutor to the learned horse; both which, It appears to us that Banks's horse, and Holden's camel, and the elephant that expressed his anger when the King of Spain was named, must have had a considerable influence in repressing the bear-beating cruelties of that age. These were among the street sights sanctioned by royal authority. The patent to Henslowe and Alleyn, the players, constituting them "Masters of the King's Games," in 1604, authorises them "to bait, or cause to be baited, our said bears, and others being of our said games, in all and every convenient places or places, at all times meet;" and accordingly the Masters of the Royal Games put down all unlicensed bearwards, and filled the town and country with their performances. This is an *Cats. illustration of Master Slender's pertinent question to Mistress Ann Page, "Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town?" It is a blessing that we have now no such street sights as bear-baiting. Bull-baiting, too, is gone: cock-fighting is no more seen. Pugilism has made a faint attempt at revival; but we can part with that too. Are the people, then, to have no amusements accessible to all? Are the street sights to be shouldered out by commerce and luxury, and not a recreation to be left? We answer, let a wise government double and treble the class of healthful exercises, and of intellectual gratifications. Give us new parks, if possible. Let us have gardens in which all may freely walk. Open our cathedrals, as the National Gallery and Hampton Court are opened. Instead of sending all the rare animals which are presented to the Crown to be shown for a shilling by one society, have menageries in Hyde Park and the Regent's Park. Take an example from the man who, when the planets are shining brightly out of a serene heaven, plants a telescope in Leicester Square or St. Paul's Church Yard, and finds enough passengers who are glad to catch glimpses of worlds unseen to the naked eye, and forget for a moment, in the contemplation of the mighty works of Omnipotence, the small things which surround us here. Open the great books of Nature, of Science, and of Art to the people; and they will not repine that the days of conjurers, and puppet-shows, and dancing bears have passed away. If governments have too long neglected these things, it is a blessing of our time that the people with wealthy leaders are accomplishing for themselves much more than governments will readily undertake. THE POACHERS: A TALE. THE first star of a calm evening of October was twinkling in the horizon, as Alice Green lingered with her lover near the green porch of her father's cottage. This humble and happy dwelling was in a sequestered part of Windsor Forest. It was situated in the bottom of a deep glade, surrounded by the most lofty and majestic trees. A traveller might pass it by unobserved, if he did not hear the bark of the sheep-dog, or was regardless of the grey smoke of a turf fire, climbing upwards between the oaks and beeches of several centuries' growth. A little exertion, however, soon led the inmate of this lowly spot to an eminence which overlooked the surrounding country. On one side they might behold the Thames wandering through a long series of fertile meadows; on another the majestic castle of Windsor, telling of old times, might be seen through the openings of the foliage, shining in the broad light of the western sun, or blackening in the evening shadows against the loftier and more distant hills. There was a seat near the cottage which commanded this beautiful prospect ;— and here would Alice Green, and her father, whose age she nourished with the affection and duty of an only child, sit through the long hours of the summer evenings, while they ate their simple meal, and the fond old man would call up the recollections of his youth, and tell his daughter over and over again, the few, but to him important, incidents of a contented and unvarying life. It was on this ancient bench, carved with many a rustic name, that Alice and her lover lingered, ere they parted for the night. The hour was one of tranquillity;—but as the setting sun threw its last rays upon the many-coloured branches of the forest, and as the wind whistled amongst the falling leaves, the mind of Alice gradually acquired that pensiveness which belongs to this season, and she received with trembling forebodings the confident language of anticipated happiness which Charles Seabrook K (for such was the young man's name) addressed to her. Their acquaintance had been blessed with the full sanction of Alice's father. The young man was entirely his own master. He possessed a few acres of land, and rented a few more; and he hoped that Alice would assist him in the duty of managing his little farm, and be to him as affectionate a wife as she was a daughter. They each sincerely loved the other;-but their characters were widely different. Seabrook was eager, passionate, and presumptuous-Alice was doubtful, timid, and retiring. The old man was, however, satisfied to intrust his daughter's happiness to his young friend;-and the day of their marriage was already named. By the time that Seabrook had received the cordial good night of Alice's father, the twilight was almost passed. His home was about two miles distant. He was intimately acquainted with the least frequented paths of the forest; and he therefore fearlessly penetrated into the wood, without an apprehension of losing his way. He had not walked far before it became dark. He still persevered in his course, sometimes dashing through the thick fern, and at others putting aside the prickly underwood. Within half a mile of his house, which was on the edge of the forest, he heard a shot;-and presently three or four young men ran up to him, and demanded his business there. He at once recognised several village acquaintance. They without hesitation told him they were beating for game ;—that the pheasants were plenty, and the risk little. Seabrook had unfortunately acquired a notion which is very common in the country, that the laws for the preservation of game are arbitrary inventions of the rich to oppress the poor;—that the birds of the air are the property of all ;-and that there is no moral guilt in violating or evading those enactments which secure the right of taking them to the possessors of the land upon which they are fed.* Seabrook had, indeed, seen several fatal examples of the wretched career of * It is a delusion to imagine that this notion can ever be eradicated that game will ever come to be regarded as other property is regarded. The Game Laws must be abo |