* the door to. However, we were married afterwards and lived at Caldbeck, and have had eight children. I married her because I thought that she possessed a strong mind and mild temper.* She was as tall, or nearly so, as myself, exceedingly graceful in her deportment, and of good education. She could not be called a beauty, yet to a stranger there was that which won esteem in preference to beauty. Her friends were ardently attached to her, while her parents and the rest of the family stood in awe of her as the superior mind. I was connected with the woollen mills at Caldbeck for some time; but these turned out a ruinous game. I was cheated, robbed, and galled to such an extent, by those who ought to have been my best friends, that I resolved to go to the farthest corner of the earth. I made a wreck of all; left machinery, book-debts, &c., in the hands of a relative, to provide for my two dear daughters whom I left behind; and landed in Hobart Town, Tasmania, in 1833, with my wife and four children, and about £10 in my pocket. I cannot now begin an endless narrative of my travelling, voyaging, and adventures in these distant colonies. But if it should be my fortune to see the bonny hills of "auld Cummerlan'" again I will relate you This marriage was the fatal sell of my life-of prosperity, happiness, and peace. She died in 1858. God be thanked for his mercy! sufficient strange incidents to make a book; and then, by waiting a little, you may fill in my death also. In stature I am about the middle height, straight, proportionate, and of lithesome gait. I used to be called "lish," with a temper inclined to merriment, which has floated me over many woes; but, alas! how often have I thought that my poor mother's Jerome mantle ought to have been my shroud! I have frequently been called inventive, and during late years have brought to considerable perfection several machines-especially one for preparing the New Zealand flax. I think I am yet as free in thought as ever I was. I have always made a point of smashing my best work whenever I have found my ideas forestalled. I hate the man who apes the manner and habits of another. Nearly forty years have now wasted away since John Peel and I sat in a snug parlour at Caldbeck among the Cumbrian mountains. We were then both in the hey-day of manhood, and hunters of the olden fashion; meeting the night before to arrange earth stopping; and in the morning to take the best part of the hunt-the drag over the mountains in the mist-while fashionable hunters still lay in the blankets. Large flakes of snow fell that evening. We sat by the fireside hunting over again many a good run, and recalling the feats of each particular hound, or narrow neck-break 'scapes, when a flaxen-haired daughter of mine came in saying, "Father, what do they say to what granny sings?" Granny was singing to sleep my eldest son-now a leading barrister in Hobart Town-with a very old rant called Bonnie (or Cannie) Annie. The pen and ink for hunting appointments being on the table, the idea of writing a song to this old air forced itself upon me, and thus was produced, impromptu, D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so gray. Immedi ately after I sung it to poor Peel who smiled through a stream of tears which fell down his manly cheeks; and I well remember saying to him in a joking style, "By Jove, Peel, you'll be sung when we're both run to earth." As to John Peel's general character I can say little. He was of a very limited education beyond hunting. But no wile of a fox or hare could evade his scrutiny; and business of any shape was utterly neglected, often to cost far beyond the first loss. Indeed this neglect extended to the paternal duties in his family. I believe he would not have left the drag of a fox on the impending death of a child, or any other earthly event. An excellent rider, I saw him once on a moor put up a fresh hare and ride till he caught her with his whip. You may know that he was six feet and more, and of a form and gait quite surprising, but his face and head somewhat insignificant. A clever sculptor told me that he once followed, admiring him, a whole market day before he discovered who he was. I remember he had a son Peter, about twelve years old, who seemed dwarfish and imperfect. When Peter was put upstairs to bed, instead of prayers, he always set out with the call to the hounds. From the quest upwards he hunted them by name till the view holloa, when Peel would look delighted at me, and exclaim, "Dam it, Peter has her off! Noo he'll gae to sleep." On such occasions the father always listened as to reality, and abstractedly would observe, "Noo Peter, that's a double-try back. Hark ye, that's Mopsy running foil" (then laugh)—" Run Peter, Dancer leesflog him-my word he'll git it noo-but don't kill him quite, &c."-(and then laugh again.) Peel was generous as every true sportsman ever must be. He was free with the glass "at the heel of the hunt;" but a better heart never throbbed in man. His honour was never once questioned in his life-time. In the latter part of his life his estate was embarrassed, but the right sort in all Cumberland called a meet some years since, and before parting they sang John Peel in full chorus, closing by presenting him with a handsome gratuity which empowered him to shake off his encumbrances, and die with a "hark tally-ho!" SONGS BY JOHN WOODCOCK GRAVES. D'YE KEN JOHN PEEL? [AIR: "Bonnie (or Cannie) Annie."-The history of this celebrated hunting song is very curious, as will be seen by reference to the interesting autobiographical sketch of its author. Thirty years since no person could walk through the streets of Carlisle, without hearing some one or other either whistling the air, or singing the song. Since then its popularity has spread far and wide. It has been chanted wherever English hunters have penetrated in the world. It was heard in the soldiers' camps at the siege of Lucknow, and was lately sung before the Prince of Wales. Stray copies, and generally imperfect ones, have got into the newspapers; but it now appears for the first time in a general collection. The hunt is supposed to commence at Low Denton-holme, near Caldbeck—thence across a rugged stretch of country in a south-easterly direction-and bold reynard is finally run into on the heights of Scratchmere Scar, near Lazonby.The old rant of "Bonnie Annie" is obsolete.] YE ken John Peel with his coat so gray? With his hounds and his horn in the morning? |