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teaches us liberality of sentiment, which, in the language of Burdon," does not consist in a man's own opinions, but in the tenderness and respect which he shows to those who differ from him; it is not what we think or believe, but what we think of others, that makes us deserve the name of liberal; for though freedom from prejudice is one part of liberality, yet, to respect the prejudices of others, is a greater, and it is certainly that part which most contributes to the peace, comfort, and pleasure of society !"

"Men of true genius glow with liberal spirit,
And bind a garland round the bust of merit;
While blockheads, void of wisdom's grateful light,
Bury distinction in eternal night." MOORHEAD.

What objects of comparison, either curious or beautiful, has not the fair sex inspired? The following elegant and singularly descriptive lines from Egan's "Book of Sports," may be interesting:

THE SPORTSMAN'S MISTRESS.

"All good, like the woodcock, a mistress I boast:

Like the snipe, she will make a most excellent toast,
Like the quail she's compact, and as smooth as a partridge,
That never was ruffled by the sound of a cartridge;
Like a well fatted land rail, she's gentle and pleasant,
And in external ornament, she shines like a pheasant;
Like the hare and the rabbit, she's prudent and shy,
But sometimes, like them, is found out by the eye;
What more need be said? I might take her to house,
For her hands are as soft as the feet of the grouse !

Tally ho-"

The poet, Thompson, thus beautifully and truly speaks of the fair sex:

"Without thee, what were unenlightened man?
A savage, roaming through the woods and wilds
In search of prey; and, with the unfashioned fur,
Rough clad; devoid of every art,

And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care,
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,
Nor grace, nor love, were his!

TWO OLD HUNTING SQUIRES.

MR. HASTINGS, an old gentleman of these reigns, in Dorsetshire, was low of stature, but strong and active, of a ruddy

complexion, and with flaxen hair; his clothes were always green; his house was of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish ponds; he had a long narrow bowling green, and used to play with round sand stone bowls: here, he had a banquetting room, built like a stand in a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds that run buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and hawks, both long and short winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end was hung with fox skins, of this and last year's killing; here and there a pole cat was intermixed, with hunters' poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room furnished in the same style. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels; one or two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these, three or four always attended him at dinner; and a little white wand lay by his trencher, to defend it, if they were too troublesome. In his windows, which were very large, lay his arrows, crossbows, and other accoutrements; the corners of the room were filled with his best hunting and hawking poles. His oyster table stood at the lower end of the room, which was in use twice a day, all the year round, for he never failed to eat oysters both at dinner and supper, which he got from the neighbouring town of Poole. At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a double desk, on one side of which, held a church "Bible," the other, the "Book of Martyrs." On different tables in the room lay hawk hoods, bells, old hats with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasant's eggs; dice tables, cards, and scores of tobacco pipes. At one end of the room was a door which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer and wine, which never came out but in single glasses, which was the rule of his house, for he never exceeded himself, nor permitted others to get drunk. Answering to this closet, was a door into an old chapel, which had long been disused for devotion; but, in the pulpit, as the safest place, was always to be found a cold chine of beef, a venison pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a great apple pie, with thick crust well baked. His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at; his sports supplied all but beef and mutton; on Fridays he had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding, and he always sang to it an old song, beginning with, "My part lies therein, a." He drank a glass or two of wine at meals, put sirrup of gilliflowers into his sack, and had always a tun glass of small beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with a sprig of rosemary. He lived to be a hun

He got

dred, never lost his eye-sight, nor used spectacles.* on horseback without help, and rode to the death of a stag till he was past eighty years of age. He died 1638.†

In 1769, died, aged 125 years, George Kirton, Esq., at Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire. He followed the chase on horseback till he was 80 years of age; from that period till he was 100, he regularly attended the unkenelling of his hounds, at Oxnap Hall, and, if possible, the unkenelling of the fox, in his one horse chaise.

So zealous are some of these men, that the late Daniel Cundy, Esq., of Trewante Hall, Cornwall, a great sportsman, who died 1839, ordered his funeral to be in the following curious manner: He was buried in his best hunting clothes, his whip in his right hand, with gloves, boots, and spurs, and his hat on his head; his favorite horse was to be led after the coffin, with the saddle and bridle covered with crape. All of which was duly observed, showing the ruling passion was strong, while making his will, which often is but a short time before death.

BLIND SPORTSMEN.

"Those are the likest copies which are drawn
From the originals of human life." ROSCOMMON.

THE Rev. Edward Stokes, rector of Blaby, Leicestershire, was blind for 84 years (from the age of 9 ;) he died, aged ninetythree. He was born at Bradgate, and lost his eye-sight by the discharge of a pistol, loaded with shot (May 20th, 1698,) by his brother, which had been carelessly left lying about, not supposed to be charged. His unhappy brother never got over the concern, and died young. Edward, thus rendered blind, was entered at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and was presented, by Lord Hardwicke, to the rectory of Wymondham, and, on his father's death, to Blaby. Notwithstanding this infirmity, he performed the church service for many years, with only the assistance of a person to read the lessons. He was of a disposition uncommonly cheerful, and his spirits never failed. To

The writer has oftentimes noticed aged sportsmen with good eyes, particularly coursers. In the Lady of the Lake, perhaps the reader may recollect the following lines, wherein this great faculty is spoken of, as belonging to Malcolm Graeme :

"Trained to the chase, his eagle eye,

The ptarmigan in snow could spy." Scorr.

+ Hutchin's Dorsetshire.

the poor of his parish he was a most benevolent benefactor; on whom he expended nearly the whole of a handsome private fortune. About thirty years before his death, he put up a monument in his church to the memory of his father, mother, brother, and sister; on which he also placed his own name. He had the perfect use of his limbs, and to the last walked about his own premises, and with a facility that a stranger might imagine that he was neither old nor blind.*

"The Rev. Edward Stokes used to hunt briskly; a person always accompanied him, and, when a leap was to be taken, rang a bell.

A still more extraordinary man, in this way, that had been blind, (I think, an officer in the army,) figured as a bold rider in the Marquis of Granby's hunt; he had no attendant. I have often been out with him; if any person happened to be near him when a leap was to be taken, they would say, "A little farther, sir-now a great leap." Nor did I ever hear of his receiving any harm.

Much the same was said at the time of Lord Robert Bertie, who is represented in Hogarth's view of a cock-pit; and, if I mistake not, the late Lord Deerhurst, who lost his sight by a fall in hunting, still pursues the chase in the same manner."† These men possessed

"That strange knowledge, that doth come

We know not how, we know not where !!"

enforcing upon the mind the truth of the following remark of Lord Kaimes: "There is a contrivance of nature, no less simple than effectual, which engages men to bear with cheerfulness the fatigues of hunting, and the uncertainty of capture; and that is an appetite of hunting."

GAMBLING.

"Gaming is a principle in human nature. It belongs to us all." BURKE.

SUCH seems to be the case; for Baker, a writer in 1602, informs us, that the learned "Roger Ascham, born in Yorkshire, notably skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues, who had been sometimes school-master to Queen Elizabeth and her Latin secretary; but, taking too great delight in gaming and cock fighting, he both lived and died in mean estate, yet left + Gentleman's Magazine..

Hone's Year Book.

behind him sundry monuments of wit and industry." If this selfish love of gambling can triumph over a mind so highly gifted, and so variously stored with learning, the total banishing of such a curse seems a hopeless task indeed!

In an old comedy of 1561, one of the characters say: be fast set at trumps, hard by the fyre!"

"We

It was with drunkenness, the principal vice of the times. "The losing gamester shakes the box in vain,

And bleeds, and looses on, in hopes to gain." DRYDEN.

The reader, who has read Lady Compton's billet to her "sweet life," must have wondered what she could do with all the pinmoney, or "moderate allowance," which she so resolutely demands, while she is so very explicit about having her servants' wages paid, and all her debts as well; this, therefore, is the cue that will unravel that fearful mystery-gambling was a fashionable frenzy at this period. But perhaps it was at the highest during the reign of Charles II.; at this time, no wealthy or noble house was considered fit to live in, without a bassettable, and cards, and dice, often cogged, which was called the 'four squared sin.”

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"With dice, with cards, with billiards far untit,

With shuttlecock, unseeming manly wit." SPENSER.

The turning of a card often dissipated so much property, that nothing but the levelling of whole plantations of ancient avenues, copses, and woods, could supply the honourable demands. Hence, Lord Carnarvon's profligate, and witty, and time expressive definition, often came into practical application: "Wood," says he, “is an excrescence of the earth, provided by God for the payment of debts." It is recorded by one of the diarists of the day, that £1000, or £1500, was a common bet upon various points of any of the fashionable games.* Evelyn describes, as the greatest gambler, the Duke of St. Albans, who, although more than eighty years of age, and completely blind, still frequented the gambling table, having a friend beside him to tell him the cards as they were played.

* Pepys states, "I was told, my Lady Castlemaine is so great a gamester as to have won £15,000 in one night, and lost £25,000 in another night, at play; and hath played £1000, and £1500, at a cast.'

In the year 1670, by which time she had had four or five children, which the king (Charles II.) owned, he elevated her to be the Duchess of Cleveland, with remainder to her natural sons. Burnet says: "She was a woman of

great beauty, but most enormously vicious and ravenous, foolish, but imperious, very uneasy to the king, and always carrying on intrigues with other men, while yet she pretended she was jealous of him. His passion for her, and her strange behaviour toward him, did so disorder him, that often he was not master of himself, nor capable of minding business."

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