TRIDING in the Steps of Strutt -the historian of the old English Sports the author of the following pages has endeavoured to record a yearly revel, already fast hastening to decay. The Easter Chase will soon be numbered with the pastimes of past times its dogs will have had their day, and its Deer will be Fallow. A few more seasons, and this City Common Hunt will become un

common.

In proof of this melancholy decadence, the ensuing epistle is inserted. It was penned by an underling at the Wells, a person more accustomed to riding than writing :

that

"Sir,--About the Hunt. In anser to your Innqueries, their as been a great falling off laterally, so much so this year there was nobody allmost. We did a mear nothing provisionally,

In short our

hardly a Bottle extra, wich is a proof in Pint.

Hunt may be said to be in the last Stag of a decline.

"I

am, Sir,

"With respects from your humble Servant,

"BARTHOLOMEW RUTT.".

"On Monday they began to hunt."-Chevy Chase.

OHN HUGGINS was as bold a man

As trade did ever know,

A warehouse good he had, that stood
Hard by the church of Bow.

There people bought Dutch cheeses round,

And single Glo'ster flat,—

And English butter in a lump,
And Irish-in a pat.

Six days a week beheld him stand,
His business next his heart,

At counter, with his apron tied

About his counter-part.

The seventh in a Sluice-house box,

He took his pipe and pot;

Ah, blest if he had never gone

Beyond its rural shed!

One Easter-tide, some evil guide
Put Epping in his head;

Epping for butter justly famed,
And pork in sausage popp'd;
Where winter time, or summer time,
Pig's flesh is always chopt.

But famous more, as annals tell,

Because of Easter Chase:

There ev'ry year, 'twixt dog and deer,

There is a gallant race.

With Monday's sun John Huggins rose,

And slapt his leather thigh,

And sang the burthen of the song, "This day a stag must die."

For all the livelong day before,
And all the night in bed,

Like Beckford, he had nourished "Thoughts
On Hunting" in his head.

Of horn and morn, and hark and bark,

And echo's answering sounds,

All poets' wit hath ever writ

In dog-rel verse of hounds.

Alas! there was no warning voice
To whisper in his ear,

Thou art a fool in leaving Cheap

To go and hunt the deer!