"Yet every man's servant in this island is dubbed by your tradesman 'Esquire," rejoined Mr. South. "Witness the specimen, only yesterday, of your black groom in his rags, bringing home a bill receipted from Kingston-how ran the heading, I pray you?

'John McCoy, Esquire, for Mr. Percy,

To JH and Co.,

Merchants.'

Nor is that a solitary instance, as you well know."

"You are right," said Mr. Percy; " and how sad a thing it is, to see the pride of the poor ignorant Black fostered by such ridiculous flattery! But what? surely this date cannot be right," he continued, reading again from the inscription: 'Presented by his affectionate brother, Tom. George Eaton, maker, 1826,' pondered Mr. Percy. Had this rod, let me see, for thirty years and upwards!-and so perfect! it looks like new. Why, surely," he exclaimed, "you have never used it, South?"

"Never used it indeed!" cried Mr. South, as he continued to rub its polished length with his bandana, as though he loved it dearly. "Till I came hither, this hand at every fitting and proper time hath used it, but loved it too well to abuse it. I have treasured it 'as though I loved it;' so indeed I have, for the donor's sake, much more than for the many baskets of fish it has aided me to catch. It is my much-prized trout-rod-a pattern for all others; well worth its weight in gold. Stay, Percy; pray you, let me put it away."

And with such care was the rod wrapped in its case again, that those who looked on felt how dearly prized was this memento of an absent brother's early affection, that neither time nor separation had cooled. But observing his cousins looking grave, he assumed his usual flow of spirits, and addressing Mrs. Percy, added, "Who else, pray, gave her little pocket-money to be clubbed with Mary's, to give me a proper trout-line and reel, for a birth-day offering?"

"That was Marian, I am sure," said Alice,

"Rightly guessed," continued Mr. South; "and I selected from the store of a kind and reverend Curate-not less reverend by all as a man, than by me as a man and super-excellent fisherman-trout flies made under his recommendation. How, morning and evening, I sallied forth thus armed! I never broke rod-I never broke line at that time. But oh! the flies! how they flew away! 'going to grass, as my friend Dick Penn would have said. Well, inany a bungle had I-many a weed, behind me and before me, did I catch; but even the very first evening I essayed the art of fly-fishing, I caught two-nay, if I remember, three trout ! Fancy how I persevered! Persevered indeed? why," he continued, watching Alice's fingers, which were busily engaged in embroidery, "that is a virtue I am happy to perceive my younger cousin possesses to perfection-Ha! ha! Well, I do declare, if the girl has not worked a blue bud to that china rose! Ye Gods! where are the fair one's wits?"

"Gone a-fishing, saucy cousin!" answered the merry girl, commencing to undo the mischief she had done.

"Gone a-fishing for a full-blown red rose, baited with a blue bud! Why, Alice I'll bring -"

Hotspur and "Languwh A Couble of Harriers from the Pack of Sir Humphrey le Trafford. Bar

"HOTSPUR" AND "LANGUISH."

355

"You'll bring down my anger upon you, most assuredly; yo are right there, fair sir," answered the merry Alice.

"Now that you have changed your fishing garb for the bantering one," said Mrs. Percy, "I see little chance of your proceeding with your early piscatory adventures. You have been but once immersed, and that under a washing tub; and as we may naturally suppose you could not attain the pinnacle of your art without a few more scrapes and escapes, I will suggest that we wait till you can resume your quiet piscatorial costume again."

"You are right, Marian," said Mr. Percy; "and South is fairly challenged to afford us further amusement on another day."

"You are always right, cousin," acquiesced Mr. South; "for, if we would, we could not proceed to-day; for I hear the carriagewheels of some of our expected guests."

"HOTSPUR” AND “LANGUISH,”

1

A COUPLE OF HARRIERS FROM THE PACK OF SIR HUMPHREY DE TRAFFORD,

BART.

ENGRAVED BY W. BACKSHELL, FROM A PAINTING BY H. BARRAUD.

Hotspur, a six-year-old hound, is by the Aspul Clansman, out of Manley Handmaid; Languish, by the Liverpool Jovial, out of Croston Lapwing. They are still and likely to remain in Sir Humphrey's kennel, being just his size nineteen inches, and "as true and as hard as steel." Their owner is good enough to say the portraits are "exceedingly like," while Mr. Barraud has certainly been very happy in drawing the distinction between the head of a dog hound and that of his lady companion. It scarcely required that nice balancing of names and identities the writing gives to our print. No man with half an eye to a hound could mistake one for the other. There is a squareness about the os frontis of old Hotspur, and a certain sharpness of muzzle in Languish, that at once distinguish them. The head of the dog is especially handsome.

Sir Humphrey de Trafford does not hold his ground merely as the owner of even so "neat a pack of harriers." As a friend from something the same district advises us, "Sir Humphrey stands very high as a sportsman in Cheshire. He is a good whip, and has a well-appointed drag and team. I have often, seen him out with the Cheshire Foxhounds, and he is one of their best riders-a heavy weight, but generally with a second horse out, and always splendidly mounted." We like to speak on evidence of this sort; and can only wish the subject of it the best of sport on the off-days with his currant-jelly dogs. He has opened the season with capital prospects as it is. Ere it is over, may he come across a mountain hare or two, that will go as straight as a fox, or as if that rare recipe, the bit of ribbon, had been tied to her ear. There are few of us can look back to our juvenile doings with the

1

:

harriers but with feeling akin both to pleasure and regret. How well the brown pony used to go, and how soon he'd come again! And what wonderful things old "Mendall"-the Hotspur of our memorieswould do for himself! How he could make her out at a gateway, and how independently he would work out his own line, indifferent alike to the dg or cheering of his worthy master. We only hope Hotspur is better behaved.

OR, GLACIAL TOILS AND SUNNY RAMBLES.
BY CAPTAIN J. W. CLAYTON,

(Late of the 13th Light Dragoons: Author of "Ubique," and "Letters from the Nile.") [COMMUNICATED TO, AND EDITED BY, LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.]

CHAPTER IX.

Cruelty more or less is the normal constitution of aristocracy. For among all nations, states, and creeds, nobility of birth and haughty parentage have been from the beginning upheld; the Chinese and the Turks alone forming an exception, as they have ever regarded personal qualities of either virtue or talent as the most meritorious birthright and the true stamp of nature's own nobility. Upon consideration it will be found that regal pomp, principalities and powers, and aristocracy in general, owe their first origin in the earliest ages to tyrannical potentates, murderers, liars, and profaners of all religion and covenants; in fact, their pristine state was simply the realization of the idea, maintained to such an extent even up to the present time, viz., that "might is right," being clothed at the same time in the ampliest folds of the cloak of hypocrisy, rendering all their actions to be merely those of exalted and dignified wickedness. Even to the present day the continuation of authority or aggrandizement by inheritance or election are too often but many varied forms varnished and gilded with an air of haughty right, procured and handed on still by vices and social frauds, which, though long custom exonerates them from the burden of crime, they remain still popular vice. Cruel intrusions, oppressions, and invasions still are ordained, and stalk through the world, with justice and Piety for their godfathers; therefore, elevated by destiny and the brute force of conquest, too many upholders of the privileges, creeds, laws, and freedom of mankind may be, in effect, to this their maintenance of their own lofty positions, still but tyrants and hypocrites, descended from the first fountain-head of potentates, as haughty, atheistical, despotic, and barbarous as ever were scourges and ravagers of the world. The founder of the ancient dynasty of Assyria, the gorgeous Ninus and his proud queen Semiramis might prove a most apposite text. In the universal oppression, slaughter, and ruin of all his weaker co-rulers, and the neighbouring states that came beneath his sway, he exalted himself to soaring dignity; whilst by unjust and