And, like Fitzjames, he cursed the hunt,

And sorely cursed the day,

And mused a new Gray's elegy

On his departed grey!

Now many a sign at Woodford town

Its Inn-vitation tells :

But Huggins, full of ills, of course,
Betook him to the Wells,

Where Rounding tried to cheer him up With many a merry laugh;

But Huggins thought of neighbour Fig,
And called for half-and-half.

Yet, 'spite of drink, he could not blink
Remembrance of his loss;
To drown a care like his, required
Enough to drown a horse.

When thus forlorn, a merry horn
Struck up without the door,—
The mounted mob were all returned;
The Epping Hunt was o'er!

And many a horse was taken out
Of saddle, and of shaft;

And men, by dint of drink, became
The only "beasts of draught."

For now begun a harder run
On wine, and gin, and beer;
And overtaken man discussed
The overtaken deer.

How far he ran, and eke how fast,
And how at bay he stood,
Deer-like, resolved to sell his life
As dearly as he could;

And how the hunters stood aloof,
Regardful of their lives,

And shunned a beast, whose very horns
They knew could handle knives !

How Huggins stood when he was rubbed By help and ostler kind,

And when they cleaned the clay before,
How worse "remained behind."

And one, how he had found a horse
Adrift a goodly grey!

And kindly rode the nag, for fear
The nag should go astray.

Now Huggins, when he heard the tale,
Jumped up with sudden glee;
"A goodly grey! why, then, I say
That grey belongs to me!

"Let me endorse again my horse,
Delivered safe and sound;
And, gladly, I will give the man
A bottle and a pound!"

The wine was drunk,-the money paid,

Tho' not without remorse,

To pay another man so much,

For riding on his horse.

And let the chase again take place,

For many a long, long year, John Huggins will not ride again To hunt the Epping Deer!

MORAL.

Thus pleasure oft eludes our grasp,
Just when we think to grip her;

And hunting after happiness,

We only hunt a slipper.

THE DROWNING DUCKS

AMONGST the sights that Mrs. Bond

Enjoyed yet grieved at more than others, Were little ducklings in a pond,

Swimming about beside their mothers-
Small things like living water-lilies,
But yellow as the daffo-dillies.

"It's very hard," she used to moan,
"That other people have their ducklings
To grace their waters-mine alone
Have never any pretty chucklings."
For why-each little yellow navy
Went down-all downy-to old Davy!

She had a lake-a pond, I mean—

Its wave was rather thick than pearlyShe had two ducks, their napes were greenShe had a drake, his tail was curly,Yet 'spite of drake, and ducks, and pond, No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!

The birds were both the best of mothers

The nests had eggs-the eggs had luck— The infant D's came forth like others—

But there, alas! the matter stuck!
They might as well have all died addle
As die when they began to paddle!

For when, as native instinct taught her,
The mother set her brood afloat,
They sank ere long right under water,
Like any overloaded boat;

They were web-footed too to see,
As ducks and spiders ought to be!

No peccant humour in a gander
Brought havoc on her little folks,-
No poaching cook-a frying pander

To appetite, destroyed their yolks,—
Beneath her very eyes, Od rot 'em!
They went, like plummets, to the bottom.

The thing was strange-a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works!
For little ducks, beyond conviction,
Should float without the help of corks:
Great Johnson, it bewildered him!
To hear of ducks that could not swim.

Poor Mrs. Bond! what could she do
But change the breed-and she tried divers
Which dived as all seemed born to do;

No little ones were e'er survivors-
Like those that copy gems, I'm thinking,
They all were given to die-sinking!

In vain their downy coats were shorn;

They floundered still!-Batch after batch went! The little fools seemed only born

And hatched for nothing but a hatchment! Whene'er they launched-oh, sight of wonder! Like fires the water "got them under."

No woman ever gave their lucks

A better chance than Mrs. Bond did;
At last quite out of heart and ducks,
She gave her pond up, and desponded;
For Death among the water-lilies,
Cried "Duc ad me" to all her dillies!

But though resolved to breed no more,
She brooded often on this riddle-
Alas! 'twas darker than before!

At last about the summer's middle, What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did, To clear the matter up the Sun did!

The thirsty Sirius dog-like drank

So deep, his furious tongue to cool, The shallow waters sank and sank, And lo, from out the wasted pool, Too hot to hold them any longer, There crawled some eels as big as conger!

I wish all folks would look a bit,

In such a case below the surface;
And when the eels were caught and split
By Mrs. Bond, just think of her face,
In each inside at once to spy
A duckling turned to giblet-pie!

The sight at once explained the case,
Making the Dame look rather silly;
The tenants of that Eely Place

Had found the way to Pick a dilly,
And so, by under-water suction,
Had wrought the little ducks' abduction.