Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 374, December, 1846

Of these champions, by far the most remarkable is Mr John Bright, who, in the British House of Commons, represents the town of Durham. The tenets of his peaceful and affirmative creed, are, to say the least of it, in total antagonism to his character. Ever since he made his first appearance in public, he has kept himself, and every one around him, in perpetual hot-water. In the capacity of Mr Cobden's bottle-holder, he has displayed considerable pluck, for which we honour him; and he is not altogether unworthy to have been included in that famous eulogy which was passed by the late Premier – no doubt to the cordial satisfaction of his friends – upon the Apostle of cotton and free-trade. The name of John is nearly as conspicuous as that of Richard in the loyal annals of the League; and we are pleased to observe, that, like his great generalissimo, Mr Bright has preferred his claim for popular payment, and has, in fact, managed to secure a few thousands in return for the vast quantity of eloquence which he has poured into the pages of Hansard. We are not of that old-fashioned school who object to the remuneration of our reformers. On the contrary, we think that patriotism, like every other trade, should be paid for; and with such notable examples, as O'Connell in Ireland, and the Gamaliel of Sir Robert in the south, we doubt not that the principle hereafter will be acted upon in every case. The man who shall be fortunate enough to lead a successful crusade against the established churches, and to sweep away from these kingdoms all vestiges both of the mitre and the Geneva gown, will doubtless, after sufficient laudation by the then premier, of the talent and perseverance which he has exhibited throughout the contest, receive from his liberated country something of an adequate douceur. What precise pension is due to him who shall deliver us from the thraldom of the hereditary peerage, is a question which must be left to future political arithmetic. In the mean time, there are several minor abuses which may be swept away on more moderate scavenger wages; and one of these which we fully expect to hear discussed in the ensuing session of Parliament, is the existence of the Game laws.

Mr Bright, warned by former experience, has selected a grievance for himself, and started early in his expedition against it. The part of jackal may be played once, but it is not a profitable one; and we can understand the disappointed feelings of the smaller animal, when he is forced to stand by an-hungered, and behold the gluttonous lion gorging himself with the choicest morsels of the chase. It must be a sore thing for a patriot to see his brother agitator pouching his tens and hundreds of thousands; whilst he, who likewise has shouted in the cause, and bestowed as much of his sweet breath as would have served to supply a furnace, must perforce be contented with some stray pittances, doled hesitatingly out, and not altogether given without grudging. No independent and thoroughgoing citizen will consent, for a second time, to play so very subsidiary a part; therefore he is right in breaking fresh ground, and becoming the leader of a new movement. It may be that his old monopolising ally shall become too plethoric for a second contest. Like the desperate soldier who took a castle and was rewarded for it, he may be inclined to rest beneath his laurels, count his pay, and leave the future capture of fortalices to others who have less to lose. A hundred thousand pounds carry along with them a sensation of ease as well as dignity. After such a surfeit of Mammon, most men are unwilling to work. They unbutton their waistcoats, eschew agitation, eat, drink, are merry, and become fat.

Your lean Cassius, on the contrary, has all the pugnacity of a terrier. He yelps at every body and every thing, is at perpetual warfare with the whole of animated nature, and will not be quieted even by dint of much kicking. The only chance you have of relieving yourself from his everlasting yammering and impertinence, is to throw him an unpicked bone, wherewith he will retreat in double-quick time to the kennel. And of a truth the number of excellent bones which are sacrificed to the terriers of this world, is absolutely amazing. Society in general will do a great deal for peace; and much money is doled out, far less for the sake of charity, than as the price of a stipulated repose.

It remains, however, to be seen whether Mr Bright, under any circumstances, will be quiet. We almost doubt it. In the course of his stentorial and senatorial career, he has more than once, to borrow a phrase from Boxiana, had his head put into chancery; and some of his opponents, Mr Ferrand for example, have fists that smite like sledge-hammers. But Friend John is a glutton in punishment; and though with blackened eyes and battered lips, is nevertheless at his post in time. The best pugilists in England do not know what to make of him. He never will admit that he is beaten, nor does he seem to know when he has enough. It is true that at every round he goes down before some tremendous facer or cross-buttock, or haply performs the part of Antæus in consequence of the Cornish hug. No matter – up he starts, and though rather unsteady on his pins, and generally groggy in his demeanour, he squares away at his antagonist, until night terminates the battle, and the drab flag, still flaunting defiance, is visible beneath the glimpses of the maiden moon.

At present, Mr Bright's senatorial exertions appear to be directed towards the abolition of the Game laws. Early in 1845, and before the remarkable era of conversion which must ever render that year a notorious one in the history of political consistency, he moved for and obtained a select committee of the House to inquire into the operation of these laws. Mr Bright's speech upon that occasion was, in some respects, a sensible one. We have no wish to withhold from him his proper meed of praise; and we shall add, that the subject which he thus virtually undertook to expiscate, was one in every way deserving of the attention of the legislature. Of all the rights of property which are recognised by the English law, that of the proprietor or occupier of the land to the feræ naturæ or game upon it, is the least generally understood, and the worst defined. It is fenced by, and founded upon, statutes which, in the course of time, have undergone considerable modification and revision; and the penalties attached to the infringement of it are, in our candid opinion, unnecessarily harsh and severe. Further, there can be no doubt, that in England the vice of poaching, next to that of habitual drinking, has contributed most largely to fill the country prisons. Instances are constantly occurring of ferocious assault, and even murder, arising from the affrays between gamekeepers and poachers; nor does it appear that the statutory penalties have had the effect of deterring many of the lower orders from their violent and predatory practices. On these points, we think an inquiry, with a view to the settlement of the law on a humane and equitable footing, was highly proper and commendable; nor should we have said a single word in depreciation of the labours of Mr Bright, had he confined himself within proper limits. Such, however, is not the case.

An abridgement of, or rather extracts from, the voluminous evidence which was taken before that select committee, has been published by a certain Richard Griffiths Welford, Esq., barrister at law, and member of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. With this gentleman hitherto, it is our misfortune or our fault that we have had no practical acquaintance; and judging from the tone, humour, and temper of the text remarks which are scattered throughout the volume, and the taste of the foot-notes appended, we do not see any reason to covet exuberant intimacy for the future. The volume is prefaced by a letter from Mr John Bright to the Tenant Farmers of Great Britain, which is of so remarkable a nature that it justly challenges some comment. The following extract is the commencement of that address: – "I am invited by my friend Mr Welford, the compiler of the abstract of the evidence given before the committee on the Game laws, to write a short address to you on the important question which is treated of in this volume. I feel that an apology is scarcely necessary for the liberty I am taking; the deep interest I have long felt in the subject of the Game laws, my strong conviction of its great importance to you as a class, and the extensive correspondence in reference to it which I have maintained with many of your respected body in almost every county of England and Scotland, seem to entitle me to say a few words to you on this occasion.

"From the perusal of this evidence – and it is but a small portion of that which was offered to the committee – you will perceive that, as capitalists and employers of labour, you are neither asserting your just rights, nor occupying your proper position. By long-continued custom, which has now obtained almost the force of law, when you became tenants of a farm, you were not permitted to enjoy the advantages which pertain to it so fully as is the case with the occupiers of almost every other description of property. A farmer becomes the tenant of certain lands, which are to be the basis of his future operations, and the foundation of that degree of prosperity to which he may attain. To secure success, it is needful that capital should be invested, and industry and skill exercised; and in proportion as these are largely employed, in order to develop to the utmost extent the resources of the soil, will be the amount of prosperity that will be secured. The capital, skill, and industry, will depend upon the capacity of the farmer; but the reward for their employment will depend in no small degree upon the free and unfettered possession of the land – of its capabilities, of all that it produces, and of all that is sustained upon its surface. There is a mixture of feudalism and of commercial principles in your mode of taking and occupying land, which is in almost all cases obstructive, and in not a few utterly subversive, of improvement. You take a farm on a yearly tenantry, or on a lease, with an understanding, or a specific agreement, that the game shall be reserved to the owner; that is, you grant to the landlord the right to stock the farm – for which you are to pay him rent for permission to cultivate, and for the full possession of its produce – with pheasants, partridges, hares, and rabbits, to any extent that may suit his caprice. There may be little game when you enter upon the farm; but in general you reserve to yourselves no power to prevent its increase, and it may and often does increase so, as to destroy the possibility of profit in the cultivation of the farm. You plough, and sow, and watch the growing crops with anxiety and hope; you rise early, and eat the bread of carefulness; rent-day comes twice a-year with its inexorable demand; and yet you are doomed too frequently to see the fertility which Providence bestows and your industry would secure, blighted and destroyed by creatures which would be deemed vermin, but for the sanction which the law and your customs give to their preservation, and which exist for no advantage to you, and for no good to the public, but solely to afford a few day's amusement in the year to the proprietors of the soil. The seed you sow is eaten by the pheasants; your young growing grain is bitten down by the hares and rabbits; and your ripening crops are trampled and injured by a live stock which yields you no return, and which you cannot kill and take to market. No other class of capitalists are subjected to these disadvantages – no other intelligent and independent class of your countrymen are burdened with such impositions."

We pity the intelligence of the reader who does not behold in these introductory paragraphs the symbol of the cloven foot. The sole object of the volume, for which Mr Bright has the assurance to stand as sponsor, is to sow the seeds of discord between the landowners and the tenants of England, by representing the former to the latter in the light of selfish monopolists, who, for the sake of some little sport or yearly battue, or, it may be, from absolute caprice, make havoc throughout the year, by proxy, of the farmers' property, and increase their stock of game whenever they have an opportunity, at his expense, and sometimes to his actual ruin. Such is the tendency of this book, which is compiled for general circulation; and which, we think, in many respects is calculated to do a deal of harm. As a real treatise or commentary upon the Game laws, it is worthless; as an attack upon the landed gentry, it will doubtless be read in many quarters with extreme complacency. Already, we observe, a portion of the press have made it a text-book for strong political diatribes; and the influence of it will no doubt be brought to bear upon the next general election. As we ourselves happen to entertain what are called very liberal opinions upon this subject of the Game laws, and as we maintain the principle that in this, as in every other matter, the great interests and rights of the community must be consulted, without reference to class distinctions – as we wish to see the property of the rich and the liberties of the poor respected – as we consider the union and cordial co-operation between landlord and tenant the chief guarantee which this country yet possesses against revolution, and the triumph of insolent demagogues – our remarks upon the present subject may not be ill-timed, or unworthy of the regard of those who think with us, that, in spite of recent events, there yet may be something to preserve.

But, first, let us consider who this gentleman is that comes forward, unsolicited, to tender his advice, and to preach agitation to the tenantry of Great Britain. He is one of those persons who rose with the League – one of those unscrupulous and ubiquitous orators who founded and reared their reputation upon an avowed hostility to the agricultural interests of the country. Upon this point there can be no mistake. John Bright, member for Durham, is a child of the corn, or rather the potato revolution, as surely as Anacharsis Clootz was the enfant trouvé of the Reign of Terror. With the abstract merits of that question we have nothing to do at present. It is quite sufficient for us to note the fact, that he, in so far as his opportunities and his talents went, was amongst the most clamorous of the opponents to the protection of British agriculture; and that fact is a fair and legitimate ground for suspicion of his motives, when we find him appearing in the new part of an agricultural champion and agitator. It is not without considerable mistrust that we behold this slippery personage in the garb and character of Triptolemus. He does not act it well. The effects of the billy-roller are still conspicuous upon his gait – he walks ill on hobnails – and is clearly more conversant with devil's-dust and remnants than with tares. Some faint suspicion of this appears at times to haunt even his own complacent imagination. He is not quite sure that the farmers – or, in the elegant phraseology of the League, the hawbucks and chawbacons – whom he used to denounce as a race of beings immeasurably inferior in intellectual capacity to the ricketty victims of the factories, will believe all at once in the cordiality and disinterestedness of their adviser; and therefore he throws out for their edification a specious bit of pleading, which, no doubt, will be read with conflicting feelings by some of those who participated in the late conversion. "You have been taught to consider me, and those with whom I have acted, as your enemies. You will admit that we have never deceived you – that we have never TAMELY SURRENDERED that which we have taught you to rely upon as the basis of your prosperity – that we have not pledged ourselves to a policy you approved, and then abandoned it; and as you have found me persevering in the promotion of measures, which many of you deemed almost fatal to your interests, but which I thought essential to the public good, so you will find me as resolute in the defence of those rights, which your own or your country's interests alike require that you should possess."

All this profession, however, we hope, will fail to persuade the farmers that their late enemy has become their sudden friend; and they will doubtless look with some suspicion upon the apocryphal catalogue of grievances which Mr Bright has raked together, and, with the aid of his associate, promulgated in the present volume. It is not our intention at present to extract or go over the evidence at large. We have read it minutely, and weighed it well. A great part of it is utterly irrelevant, as bearing upon questions of property and contract with which the legislature of no country could interfere, and which even Mr Bright, though not over scrupulous in his ideas of parliamentary appropriation, has disregarded in framing the conclusions of the rejected report which he proposed for the adoption of the committee. That portion, however, we shall not pass over in silence. It is but right that the country at large should see that this volume has been issued, not so much for the purpose of obtaining a revision of the law, as of sowing discord amongst the agriculturists themselves; and it is very remarkable that Mr Bright, throughout the whole of his inflammatory address, takes no notice whatever of the Game laws, or their prejudicial effect, or their possible remedy by legislative enactment, but confines himself to denunciation of the landlords as a class antagonistic to the tenantry, and advice to the latter to combine against the game-preserving habits of the gentry.

Now this question between landlord and tenant has nothing to do with the Game laws. The man who purchases an estate, purchases it with every thing upon it. He has, strictly speaking, as much right to every wild animal which is bred or even lodges there – if he can only catch or kill them – as he has to the trees, or the turf, or any other natural produce. The law protects him in this right, in so far, that by complying with certain statutory regulations – one of which relates to revenue, and requires from him a qualification to sport, and another prescribes a period or rotation for shooting – he may, within his own boundaries, take every animal which he meets with, and may also prevent any stranger from interfering with or encroaching upon that privilege. We do not now speak of penalties for which the intruder may be liable. That is a separate question; at present we confine ourselves to the abstract question of right.

But neither game nor natural produce constitute that thing called RENT, without which, since the days of forays have gone by, a landowner cannot live. Accordingly, he proposes to let a certain portion of his domains to a farmer, whose business is to cultivate the soil, and to make it profitable. He does so; and unless a distinct reservation is made to the contrary, the right to take the game upon the farm so let, passes to the tenant, and can be exercised by him irrespective of the wish of the landlord. If, on the contrary, the landlord refuses to part with that right which is primarily vested in his person, and which, of course, he is at full liberty either to reserve or surrender, the proposing tenant must take that circumstance into consideration in his offer of rent for the farm. The game then becomes as much a matter of calculation as the nature of the soil, the necessity of drainage, or the peculiar climate of the farm. The tenant must be guided by the principles of ordinary prudence, and make such a deduction from his offer as he considers will compensate him for the loss which his crop may sustain through the agency of the game. If he neglects to do this, he has no reasonable ground for murmuring – if he does it, he is perfectly safe. Such is the plain simple nature of the case, from which one would think it difficult to extract any clamant grievance, at least between the landlord and the tenant. No doubt the tenantry of the country individually and generally may, if they please, insist in all cases on a complete surrender of the game; and if they do, it is far more than possible that their desire will be universally complied with. But, then, they will have to pay higher rents. The landlord is no gainer in respect of game, nay, he is a direct loser; for the fact of his preservation and reserval of it reduces the amount of rent which he otherwise would receive, and, besides this, he is at much expense in preserving. Game is his hobby which he insists upon retaining: he does so, and he actually pays for it. Therefore, when a tenant states that he has lost so much in a particular year in consequence of the game upon his farm, that statement must be understood with a qualification. His crop may indeed have suffered to a certain extent; but then he has been paid for that deterioration already, the payment being the difference of rent, fixed between him and the landlord for the occupation of a game farm, less than what he would have offered for it had there been no game there, or had the right to kill it been conceded.

"O but," says Mr Bright, or some other of the soi-disant friends of the farmer, "there is an immense competition for land, and the farmers will not make bargains!" And whose fault is that? We recollect certain apothegms rather popular a short while ago, about buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, and so forth, and we have always understood that the real price of an article is determined by the demand for it. If any farm is put up to auction under certain conditions, there is no hardship whatever in exacting the rent from the highest successful competitor. The reservation of the right to kill game is as competent to the proprietor as the fixing the rotation of the crops, or the conditions against scourging the soil. The landlord, when he lets a farm, does not by any means, as Mr Bright and his legal coadjutor appear to suppose, abandon it altogether to the free use of the tenant. He must of necessity make conditions, because he still retains his primary interest in the soil; and if these were not made, the land would in all probability be returned to him after the expiry of the lease, utterly unprofitable and exhausted, it being the clear interest of the tenant to take as much out of it as possible during the currency of his occupation. Now all these conditions are perfectly well known to the competing farmer, and if he is not inclined to assent to them, he need not make an offer for the land. Does Mr Bright mean to assert that the competition for land is so great, that the tenant-farmers are absolutely offering more than the subjects which they lease are worth? If so, the most gullible person on the face of this very gullible earth would not believe him. To aver that any body of men in this country, are wilfully and avowedly carrying on a trade or profession at a certain loss, is to utter an absurdity so gross as to be utterly unworth a refutation. And if Mr Bright does not mean this, we shall thank him to explain how the competition for land is a practical grievance to the farmer.

Nevertheless, we are far from maintaining that the system of strict game preservation is either wise or creditable, and we shall state our arguments to the contrary hereafter. At present let us proceed with Mr Welford.

About one-half, or even more, of this volume, is occupied with evidence to prove that the preservation of game upon an estate is more or less detrimental to the crops. Who denies it? Pheasants, though they may feed a great deal upon wild seeds and insects, are unquestionably fond of corn – so are partridges; and hares and rabbits have too good taste to avoid a field of clover or of turnips. And shall this – says Mr Bright, having recourse to a late rhetoric – shall this be permitted in a Christian or a civilised country? Are there not thousands of poor to whom that grain, wasted upon mere vermin, would be precious? Are our aristocracy so selfish as to prefer the encouragement of brute animals to the lives of their fellow men? &c. &c; to all of which eloquent bursts the pious Mr Welford subjoins his ditto and Amen. For our own part, we can see no reason why hares, and pheasants, and partridges, should not be fed as well as Quakers. While living they are undoubtedly more graceful creatures, when dead they are infinitely more valuable. When removed from this scene of transitory trouble, Mr Bright, except in an Owhyhean market, would fetch a less price than an ordinary rabbit. Our taste may be peculiar, but we would far rather see half-a-dozen pretty leverets at play in a pasture field of an evening, than as many hulking members of the Anti-Corn-Law League performing a ponderous saraband. Vermin indeed! Did Mr Bright ever see a Red-deer? We shrewdly suspect not; and if, peradventure, he were to fall in with the monarch of the wilderness in the rutting season, somewhere about the back of Schehallion or the skirts of the moor of Rannoch, there would be a yell loud enough to startle the cattle on a thousand hills, and a rapid disparition of the drab-coloured integuments into the bosom of a treacherous peat-bog. But a Red-deer, too, will eat corn, and often of a moonlight night his antlers may be seen waving in the crofts of the upland tenant; therefore, according to Mr Bright, he too is vermin, and must be exterminated accordingly.

And this brings us to Mr Welford's grand remedy, which is abundantly apparent from the notes and commentaries interspersed throughout the volume. This gentleman, in the plenitude of his consideration for the well-being of his country, is deliberately of opinion that game should be exterminated altogether! Here is a bloody-minded fellow for you with a vengeance!

"What! all my pretty chickens and their dam!
Did you say all?"

What! shall not a single hare, or pheasant, or partridge, or plover, or even a solitary grouse, be spared from the swoop of this destroying kite? Not one. Richard Griffiths Welford, Esquire, Barrister-at-law, has undertaken to rouse the nation from its deadly trance. Yet a few years, and no more shall the crow of the gorcock be heard on the purple heath, or the belling of the deer in the forest, or the call of the landrail in the field. No longer shall we watch at evening the roe gliding from the thicket, or the hare dancing across the lawn. They have committed a crime in a free-tradeland – battened incontinently upon corn and turnips – and, therefore, they must all die! Grain, although our ports are to be opened, has now become a sacred thing, and is henceforward to be dedicated to the use of man alone. Therefore we are not without apprehension that the sparrows must die too, and the thrushes and blackbirds – for they make sad havoc in our dear utilitarian's garden – and the larks, and the rooks, and the pigeons. Voiceless now must be our groves in the green livery of spring. There shall be no more chirping, or twittering, or philandering among the branches – no cooing or amorous dalliance, or pairing on the once happy eve of St Valentine. All the fauna of Britain – all the melodists of the woods – must die! In one vast pie must they be baked, covered in with a monumental crust of triumphant flour, through which their little claws may appear supplicantly peering upwards, as if to implore some mercy for the surviving stragglers of their race. But stragglers there cannot be many. Timber, according to our patriotic Welford, is, "next to game, the farmer's chief enemy!" What miserable idiots our infatuated ancestors must have been! They thought that by planting they were conferring a boon upon their country; and in Scotland in particular they strove most anxiously to redeem the national reproach. But they were utterly wrong: Welford has said it. Timber is a nuisance – a sort of vegetable vermin, we suppose – so down must go Dodona and her oaks; and the pride of the forests be laid for ever low. Nothing in all broad England – and we fear also with us – must hereafter overtop the fields of wheat except the hedgerows! Timber is inimical to the farmer; therefore, free be the winds to blow from the German ocean to the Atlantic, without encountering the resistance of a single forest – no more tossing of the branches or swaying of the stems – or any thing save the steeples, fast falling in an age of reason into decay, the bulk of some monstrous workhouse, as dingy and cheerless as a prison, and the pert myriads of chimney-stalks of the League belching forth, in the face of heaven, their columns of smoke and of pollution! Happy England, when these things shall come to pass, and not a tree or a bush be left as a shelter for the universal vermin! No – not quite universal, for a respite will doubtless be given to the persecuted races of the badger, the hedgehog, the polecat, the weasel, and the stoat. All these are egg-eaters or game-consumers, and so long as they keep to the hedgerows and assist in the work of extermination, they will not only be spared but encouraged. Let them, however, beware. So soon as the last egg of the last English partridge is sucked, and the last of the rabbits turned over in convulsive throes, with the teeth of a fierce little devil inextricably fastened in its jugular – so soon as the rage of hunger drives the present Pariahs of the preserve to the hen-roost – human forbearance is at an end, and their fate also is sealed. The hen-harrier and the sparrowhawk, so long as they quarter the fields, pounce upon the imprudent robin, or strike down the lark while caroling upon the verge of the cloud, will be considered in our new state of society, as sacred animals as the Ibis. But let them, after having fulfilled their mission, deviate from the integrity of their ways, and come down upon a single ginger-pile, peeping his dirty way over the shards of a midden, towards his scrauching and be-draggled mother – and the race will be instantly proscribed. A few years more, and, according to the system of Messrs Bright and Welford, not a single wild animal – could we not also get rid of the insects? – will be found within the confines of Great Britain, except the gulls who live principally upon fish; and possibly, should there be a scarcity of herring, it may be advisable to exterminate them also.

Here is a pretty state of matters! First, there is to be no more sporting. That, of course, in the eyes of Messrs Bright and Welford, who know as much about shooting as they do of trigonometry, is a very minor consideration; but even there we take leave to dissent. Gouty and frail as we are, we have yet a strong natural appetite for the moors, and we shall wrestle to the last for our privilege with the sturdiest broadbrim in Quakerdom. Our boys shall be bred as we were, with their foot upon the heather, in the manliest and most exhilarating of all pastimes; and that because we wish to see them brought up as Christians and gentlemen, not as puzzle-pated sceptics or narrow-minded utilitarian theorists. We desire to see them attain their full development, both of mind and body – to acquire a kindly and a keen relish for nature – to love their sovereign and their country – to despise all chicanery and deceit – and to know and respect the high-minded peasantry and poor of their native land. We have no idea that they shall be confined in their exercise or their sports to the public highway. We do not look upon this earth or island as made solely to produce corn for the supply of Mr Bright and his forced population. We wish that the youth of our country should be taught that God has created other beings besides the master and the mechanic – that the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air have a value in their Maker's eye, and that man has a commisson to use them, but not to exterminate and destroy. "My opinion is," says Mr Bright, speaking with a slight disregard to grammar, of the sporting propensities of the landed gentry – "my opinion is, that there are other pursuits which it will better become them to follow, and which it will be a thousand times better for the country if they turn their attention to them." For Mr Bright's opinion, we have not the smallest shadow of respect. We can well believe that, personally, he has not the slightest inclination to participate in the sports of the field. We cannot for a moment imagine him in connexion with a hunting-field, or toiling over moor or mountain in pursuit of his game, or up to his waist in a roaring river with a twenty-pound salmon on his line, making its direct way for the cataract. In all and each of these situations we are convinced that he would be utterly misplaced. We can conceive him, and no doubt he is, much at home in the superintendence of the gloomy factory – in the centre of a hecatomb of pale human beings, who toil on day and night in that close and stifling atmosphere, as ceaselessly and almost as mechanically as the wheels which drone and whistle and clank above and around them – in the midst of his stores of calico, and cotton, and corduroy – in the midnight councils of the grasping League, or the front of a degraded hustings. But from none of these situations whatever, has he any right to dictate to the gentlemen of Britain what they should do, or what they should leave undone. He has neither an eye for nature, nor a heart to participate in rural amusements. And a very nice place an English manor-house would be under his peculiar superintendence and the operation of the new regime! In the morning we should meet, ladies and gentlemen, in the breakfast-room, all devoutly intent upon the active demolition of the muffins. Tea and coffee there are in abundance – but not good, for the first has the flavour of the hedges, and the second reminds us villanously of Hunt's roasted corn. There are eggs, however, and on the sideboard rest a large round of beef, with a thick margin of rancid yellow fat, and a ham which is literal hog's-lard. There are no fish. The trouting stream has been turned from its natural course to move machinery, and now rolls to the shrinking sea, not in native silver, but in alternate currents of indigo, ochre, or cochineal, according to the hue most in request for the moment at the neighbouring dye-work. In vain you look about for grouse-pie, cold partridge, snipe, or pheasant. You might as well ask for a limb of the ichthyosaurus as for a wing of these perished animals. Deuce a creature is there in the room except bipeds, and they are all of the manufacturing breed. You recollect the days of old, when your entry into the breakfast-room used to be affectionately welcomed by terrier, setter, and spaniel, and you wonder what has become of these ancient inmates of the family. On inquiry you are informed, that – being non-productive animals, and mere consumers of food which ought to be reserved for the use of man alone – they have one and all of them been put to death: and your host points rather complacently to the effigy of old Ponto, who has been stuffed by way of a specimen of an extinct species, and who now glares at you with glassy eyes from beneath the shelter of the mahogany sideboard. Tired of the conversation, which is principally directed towards the working of the new tariff, the last improvement in printed calicoes, and the prices of some kind of stock which appears to fluctuate as unaccountably as the barometer, you rise from table and move towards the window in hopes of a pleasant prospect. You have it. The old park, which used to contain some of the finest trees in Britain – oaks of the Boscobel order, and elms that were the boast of the country – is now as bare as the palm of your hand, and broken up into potato allotments. The shrubbery and flower parterres, with their elegant terrace vases and light wire fences, have disappeared. There is not a bush beyond a few barberries, evidently intended for detestable jam, nor a flower, except some chamomiles, which may be infused into a medicinal beverage, and a dozen great stringy coarse-looking rhubarbs, enough to give you the dyspepsia, if you merely imagine them in a tart. At the bottom of the slope lies the stream whereof we have spoken already, not sinuous or fringed with alders as of yore; but straight as an arrow, and fashioned into the semblance of a canal. It is spanned on the part which is directly in front of the windows, by a bridge on the skew principle, the property of a railway company; and at the moment you are gazing on the landscape in a sort of admiring trance, an enormous train of coal and coke waggons comes rushing by, and a great blast of smoke and steam rolling past the house, obscures for a moment the utilitarian beauty of the scene. That dissipated, you observe on the other side of the canal several staring red brick buildings, with huge chimney-stalks stinking in the fresh, frosty morning air. These are the factories of your host, the source of his enviable wealth; and yonder dirty village which you see about half a mile to the right, with its squab Unitarian lecture room, is the abode of his honest artisans. Nevertheless, you see nobody stirring about. How should you? The whole population is comfortably housed, for the next twelve hours at least, within brick, and assisting the machinery to do its work. No idleness now in England. Had you, indeed, risen about five or six in the morning, when the clatter of a sullen bell roused you from your dreams of Jemima, you might have seen some scores of lanterns meandering like glow-worms along the miry road which leads from the village to the factories, until absorbed within their early jaws. That is the appointed time for the daily emigration, and until all the taskwork is done, no straggling whatever is permitted. The furthest object in view is a parallelogram Bastile on the summit of a hill, once wooded to the top, and well known to the rustics as the place where the fullest nuts and the richest May-flowers might be gathered, but now in turnips, and you are told that the edifice is the Union Workhouse.

Breakfast over, you begin to consider how you shall fill up the dreary vacuum which still yawns between you and dinner. Of course you cannot shoot, unless you are inclined to take a day at the ducks and geese, which would be rather an expensive amusement. You covet a ride, and propose a scamper across the country. Our dear sir, it is as much as your life is worth! What with canals and viaducts, and railways and hedgerows, you could not get over a mile without either being plunged into water, or knocked down by tow ropes, or run into by locomotives, or pitched from embankments, or impaled alive, or slain by a stroke of electricity from some telegraphic conductor! Recollect that we are not now living in the days of steeple-chasing. Then as to horses, are you not aware that our host keeps only two – and fine sleek, sturdy Flanders brutes they are – for the purpose of conveying Mrs Bobbins and her progeny to the meeting-house? There is no earthly occasion for any more expensive stud. The railway station is just a quarter of a mile from the door, and Eclipse himself could never match our new locomotives for speed. But you may have a drive if you please, and welcome. Where shall we go to? There used to be a fine waterfall at an easy distance, with rocks, and turf, and wildflowers, and all that sort of thing; and though the season is a little advanced, we might still make shift under the hazels and the hollies; could we not invite the ladies to accompany us, and extemporise a pic-nic? Our excellent friend! that waterfall exists no longer. It was a mere useless waste; has been blown up with gun-cotton; and the glen below it turned into a reservoir for the supply of a manufacturing town. The hazels are all down, and the hollies pounded into birdlime. And that fine old baronial residence, where there were such exquisite Claudes and Ruysdaels? Oh! that estate was bought by Mr Smalt the eminent dyer, from the trustees of the late Lord – the old mansion has been pulled down, a cottage ornée built in its place, and the pictures were long ago transferred to the National Gallery. And is there nothing at all worth seeing in the county? Oh yes! There is Tweel's new process for making silk out of sow's ears, and Bottomson's clothing mills, where you see raw wool put into one end of the machinery, and issue from the other in the shape of ready-made breeches. Then a Socialist lecture on the sin and consequences of matrimony will be delivered in the market-town at two o'clock precisely, by Miss Lewdlaw – quite a lady, I assure you – whom you will afterwards meet at dinner. Or you may, if you please, attend the meeting of the Society for the Propagation of a Natural Religion, at which the Rev. Mr Scampson will preside; or you may go down to the factories, or any where else you please, except the village, for there is a great deal of typhus fever in it, and we are a little apprehensive for the children! You decline these tempting offers, and resolve to spend the morning in the house. Is there a billiard room? How can you possibly suppose it? Time, sir, is money; and money is not to be made by knocking about ivory balls. But there is the library if you should like to study, and plenty material within it. Delighted at the prospect of passing some congenial though solitary hours, you enter the apartment, and, disregarding the models upon the table, which are intended to elucidate the silk and sow's-ear process, you ransack the book-shelves for some of your ancient favourites. But in vain you will search either for Shakspeare or Scott, Milton or Fielding, Jeremy Taylor or Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine: all these are proscribed antiquities. Instead of these you will find Essays by Hampden, junior, and Ethics by Thistlewood, senior, Paine's Age of Reason, Jeremy Bentham's Treatises, Infanticide Vindicated, by Herod Virginius Cackell, Esq., Member of the Literary Institute of Owenstown, Cobden's Speeches, Wheal's Exposition of the Billy-roller, Grubb's Practical Deist, Welford's Influences of the Game Laws, and much more such profitable reading. What would you not give for a volume by Willison Glass! Disgusted with this literary miscellany, you chuck the Practical Deist into the fire, and walk up-stairs to rejoin the ladies. You find them in the drawing-room hard at work upon cross-stitch and pincushions for the great Bazar which is shortly to be opened under the auspices of the Anti-Christian League, and you feel for a moment like an intruder. But Emily Bobbins, a nice girl, who will have thirty thousand pounds when her venerated sire is conveyed to the Mausoleum of the Bobbinses, and who has at this present moment a very pretty face, trips up and asks you for a contribution to her yearly album. Yearly? – the phrase is an odd one, and you crave explanation. The blooming virgin informs you that she edits an annual volume, popular in certain circles, for the Society for the Abolition of all Criminal Punishment, she being a corresponding Member; and she presents you with last year's compilation. You open the work, and find some literary bijouterie by the disciples of the earnest school, poems on the go-a-head principle, and tales under such captivating titles as the Virtuous Poacher, Theresa, or the Heroine of the Workhouse, and Walter Truck, an Easy Way with the Mechanic. There are also sundry political fragments by the deep-thinkers of the age, from which you discover that Regicide is the simplest cure for "Flunkeyism, Baseness, and Unveracity," and that the soundest philosophers of the world are two gentlemen, rejoicing in the exotic names of Sauerteig and Teufelsdröckh. You, being a believer in the Book of Common Prayer, decline to add your contribution to the Miscellany, and make the best of your way from the house for a stroll upon the public highway. For some hours you meander through the mud, between rows of stiff hedges; not a stage-coach, nor even a buggy is to be seen. You sigh for the old green lanes and shady places which have now disappeared for ever, and you begin to doubt whether, after all, regenerated England is the happiest country of the universe. It appears an absolute desert. At a turn of a road you come in sight of a solitary venerable crow – the sole surviving specimen of his race still extant in the county – whose life is rendered bitter by a system of unceasing persecution. He mistakes you for Mr Richard Griffiths Welford, and, with a caw of terror, takes flight across a Zahara of Swedish turnips. On your way home you meet with three miserable children who are picking the few unwithered leaves from the hedges. You cross-question them, and ascertain that they receive a salary of twopence a-day from the owner of the truck-shop at the factory, in return for their botanical collections. You think of China, with a strong conviction of the propriety of becoming a Mandarin.

At dinner you are seated betwixt Miss Lewdlaw and the Rev. Mr Scampson. The appearance of the lady convinces you that she has excellent reasons for her deep-rooted hatred of matrimony – for what serpent (in his senses) would have tempted that dropsical Eve? The gentleman is a bold, sensual-lipped, pimply individual, attired in a rusty suit of black, the very picture of a brutal Boanerges. He snorts during his repast, clutches with his huge red fingers, whereof the nails are absolute ebony, at every dish within his reach, and is constantly shouting for a dram. The dinner is a plentiful one, but ill-cooked and worse served; and the wines are simply execrable. Very drearily lags the time until the ladies rise to retire, a movement which is greeted by Mr Scampson with a coarse joke and a vulgar chuckle. Then begin the sweets of the evening. Old Bobbins draws your especial attention to his curious old free-trade port, at eighteen shillings the dozen; and very curious, upon practical examination, you will find it. After three glasses, you begin to suspect that you have swallowed a live crab unawares, and you gladly second Mr Scampson in his motion for something hot. The conversation then becomes political, and, to a certain extent, religious. Bobbins, who has a brother in Parliament, is vehement in his support of the Twenty Hours' Labour Bill, and insists upon the necessity of a measure for effectually coercing apprentices. Bugsley, his opposite neighbour, can talk of nothing but stock and yarn. But Scampson, in right of his calling, takes the lion's share of the conversation. He denounces the Church, not yet dis-established – hopes to see the day when every Bishop upon the Bench shall be brought to the block – and stigmatises the Universities as the nests of bigotry and intolerance. With many oaths, he declares his conviction that Robespierre was a sensible fellow – and as he waxes more furious over each successive tumbler, you wisely think that there may be some danger in contradicting so virulent a champion, and steal from the room at the first convenient opportunity. In the drawing-room you find Miss Lewdlaw descanting upon her favourite theories. She is expounding to Emily Bobbins her rights as a socialist and a woman, and illustrating her lecture by some quotations from the works of Aurora Dudevant. The sweet girl, evidently under the magnetic influence of her preceptress, regards you with a humid eye and flushed cheek as you enter; but having no fancy to approach the charmed circle of the Lewdlaw, you keep at the other end of the room, and amuse yourself with an illustrated copy of Jack Sheppard. In a short time, Bobbins, Bugsley, and Scampson, the last partially inebriated, make their appearance; and an animated erotic dialogue ensues between the gentleman in dubious orders, and the disciple of Mary Wolstonecraft. You begin to feel uncomfortable, and as Bugsley is now snoring, and Bobbins attempting to convince his helpmate of the propriety of more brandy and water, you desert the drawing-room, bolt up-stairs, pack your portmanteau, and go to bed with a firm resolution to start next morning by the earliest train; and as soon as possible to ascertain whether Jemima will consent to accompany you to Canada or Australia, or some other uncivilised part of the world where trees grow, waters run, and animals exist as nature has decreed, and where the creed of the socialist and jargon of the factory are fortunately detested or unknown.

Such, gentle reader, is the England which the patriots of the Bright school are desirous to behold; and such it may become if we meekly and basely yield to revolutionary innovations, and conciliate every demagogue by adopting his favourite nostrum. We have certainly been digressing a good deal further than is our wont; but we trust you will not altogether disapprove of our expedition to the new Utopia. We hope that your present, and a great many future Christmasses may be spent more pleasantly; and that, in your day at least, peace may never be effected at the expense of a virtual solitude. Let us now consider what alterations may properly and humanely be made upon the present existing Game laws.

On the whole, we are inclined to agree with the resolutions adopted by the committee. These appear to recognise the principle of a qualified right of property in game, and that this property is now vested in the occupier of the soil. By this rule which may if necessary be declared by enactment, the tenant has at all times the power to secure the game to himself, unless he chooses to part with that right by special bargain. It is of course inconsistent with this qualified right of property, that any person should kill game upon lands which he is not privileged to enter; and the committee are therefore of opinion, that the violation of that right should still continue to be visited with legal penalties. But they think – and in this we most cordially agree with them – that considerable alteration should be made in the present penal code, and that, in particular, cumulative penalties for poaching should be abolished. It is monstrous that such penalties, to which the poorer classes in this country are most peculiarly liable, should be any longer allowed to exist, while the offence which these are intended to punish is in every proper sense a single one. We are inclined to get rid of every difficulty on this head by an immediate discontinuance of the certificates. The amount of revenue drawn from these is really insignificant, and in many cases it must stand in the way of a fair exercise of his privilege by the humbler occupant of the soil. If a poor upland crofter, who rents an acre or two from a humane landlord, and who has laid out part of it in a garden, should chance to see, of a clear frosty night, a hare insinuate herself through the fence, and demolish his winter greens – it is absolute tyranny to maintain, that he may not reach down the old rusty fowling-piece from the chimney, take a steady vizzy at puss, and tumble her over in the very act of her delinquency, without having previously paid over for the use of her gracious Majesty some four pounds odds; or otherwise to be liable in a penalty of twenty pounds, with the pleasant alternative of six months' imprisonment! In such a case as this the man is not sporting; he is merely protecting his own, is fairly entitled to convert his enemy into wholesome soup, and should be allowed to do so with a conscience void of offence towards God or man. We must have no state restrictions or qualifications to a right of property which may be enjoyed by the smallest cotter, and no protective laws to debar him from the exercise of his principle. And therefore it is that we advocate the immediate abolition of the certificate.

What the remaining penalty should be is matter for serious consideration. It appears evident that the common law of redress is not sufficient. Game is at best but a qualified property; for your interest in it ceases the moment that it leaves your land; but still you have an interest, may be a considerable pecuniary loser by its infringement, and therefore you are entitled to demand an adequate protection. But then it is hardly possible, when we consider what human nature with all its powerful instincts is, to look upon poaching in precisely the same light with theft. By no process of mental ratiocination can you make a sheep out of a hare. You did not buy the creature, it is doubtful whether you bred it, and in five minutes more it may be your neighbour's property, and that of its own accord. You cannot even reclaim it, though born in your private hutch. Now this is obviously a very slippery kind of property; and the poor man – who knows these facts quite as well as the rich, and who is moreover cursed with a craving stomach, a large family, and a strong appetite for roast – is by no means to be considered, morally or equitably, in the same light with the ruffian who commits a burglary for the sake of your money, or carries away your sheep from the fold. It ought to be, if it is not, a principle in British law, that the temptation should be considered before adjudging upon the particular offence. The schoolboy – whose natural propensity for fruit has been roused by the sight of some far too tempting pippins, and who, in consequence, has undertaken the hazard of a midnight foray – is, if detected in the act, subjected to no further penalty than a pecuniary mulct or a thrashing, especially if his parents belong to the more respectable classes of society. And yet this is a theft as decided and more inexcusable, than if the nameless progeny of a vagrant should, hunger-urged, filch a turnip or two from a field, and be pounced upon by some heartless farmer, who considers that he is discharging every heavenly and earthly duty if he pays his rent and taxes with unscrupulous punctuality. It is a crying injustice that any trifling piccadillo on the part of the poor or their children, should be treated with greater severity than is used in the case of the rich. This is neither an equitable nor a Christian rule. We have no right to subject the lowest of the human family to a contamination from which we would shrink to expose the highest; and the true sense of justice and of charity, which, after all, we believe to be deeply implanted in the British heart, will, we trust, before long, spare us the continual repetition of class Pariahs of infant years brought forward in small courts of justice for no other apparent reason than to prove, that our laws care more leniently for the rich than they do for the offspring of the poor.

While, therefore, we consider it just that game should be protected otherwise than by the law of trespass, we would not have the penalty made, in isolated cases, a harsh one. A trespass in pursuit of game should, we think, be punished in the first instance by a fine, not so high as to leave the labourer no other alternative than the jail, or so low as to make the payment of it a matter of no importance. Let Giles, who has intromitted with a pheasant, be mulcted in a week's wages, and let him, at the same time, distinctly understand the nature and the end of the career in which he has made the incipient step. Show him that an offence, however venial, becomes materially aggravated by repetition; for it then assumes the character of a daring and wilful defiance of the laws of the realm. For the second of offence mulct him still, but higher, and let the warning be more solemnly repeated. These penalties might be inflicted by a single justice of the peace. But if Giles offends a third time, his case becomes far more serious, and he should be remitted to a higher tribunal. It is now almost clear that he has become a confirmed poacher, and determined breaker of the laws – it is more than likely that money is his object. Leniency has been tried without success, and it is now necessary to show him that the law will not be braved with impunity. Three months' imprisonment, with hard labour, should be inflicted for the purpose of reclaiming him; and if, after emerging from prison, he should again offend, let him forthwith be removed from the country.

Some squeamish people may object to our last proposal as severe. We do not think it so. The original nature of the offence has become entirely changed; for it must be allowed on all hands, that habitual breach of the laws is a very different thing from a casual effraction. It would be cruelty to transport an urchin for the first handkerchief he has stolen; but after his fourth offence, that punishment becomes an actual mercy. Nor should the moral effect produced by the residence of a determined poacher in any neighbourhood be overlooked. A poacher can rarely carry on his illicit trade without assistance: he entices boys by offering them a share in his gains, introduces them to the beer and the gin shop, and thus they are corrupted for life. It is sheer nonsense to say that poaching does not lead to other crimes. It leads in the first instance to idleness, which we know to be the parent of all crime; and it rapidly wears away all finer sense of the distinction between meum and tuum. From poacher the transition to smuggler is rapid and easy, and your smuggler is usually a desperado. With all deference to Mr Welford, his conclusion, that poaching should be prevented by the entire extermination of game, is a most pitiable instance of calm imperturbable imbecility. He might just as well say that the only means of preventing theft is the total destruction of property, and the true remedy for murder the annihilation of the human race.

We agree also with the committee, that some distinction must be made between cases of simple poaching, and those which are perpetrated by armed and daring gangs. To these banditti almost every instance of assault and murder connected with poaching is traceable, and the sooner such fellows are shipped off to hunt kangaroos in Australia the better. But we think that such penalties as we have indicated above, would in most cases act as a practical detention from this offence, and would certainly remove all ground for complaint against the unnecessary severity of the law.

With regard to the destruction of crops by game, especially when caused by the preserves of a neighbouring proprietor, the committee seems to have been rather at a loss to deal. And there is certainly a good deal of difficulty in the matter. For on the one hand, the game, while committing the depredation, is clearly not the property of the preserver, and may of course be killed by the party to whose ground it passes: on the other hand, it usually returns to the preserve after all the damage has been done. This seems to be one of the few instances in which the law can afford no remedy. The neighbouring farmer may indeed either shoot in person, or let the right of shooting to another; and in most cases he has the power to do so – for if his own landlord is also a preserver, it is not likely that the damage will be aggravated – and he has taken his farm in the full knowledge of the consequences of game preservation. Still there must always remain an evil, however partial, and this leads us to address a few words to the general body of the game-preservers.

Gentlemen, some of you are not altogether without fault in this matter. You have given a handle to accusations, which your enemies – and they are the enemies also of the true interests of the country – have been eager and zealous in using. You have pushed your privileges too far, and, if you do not take care, you will raise a storm which it may be very difficult to allay. What, in the name of common sense, is the use of this excessive preserving? You are not blamed, nor are you blamable, for reserving the right of sporting in your own properties to yourselves; but why make your game such utterly sacred animals? Why encourage their over-increase to such a degree as must naturally injure yourselves by curtailing your rent; and which, undoubtedly, whatever be his bargain, must irritate the farmer, and lessen that harmony and good-will which ought to exist betwixt you both? Is it for sport you do these things? If so, your definition of sport must be naturally different from ours. The natural instinct of the hunter, which is implanted in the heart of man, is in some respects a noble one. He does not, even in a savage state, pursue his game, like a wild beast of prey, merely for the sake of his appetite – he has a joy in the strong excitement and varied incidents of the chase. The wild Indian and the Norman disciple of St Hubert, alike considered it a science; and so it is even now to us who follow our pastime upon the mountains, and who must learn to be as wary and alert as the creatures which we seek to kill. The mere skill of the marksman has little to do with the real enjoyment of sport. That may be as well exhibited upon a target as upon a living object, and surely there is no pleasure at all in the mere wanton destruction of life. The true sportsman takes delight in the sagacity and steadiness of his dogs – in seeking for the different wild animals each in its peculiar haunt – and his relish is all the keener for the difficulty and uncertainty of his pursuit. Such at least is our idea of sport, and we should know something about it, having carried a gun almost as long as we can remember. But it is possible we may be getting antiquated in our notions. Two months ago we took occasion to make some remarks upon the modern murders on the moors, and we are glad to observe that our humane doctrine has been received with almost general acquiescence. We must now look to the doings at the Manor House, at which, Heaven be praised, we never have assisted; but the bruit thereof has gone abroad, and we believe the tidings to be true.

We have heard of game preserved over many thousands of acres, not waste, but yellow corn-land, with many an intervening belt of noble wood and copse, until the ground seems actually alive with the number of its animal occupants. The large, squat, sleek hares lie couched in every furrow; each thistle-tuft has its lurking rabbit; and ceaseless at evening is the crow of the purple-necked pheasant from the gorse. The crops ripen, and are gathered in, not so plentifully as the richness of the land would warrant, but still strong and heavy. The partridges are now seen running in the stubble-fields, or sunning themselves on some pleasant bank, so secure that they hardly will take the trouble to fly away as you approach, but generally slip through a hedge, and lie down upon the other side. And no wonder; for not only has no gun been fired over the whole extensive domain, though the autumn is now well advanced; but a cordon of gamekeepers extends along the whole skirts of the estate, and neither lurcher nor poacher can manage to effect an entrance. Within ten minutes after they had set foot within the guarded territory, the first would be sprawling upon his back in the agonies of death, and the second on his way to the nearest justice of peace, with two pairs of knuckles uncomfortably lodged within the innermost folds of his neckcloth. The proprietor, a middle-aged gentleman of sedentary habits, does not, in all probability, care much about sporting. If he does, he rents a moor in Scotland, where he amuses himself until well on in October, and then feels less disposed for a tamer and a heavier sport. But in November he expects, after his ancient hospitable fashion, to have a select party at the manor-house, and he is desirous of affording them amusement. They arrive, to the number, perhaps, of a dozen males, some of then persons of an elevated rank, or of high political connexion. There is considerable commotion on the estate. The staff of upper and under keepers assemble with a large train of beaters before the baronial gateway. They bring with them neither pointers nor setters – these old companions of the sportsman are useless in a battue; but there are some retrievers in the leash, and a few well-broken spaniels. It is quite a scene for Landseer – that antique portico, with the group before it, and the gay and sloping uplands illuminated by a clear winter's sun. The guests sally forth, all mirth and spirits, and the whole party proceed to an appointed cover. Then begins the massacre. There is a shouting and rustling of beaters: at every step the gorgeous pheasant whirs from the bush, or the partridge glances slopingly through the trees, or the woodcock wings his way on scared and noiseless pinion. Rabbits by the hundred are scudding distractedly from one pile of brushwood to another. Loud cries of "Mark!" are heard on every side, and at each shout there is the explosion of a fowling-piece. No time now to stop and load. The keeper behind you is always ready with a spare gun. How he manages to cram in the powder and shot so quickly is an absolute matter of marvel; for you let fly at every thing, and have lost all regard to the ordinary calculations of distance. You had better take care of yourself, however, for you are getting into a thicket, and neither Sir Robert, who is on your right, nor the Marquis, who is your left-hand neighbour, are remarkable for extra caution, and the Baronet, in particular, is short-sighted. We don't quite like the appearance of that hare which is doubling back. You had better try to stop her before she reaches that vista in the wood. Bang! – you miss, and, at the same moment, a charge of number five, from the weapon of the Vavasour, takes effect upon the corduroys of your thigh, and, though the wound is but skin-deep, makes you dance an extempore fandango.

And so you go on from cover to cover, for five successive hours, through this rural poultry-yard, slaying, and, what is worse, wounding without slaying, beyond all ordinary calculation. You have had a good day's amusement, have you? Our dear sir, in the estimation of any sensible man or thorough sportsman, you might as well have been amusing yourself with a ride in the heart of Falkirk Tryst, or assisting at one of those German Jagds, where the deer are driven into inclosures, and shot down to the music of lute, harp, cymbal, dulcimer, sackbut, and psaltery. In fact, between ourselves, it is not a thing to boast of, and the amusement is, to say the least of it, an expensive one. For the sake of giving you, and the Marquis, and Sir Robert, and a few more, two or three days' sport, your host has sacrificed a great part of the legitimate rental of his estate – has maintained, from one end of the year to the other, all those personages in fustian and moleskin – and has, moreover, made his tenantry sulky. Do you think the price paid is in any way compensated by the value received? Of course not. You are a man of sense, and therefore, for the future, we trust that you will set your face decidedly against the battue system: shoot yourself, as a gentleman ought to do – or, if you do not care about it, give permission to your own tenantry to do so. Rely upon it, they will not abuse the privilege.

The fact is, there never should be more than two coveys in one field, or half-a-dozen hares in each moderate slip of plantation. That, believe us, with the accession you will derive from your neighbours, is quite sufficient to keep you in exercise during the season, and to supply your table with game. No tenant whatever will object to find food for such a stock. If you want more exciting sport, come north next August, and we shall take you to a moor which is preserved by a single shepherd's herd, where you may kill your twenty brace a-day for a month, and have a chance of a red-deer into the bargain. But, if you will not leave the south, do not, we beseech you, turn yourself into a hen-wife, and become ridiculous as a hatcher of pheasants' eggs. The thing, we are told, has been done by gentlemen of small property, for the purpose of getting up an appearance of game: it would be quite as sane a proceeding to improve the beauty of a prospect by erecting cast-iron trees. Above all things, whatever you do, remember that you are the denizen of a free country, where individual rights, however sacred in themselves, must not be extended to the injury of those around you.

To say the truth, we have observed with great pain, that a far too exclusive spirit has of late manifested itself in certain high places, and among persons whom we regard too much to be wholly indifferent to their conduct. This very summer the public press has been indignant in its denunciation of the Dukes of Atholl and Leeds – the one having, as it is alleged, attempted to shut up a servitude road through Glen Tilt, and the other established a cordon for many miles around the skirts of Ben-na-Mac-Dhui, our highest Scottish mountain. We are not fully acquainted with the particulars; but from what we have heard, it would appear that this wholesale exclusion from a vast tract of territory is intended to secure the solitude of two deer-forests. Now, we are not going to argue the matter upon legal grounds – although, knowing something of law, we have a shrewd suspicion that both noble lords are in utter misconception of their rights, and are usurping a sovereignty which is not to be found in their charters, and which was never claimed or exercised even by the Scottish Kings. But the churlishness of the step is undeniable, and we cannot but hope that it has proceeded far more on thoughtlessness than from intention. The day has been, when any clansman, or even any stranger, might have taken a deer from the forest, tree from the hill, or a salmon from the river, without leave asked or obtained: and though that state of society has long since passed away, we never till now have heard that the free air of the mountains, and their heather ranges, are not open to him who seeks them. Is it indeed come to this, that in bonny Scotland, the tourist, the botanist, or the painter, are to be debarred from visiting the loveliest spots which nature ever planted in the heart of a wilderness, on pretence that they disturb the deer! In a few years we suppose Ben Lomond will be preserved, and the summit of Ben Nevis remain as unvisited by the foot of the traveller as the icy peak of the Jungfrau. Not so, assuredly, would have acted the race of Tullibardine of yore. Royal were their hunting gatherings, and magnificent the driving of the Tinchel; but over all their large territory of Atholl, the stranger might have wandered unquestioned, except to know if he required hospitality. It is not now the gate which is shut, but the moor; and that not against the depredator, but against the peaceful wayfaring man. Nor can we as sportsmen admit even the relevancy of the reasons which have been assigned for this wholesale exclusion. We are convinced, that in each season not above thirty or forty tourists essay the ascent of Ben-na-Mac-Dhui, and of that number, in all probability, not one has either met or startled a red deer. Very few men would venture to strike out a devious path for themselves over the mountains near Loch Aven, which, in fact, constitute the wildest district of the island. The Quaker tragedy of Helvellyn might easily be re-enacted amidst the dreary solitudes of Cairn Gorm, and months elapse before your friends are put in possession of some questionable bones. Nothing but enthusiasm will carry a man through the intricacies of Glen Lui, the property of Lord Fife, to whom it was granted at no very distant period of time out of the forfeited Mar estates, and which is presently rented by the Duke of Leeds; and nothing more absurd can be supposed, than that the entry of a single wanderer into that immense domain, can have the effect of scaring the deer from the limits of so large a range. This is an absurd and an empty excuse, as every deer-stalker must know. A stag is not so easily frightened, nor will he fly the country from terror at the apparition of the Cockney. Depend upon it, the latter will be a good deal the more startled of the two. With open mouth and large gooseberry eyes, he will stand gazing upon the vision of the Antlered Monarch; the sketch-book and pencil-case drop from his tremulous hands, and he stands aghast in apprehension of a charge of horning, against which he has no defence save a cane camp-stool, folded up into the semblance of a yellow walking-stick. Not so the Red-deer. For a few moments he will regard the Doudney-clad wanderer of the wilds, not in fear but in surprise; and then, snuffing the air which conveys to his nostrils an unaccustomed flavour of bergamot and lavender, he will trot away over the shoulder of the hill, move further up the nearest corrie, and in a quarter of an hour will be lying down amidst his hinds in the thick brackens that border the course of the lonely burn.

We could say a great deal more upon this subject; but we hope that expansion is unnecessary. Throughout all Europe the right of passage over waste and uncultivated land, where there never were and never can be inclosures, appears to be universally conceded. What would his Grace of Leeds say, if he were told that the Bernese Alps were shut up, and the liberty of crossing them denied, because some Swiss seigneur had taken it into his head to establish a chamois preserve? The idea of preserving deer in the way now attempted is completely modern, and we hope will be immediately abandoned. It must not, for the sake of our country, be said, that in Scotland, not only the inclosures, but the wilds and the mountains are shut out from the foot of man; and that, where no highway exists, he is debarred from the privilege of the heather. Whatever may be the abstract legal rights of the aristocracy, we protest against the policy and propriety of a system which would leave Ben Cruachan to the eagles, and render Loch Ericht and Loch Aven as inaccessible as those mighty lakes which are said to exist in Central Africa, somewhere about the sources of the Niger.

notes

1

Mr Kohl fixes the date of the "melted lead" day at 1319, forgetting that Margaret, the Semiramis of the North, in whose reign the event occurred, did not reign in Denmark until about 1375. She died in 1412.

2

In the year 1660, the different estates of Denmark made a voluntary surrender of their rights into the hands of their sovereign, who became by that act absolute: it is a fact unparalleled in the history of any other country. Up to the year 1834, this unlimited power was exercised by the kings, who, it must be said to their honour, never abused it by seeking to oppress or enslave their subjects. In the year 1834, however, Frederic VI., of his own free will and choice, established a representative government. The gift was by no means conferred in consequence of any discontent exhibited under the hitherto restrictive system. The intentions of the monarch were highly praiseworthy; their wisdom is not so clear, as, under the new law, the kingdom is divided into four parts – 1. The Islands; 2. Sleswig; 3. Jutland; 4. Holstein; each having its own provincial assembly. The number of representatives for the whole country amounts to 1217. Each representative receives four rix-dollars a-day (a rix-dollar is 2s. 21⁄2d.) for his services, besides his travelling expenses. The communication between the sovereign and the assembly is through a royal commissioner, who is allowed to vote, but not to speak. – See Wheaton's History of Scandinavia.

3

Whilst in this neighbourhood, Mr Kohl should have explored the Gunderler Wood, where stone circles and earth mounds are yet carefully preserved, marking the site of one of the principal places of sacrifice in heathen times. At Gysselfelt, a lay nunnery exists, founded as recently as the year 1799.

4

It was by the Duchess of Newcastle, according to Pepys, that this play was written. In his Diary he says, under date of the 11th April 1667: – "To Whitehall, thinking there to have seen the Duchess of Newcastle coming this night to court to make a visit to the Queen. The whole story of this lady is a romance, and all she does is romantic. Her footmen in velvet coats, and herself in an antique dress, as they say; and was the other day at her own play, TheHumorous Lovers, the most ridiculous thing that ever was wrote, but yet she and her lord mightily pleased with it; and she at the end made her respects to the players from her box, and did give them thanks." This was the eccentric dame who kept a maid of honour sitting up all night, to write down any bright idea or happy inspiration by which she might be visited.

5

"The siege, so far as it depends on me, shall be pushed with all possible vigour, and I do not altogether despair but that, from the success of this campaign, we may hear of some advances made towards that which we so much desire. And I shall esteem it much the happiest part of my life, if I can be instrumental in putting a good end to the war, which grows so burdensome to our country, as well as to our allies." —Marlborough to Lord Oxford, Aug. 20, 1711; Coxe, vi. 92.

6

Coxe, vi. 93.

7

"As you have given me encouragement to enter into the strictest confidence with you, I beg your friendly advice in what manner I am to conduct myself. You cannot but imagine it would be a terrible mortification for me to pass by the Hague when our plenipotentiaries are there, and myself a stranger to their transactions; and what hopes can I have of any countenance at home if I am not thought fit to be trusted abroad?" —Marlborough to the Lord Treasurer, 21st Oct. 1711.

8