Not much, for fear I should fall," &c.'

Hunting the Fox a little! Only imagine him breaking cover. Why, you Hy over your horse's ears at the first ditch, six inches wide. First of all, you talk of riding to town-on paper -your brain and your bottom warmand nothing will satisfy you, but to HUNT THE FOX. O, Editor of the Annals of Sporting! what would'st thou not give for a sight of our worthy ViceLaureate leading the Surrey Hunt, reynard in view, and Tims whipperin! After HUNTING THE Fox, but "not much," Mr Hunt thinks himself equal to any display of bodily vigour, and declares

"All manly games I'd play at: golf, and quoits,

And cricket, to set all my limbs to rights, And make me conscious, with a due respect,

Of muscles one forgets by long neglect. But as for prize-fights, with their butchering shows,

And crowds of black-legs, I'd have none

of those ;

I am not bold in other people's blows. Besides, I should reside so far from town, Those human waves could never bear me down

Which would endear my solitude, I own. But if a neighbour, fond of his antiques, Tried to renew a bout or two at sticks, I'd do my best to force a handsome laugh Under a ruddy crack from quarter-staff; Nor think I had a right to walk my woods, Coy of a science that was Robin Hood's. 'Tis healthy, and a man's; and would assist

To make me wield a falchion in my fist, Should foes arise who'd rather not be taught,

This is a good passage. But what if Bill Gibbons should some day pitch the ring for a fight between the BushCove and Cabbage, with the ropes belonging to the P. C. in Mr Hunt's Park? Fifty miles from town is no security against such an invasion; and surely Mr Hunt would not countenance the Beaks. What would honest Robin Hood have thought of the expression, 66 coy of a science?" If our Vice would consider the matter for a minute or two, he would be sensible of the extreme ludicrousness of the most remote comparison between himself and Robin Hood. He with his yellow breeches, silk hat, red slippers, and shabby-genteel surtout, picking his steps, within sound of the dinner-bell, among a few beds of tulips and peony-roses, or selecting a dry spot of his "turf and trees," that he might on the grass go miner-and that immortal Bowman of rhyme," or scribble a literary Exathe Forest! Tims, personating Bruce

66

at Bannockburn in our Tent, was nothing to the King of the Cockneys, with a quarter-staff in his lily hand, enacting the Outlaw of Sherwood!

but rare, and never allowed to interSuch pastimes, however, would be fere with our bard's severer studies.

For

As fits a man and lettered citizen,

And so discharge my duty to the state; But as to fame and glory, fame might wait. Nevertheless, I'd write a work in verse, Full of fine dreams and natural characters;

Eastern, perhaps, and gathered from a shore

Whence never poet took his world before. To this sweet sphere I would retire at will,

To sow it with delight, and shape with skill;

And should it please me, and be roundly done,

I'd launch it into light, to sparkle round the sun.'

Now, high as our opinion is of our Laureate's abilities and genius, we offer to lay six guineas of wire-wove gilt to a pound of whitey-brown, that not two hundred copies of this Eastern Tale are

ploring thought.”

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a heavy bale in a dark warehouse; and if printed at his own risk, Mr Hunt will find himself some twenty or thirty pounds out of pocket. Our Vice-Laureate must therefore give up all idea of "broaching it into light," and confine himself to his Odes on our Birth-day, and the Anniversary Hymn on the creation of the Magazine.

Pomfret, we are told, got into a row with some Bishop or other, on account of a suspicious line in his poem, which was thought to recommend a keptmistress, in preference to a wife. Mr Hunt is facetious on this in a note; but it puzzles us to know, from the following passage, whether he holds the opinion erroneously attached to the "Parson."

"In pleasure and in pain, alike I find My face turn tenderly to womankind; But then they must be truly women,

not

Shes by the courtesy of a petticoat,
And left without inquiry to their claims,
Like haunted houses with their devil's
dams.

I'd mend the worst of women, if I could,
But for a constancy, give me the good ;-
I do not mean the formal or severe,
Much less the sly, who's all for character;
But such as, in all nations and all times,
Would be good creatures, fit for loving
rhymes;

Kind, candid, simple, yet of sterling sense,
And of a golden age for innocence.
Of these my neighbours should have
choice relations;

And I (though under certain alterations) I too would bring-(though I dislike the name;

The Reverend Mr Pomfret did the same;
Let its wild flavour pass a line so tame;)—
A wife, or whatsoever better word
The times, grown wiser, might by law
afford

To the chief friend and partner of my board.

The dear, good she, by every habit then,Ties e'en when pleasant, very strong with

tions does our mysterious friend mean to make on the Marriage Law? Has he communicated with the Lord Chancellor, my Lord Ellenborough, Dr Phillimore, and the blacksmith at GretnaGreen? What is there peculiarly odious, loathsoine, and repulsive in the word "wife," that Mr Hunt should publicly express his dislike of it, "in mild singing clothes?" What word would he prostitute in its place? Or what is the matter with the tympanum of his ear, or the core of his heart, that a word sacred to all the rest of his species, should, to him, sound unhallowed?

It does not seem to us, that the difficulties in the way of putting this scheme into practice are at all insurmountable. What if some two or three of the party should have a cold, cannot they take with them a few boxes of lozenges, and a score of aperient powders? In a few days, all obstructions will be worked off; and the Blanket-Tent will murmur beneath the moon with a mellower and more subdued snore. In a Blanket-Tent, we presume, the gipsying party mean to shelter; and do not forget now to provide for yourselves a sufficient stock of horn for the manufactory of ornamental spoons. As to dress, about which Mr Hunt seems to be so unhappy, let him boldly take with him his yellow breeches in a band-box; and every day before dinner, he can put them on most rurally in a ditch by the road-side, exhibiting

"The last perfection of mankind, A gipsy's body, and a poet's mind." As to the " twenty other inconveniences," we consider them, whatever they are, quite imaginary; and the party will find both luxuries and newood.

cessaries in

every On returning from this pretty little wild excursion, Mr Hunt once more takes

up house;" and he really gives himself the character of a very plea

sant and amiable landlord.

"These mornings, with their work, should earn for me

My afternoon's content and liberty.
I'd have an early dinner, and a plain,
Not tempting much to cut and come
again ;'

A little wine, or not, as health allow'd, But for my friends, a stock to make me proud;

Bottles of something delicate and rare, Which I should draw, and hold up with

an air,

And set them on the table, and say, "There!'"

We were here most anxious to know the dimensions of Mr Hunt's diningroom, and the prevailing colour of its furniture. But we are only told, "My dining-room should have some shelves of books,

If only for their grace and social looksHorace and Plutarch, Plato, and some more,

Who knew how to refine the tables' roar, And sprinkled sweet philosophy between, As meats are reconciled with slips of green.

I read infallibly, if left alone;

But after meat, an author may step down
To settle a dispute, or talk himself:-
I seem to twitch him now with finger
from his shelf."

Hitherto our opinions on all the principal questions in taste, manners, morals, and religion, have been in unison; but now Mr Hunt and we cease to row in the same boat-for if we

did, we should be pulling away, when he was backing water. What will Odoherty say to his Vice, when he reads,

One of the rooms should face a spot of spots,

Such as would please a squirrel with his nuts;

I mean a slope, looking upon a slope, Wood-crown'd, and dell'd with turf, a sylvan cup.

Here, when our moods were quietest, we'd praise

The scenic shades, and watch the doves and jays."

Besides the ordinary and necessary out-houses, such as hen-house, pigsty, dog-kennel, "and the rest, Mr Hunt proposes to build a chapel." This made us wink again; for nothing

66

makes him so irritable as to be suspected of Christianity. But list—Oh! list-if ever you did the dear Cockney love

"Greek beauty should be there, and Gothic shade;

And brave as anger, gentle as a maid, The name on whose dear heart my hope's

worn cheek was laid.

Here, with a more immediate consciousness,

Would we feel all that blesses us, and bless;

And lean on one another's heart, and

make

Sweet resolutions, ever, for love's sake; And recognize the eternal Good and Fair, Atoms of whose vast active spirit we are, And try by what great yearnings we could force

The globe on which we live to take a

day! poor dear Mr Hunt has taken to his bed--is going to die—is dead. "And when I died, 'twould please me to be laid

In my own ground's most solitary shade; Not for the gloom, much less to be alone, But solely as a room that still might seem my own.

There should my friends come still, as to a place

That held me yet, and bring me a kind face: