to his intellectual occupations, the manly exercise of hunting.

Instead, however, of subsisting on the healthy diet just described, the ordinary practice of many hunting men is to add to what may be called "Nature's prescription for the enjoyment of good health" the following ingredients :

1. After breakfast, before mounting the spiry covert hack-a cigar.

2. On arriving at a hand-gallop at the meet; again on reaching the covert-a cigar.

3. At two o'clock some cold grouse, a long suck from a flat flask full of sherry, or brandy and water, and—a cigar.

4. After the run, another suck at the flat flask-a cigar. Refreshment at the nearest inn, for man and

horse, and—a cigar.

5. While riding home, per hour-a cigar.

6. On reaching home, a heavy dinner, a superstratum of wine, an astronomical peep at the new moon, and— a cigar.

For a short time, a stout system is exhilarated, and a strong stomach may be invigorated, by a series of gifts

so munificently bestowed upon them by the right hand of their lord and master.

But as Death eventually levels all distinctions, so do a constant slight intoxication produced by tobacco, vinous and spirituous liquors, with a superabundance of rich food, sooner or later first weaken the stomach, and then gradually debilitate the system, of the strong man as well as of the puny one.

The first symptom of premature decay is announced by the nerves, which, to the astonishment of the young rider, sometimes fail so rapidly, that while the whole of the rest of his system appears to him and to everybody to be as blooming and as vigorous as ever, he is compelled, under the best excuse he can invent, to sell his stud, and abandon for the rest of his life the favourite recreation he has himself destroyed.

Again, although the delicate network of the nervous system may continue uninjured, the stomach, from being continually over-excited, overwhelmed, and over-burdened by a heavy, conglomerated mixture which it has not power to digest, begins to become unable to execute, not its natural functions, but the unnatural amount of work it is called upon to perform. The blood becomes impure, secretions are vitiated, the liver gets disordered, the oppressed lungs are ready for inflammation, the brain is heated, the pulse irregular; in fact, the whole mechanism

of the system becomes so deranged that the rider eventually experiences, to his vast regret, that he enjoys rest more than exercise, and accordingly in due, or rather in undue time, he retires from his saddle to an elbow chair.

But he is hardly seated therein when the sudden change in his habits, from an active to a sedentary life, rapidly produces the usual effects. Did his big toe, unknown to him, receive yesterday any little blow? Can he have sprained it in his sleep? What can possibly have swelled it so? How shiny and scarlet it looks! How burning hot it is getting! Gracious heavens, what a twitch that was!! something must be in it. That something, oh! seems to be a red-hot file in the hands of a demon who is rasping a hole in the bone. Ah! Ai! O O O Oh!!

But this little mischievous demon is only one of a legion; for besides the eating complaint, commonly called gout, diseases, all more or less painful, produced by intemperate habits, or, in other words, by giving to the poor willing stomach more food and liquor than it could digest, are so innumerable, that it would require, and does require, a library of books to describe them, with regiments of medicine-men to prescribe for them—in vain.

"India, my boy," said an Irishman to a friend on his

arrival at Calcutta, "is jist the finest climate under the sun. But a pack of young fellows come out here, and they dhrink and they ate, and they ate and they dhrink, and they die. And thin, they write home to their friends a pack o' lies, and say, it's the climate as has killed 'em!"

But to return to the saddle. Instead of preaching from it abstinence to hunting-men, they ought, on the contrary, to be urged to enjoy the greatest amount of gratification that can possibly be derived from eating and drinking, not for a single day, week, month, or year, but throughout their whole lives.

To enable themselves, however, to ascertain this amount, it is necessary for them to put into a pair of scales, to be accurately weighed against each other, the enjoyments of temperance, and the sorrows and anguish of intemperance. If, on doing so, they ascertain that the balance is in favour of eating, drinking, and tobaccosmoking ad libitum, they will act wisely in indulging in all three to the utmost possible extent. If, on the contrary, they ascertain that some of these pleasures last only for a few seconds, some for a few minutes, and none for more than one or two hours, while, on the other hand, the afflictions caused by intemperance endure for months and years;—that "felo-de-se" they put an end to hunting, spoil cricket, stop shooting, and last, but

not least, ruin not only bodily but intellectual enjoyments, they will act wisely by resolving to befriend themselves as they befriend their horses, namely, by prescribing for all and each an ample quantity of food of the very best description, and, if more be required by a greedy stomach-the muzzle.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEICESTERSHIRE AND SURREY

HUNTING.

When a stranger comes to hunt in "the shires" he is surprised, and is usually a little alarmed, at the size of the fences, until he learns, by experience, how very easily they are crossed; for although almost all non-hunting people, especially ladies, fancy that it must be dangerous to encounter a large fence, and easy to pass over a small one, yet in practice the reverse, within moderate bounds, may be said to be the truth: indeed, it is notorious that of the bad accidents that happen in the hunting-field, at least three-fourths occur either at small impediments or at no impediment at all. For instance, perhaps the very worst fall a rider can get is by his horse, at full speed, stepping on the edge of a little rabbit-hole; next comes that occasioned by one of his fore feet in his gallop dropping into a deep drain about six inches broad; next