to, and yet,

"Oh! PRAY catch that horse if you please!"

Now, if people who really mounted on young horses hunt, can thus attempt to

is usually the only result, repeated over and over again without injury to anybody. have never learned to ride, who have never learned to follow hounds without damaging much more than their clothes, it ought to follow that an experienced rider on a clever hunter has, at all events, not more danger to apprehend than other people are liable to, who ride solely on hard roads, on which a horse is very apt to travel carelessly, and always falls heavily. Will Williamson, now upwards of eighty years of age, who has been huntsman to the Duke of Buccleugh for more than fifty years, and whose worst accident was lately caused by being overturned in a dog-cart, still follows his hounds; and, in like manner, in every part of the kingdom are to be found old men who, with very little to complain about, have been hunting from their boyhood, and occasionally from their childhood.

Charles Payne, the huntsman of the Pytchley, was much damaged by being thrown out of a gig; while, a short time ago, his head whip, who had fearlessly crossed almost every fence in Northamptonshire, dislocated his shoulder by slipping off a little deal table. The gallant master of the Tedworth hounds was severely injured in his conservatory; the huntsman of the Surrey fox-hounds

within his house by a fall. Lastly, it may truly be asserted, that, in hunting, more accidents occur from over caution in riders than from a combination of boldness and judgment; indeed, if hunters could but speak, they would often whisper to their riders, "If you keep taking such affectionate care of MY HEAD, you'll throw me DOWN.”

The encouragement given to farmers to breed horses of the best description, the high prices paid to them for hay, oats, beans, and straw; the sums of money expended for the purchase or rent of hunting-boxes, lodgings, stables, carriage-houses, &c., added to a variety of other incidental expenses, large and small, amount to a grand total which it would be less easy to underrate than exaggerate.

But besides the sums which hunting-men, by maintaining from eight to fourteen hunters, with grooms and strappers in proportion, distribute in their various localities, in almost every county men of rank and fortune step forward to support, more or less at their own private cost, a huntsman, one or two whips, hounds, and a stable full of horses, for the recreation and amusement of the community.

With this generous object in view, the late Sir Richard Sutton, for many years, spent about 10,000l. a-year in maintaining two packs of hounds and a stud of about fifty horses, for which he readily paid enormous prices.

In any portion of the globe, except the United Kingdom, the price of dog-flesh in England would appear

utterly incomprehensible. In 1812 Lord Middleton gave 1200 guineas for the pack he purchased. When Mr. Warde gave up the Craven country Mr. Horlock paid him 2000 guineas for his hounds; while Lord Suffield coolly handed over to Mr. Lambton 3000 guineas for his pack without seeing them. To Mr. Conyers the master of the Tedworth hounds offered for "Bashful" 100 guineas; and for another bitch, called "Careful," 400 guineas, or 10,080 francs; a sum which, in any village in France, would be considered for a peasant girl-though neither bashful nor careful—a splendid marriage portion.

Before Sir Richard's death, Lord Alford, Lord Hopetoun, Lord Southampton, and, since his decease, Lord Stamford, who keeps seventy horses, have come forward to bestow upon the hunting counties around them the same noble and munificent assistance which, on a smaller scale, is as liberally given in many other localities; and yet, without one minute item, the sum total of the enjoyment, the recreation, the health, the good fellowship, the hard riding, the enormous sums of money distributed over the United Kingdom to maintain that ancient, royal, loyal, noble, and national sport which seriatim we have endeavoured to describe would suddenly be annihilated, were we but to lose that tiny unclean beast, that dishonest little miscreant that everybody abuses—THE FOX.

Elle Jacet.

But the scene suddenly shifts——a small cracked bell in a violent hurry rings-the slight shuffling of a few running-away feet is heard—the green curtain which scarcely half a minute ago had dropped slowly rises—— and in the centre of the little stage there now appears, reposing by itself, a white wicker cradle containing a new-born baby, who will rapidly grow before our readers into a character intimately connected with the sayings and doings, the scenes and incidents we are endeavouring to describe.

THOMAS ASSHETON SMITH,

Born in Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, London, on the 2nd of August, 1776, was the grandson of Thomas Assheton, Esq., of Ashley Hall, near Bowden, in Cheshire, who assumed the name of Smith on the death of his uncle, Captain William Smith, son of the Right Honourable John Smith, Speaker of the House of Commons in the first two Parliaments of Queen Anne, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the preceding reign.

As Shakspeare, in his immortal history of the Seven Ages of Man, briefly described the first as "the infant,

mewling, &c., in its nurse's arms," so of the childhood of Tom Smith the only occurrence we are enabled to record is that his mother, one day, found him lying on his nurse's lap, gasping like a tench just landed from a pond.

"What's the matter with the child?" she eagerly inquired.

"Nothin," replied the calm nurse; "he's doing nicely."

As regarded the present tense, this answer was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Had, however, the question been "What has been the matter with him?" with the same grammatical accuracy the reply would have been, "If you please, Ma'am, he has just thrown up a large pin," which, unperceived, he had managed to swallow.

On his reaching the second age of man-that is to say, when he was but seven years old-he was sent “with his satchel and shining morning face" to Eton, where, on his arrival, he found himself the youngest boy in the school.

The busy hive of the United Kingdom, we all know, is divided into cells, in each of which, at this moment, a raw material is being converted by labour into some particular description of manufactured goods. In one cell, a Minister of State is concocting, from crude evi