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the air of Naples will make an old fellow of sixty young again.' Some time previously he had entered in his Journal with reference to his friend Colin Mackenzie what was equally applicable to himself now: Alas! long-seated complaints defy Italian climate.' The Journal contains many interesting details of his voyage to Italy and sojourn there; indeed, the entries are often so lively and cheerful in tone, that it is hard to realize when reading them how greatly Sir Walter's health was impaired and how much his mind was enfeebled. He appeared to consider it a duty to make entries in the Journal so long as he could hold a pen; and he did so till the month of April 1832, being five months before he breathed his last at Abbotsford. Mr. Douglas gives a facsimile in the Preface of the following words, which were the last that Sir Walter penned :-

'We entered Rome by a gate surmounted by one of the Old Pontiffs, but which I forgot, and so paraded the streets by moonlight to discover if possible some appearance of the learned Sir William Gell or the pretty Mistress Astly.

'At length we found an old servant who guided us to the lodgings taken by Sir William Gell, where all was comfortable, a good fire included, which our fatigue and the chilliness of the night required. We dispersed as soon as we had taken some food and wine and

water.

We slept reasonably but on the next morning,'

·

It is upwards of half a century since Carlyle wrote that Lockhart's Life of Scott'summons the world's attention round him, probably for the last time it will ever be summoned.' A further summons is unnecessary; his works and the story of his life have secured for him universal homage throughout all ages. His position is alike firm and lofty; it can neither be forfeited nor raised, any more than a dead man or woman who is beatified can cease to be a Saint or attain another dignity. Sir Walter Scott resembles the best of those knights in the olden days of chivalry that excited his imagination and inspired his pen. Like them, he lived without fear and died without reproach, his honour being dearer to him than his life-blood. We realize this better after perusing the vivid and instructive pages of his Journal. While reading it he seems to stand before us again as he was in the flesh, and we almost forget that his hallowed dust has long since mingled with that of his ancestors in Dryburgh Abbey. Although many of the details are melancholy, yet the interest of the whole is entrancing, and the Journal is a most precious relic of Sir Walter Scott.

ART.

ART. V.-1. The Scientific Education of Dogs for the Gun. By H. H. London, 1890.

2. Dog Breaking. The most expeditious, certain, and easy Method. By General W. N. Hutchinson. Ninth edition. London, 1890.

3. History and Description of the Collie, or Sheep-dog, in the British Varieties. By Rawdon Lee, Kennel Editor of The Field.' London.

WE

E must preface the remarks we have to make on the subject of this article by informing our readers at once that the author of the first of the three works above-mentioned is an enthusiast; an enthusiast after our own heart, no doubt, but one, nevertheless, whose ideas will meet with small sympathy from the rising generation of sportsmen, to many of whom they will probably seem as much out of date as Colonel Newcome's celebrated blue coat appeared to the rising race of dandies. They will pronounce the book an anachronism. Pointers and setters, they will say, are no longer used for partridge-shooting, and what is the use of all this long and elaborate code of rules for breaking them, demanding, as the author himself allows, not only a combination of patience, perseverance, and good temper, which is far from common, but also something akin even to supernatural powers in the shape of animal magnetism to control the dogs' will? The answer is, that H. H. is an enthusiast on the subject of dogs, and that the trouble which seems superfluous to ordinary men, does not seem so to him and if we are to accept his book as evidence that he can still find sporting quarters where dogs can be used as of old with decided advantage to the gun, we think he is to be congratulated on his enthusiasm. Nor ought we to omit to call the attention of our readers to the well-known and excellent work of General Hutchinson, which has now reached its ninth edition.

There are, of course, three different ways of shooting partridges: there is the old-fashioned way; there is the system of walking them up in line, with retrievers following at heel; and lastly, there is the system of driving. The advantages of the second of these three plans we have never been able to understand. If birds will lie to a man they will lie to a dog and the only reason in its favour, we suppose, is, that a larger party can go out together when birds are simply kicked up, than when dogs have to be manœuvred as well. Between the comparative attractions of driving and shooting over dogs the controversy still rages; but the former system is supported on two very different grounds and by two very different kinds of sportsmen,

those

those who practise driving on compulsion, and those who do so from choice. There are those who say, that they have been forced into the new system through the practical failure of the old that there is no longer sufficient cover on a moderately well-cultivated estate to give the dogs a fair chance; and that, if all the birds are driven into two or three turnip-fields, the dogs, besides being unnecessary, are apt to be demoralized by the bustle, and destroy all the charm which attaches to this particular form of shooting. They say, in short, that it is no longer good enough; and that though driving cannot be compared with what the old method was in its prime, it is better than it is in its decay. The strength of this argument all depends on the truth or falsehood of the minor premiss. That to shooting over dogs plenty of cover is essential, everybody knows. Is it then equally true that such cover is rarely to be found? This is a question of experience which we are much inclined to answer in the negative. We do not mean to say there may not be many parts of England in which there is not cover enough for large bags to be made over dogs. But those who decry the use of pointers and setters are in the habit of talking as if this were the universal rule, and as if no ground any longer existed in this country suitable to the old style. No doubt in the best-farmed districts, besides the disappearance of the stubble, draining, enclosing, and grubbing up, have left their mark upon the land. wet rushy fields, which on hot days afforded capital lying for birds; the bits of common and heath, which in the days of old Leisure were still untouched; the wide straggling hedges, and the little strips of copsewood running along the brooksides -all these, beloved of the painter and the sportsman, have yielded to the march of improvement. But even here the turnips, the mangolds, the potatoes, the clover, the sainfoin, to say nothing of the fallows, where on a dry day the birds are often well scattered, afford plenty of opportunities for dog work. We have said nothing about the grouse, or the field which they afford for the exhibition of canine science. own impression is, that room enough may still be found for dogs in many partridge countries of Great Britain, and that an explanation of the disuse of them is rather to be found in the changed tastes and habits of sportsmen themselves, than in the different character of the ground, or the altered behaviour of the birds.

The

Our

If from the man who thinks that by these causes he is obliged to fall back on driving, we turn to the man who openly proclaims his preference for it in the abstract, we are in the pre

sence

sence at once of that changed conception of sport which, within the space of one generation, has spread so widely among almost all classes who are addicted to it. If our space permitted us, it might be interesting to trace this change to its source, noting all its tributaries as we went along. But it is sufficient to say here, that with the immense increase of fox-hunters, who hunt only to ride, has come a corresponding increase of game-hunters, who sport only to shoot. Formerly in a day's partridge-shooting firing at your bird was only part of the day's enjoyment; now, on the driving system, it is the whole. We quite understand what there is to be said for it. As sport comes more and more to be lost sight of in marksmanship, that kind of shooting is sure to be preferred which affords the best test of it. And unquestionably of the two, shooting driven birds is more difficult than shooting them to dogs. The difference, indeed, is not so great as is supposed. Take two boys of sixteen or seventeen; give them their first guns; and enter one at driven partridges, and the other at pointed ones. We are greatly deceived if the first would not make just as good a record as the second. It is the change from the one style to the other which causes middle-aged sportsmen to find the new system less easy. Of course there is a great deal of excitement in driving: more shots are got by each man; the sport is more continuous, and the old birds are more readily killed off by it. Men long accustomed to it naturally call the other system slow, as dram-drinkers call claret trash. We are not going to argue the question. We think only that H. H. will occasionally make some of these anti-canine gunners a little inclined to say to themselves, what a celebrated Liberal historian was overheard saying to himself after an interview with a great High Churchman, Can I, after all, have been mistaken?'

6

It is a matter of taste, all said and done. We all like what we are used to. Men of fifty who began to shoot as boys grew up under the old regime. It is less than thirty years ago since the practice of mowing stubbles became general; and men, who shot over highly-trained dogs for the first twelve or fifteen years of their sporting careers, may be excused if they do not take kindly to the modern fashion, and occasionally heave a deep sigh

'In looking at the happy autumn fields

And thinking of the days that are no more.'

H. H., however, will not have it that these days are over: so now let us see what he has to say for himself.

First of all he has that to say for himself that which will cause a good many of his readers who wish to learn the art of breaking dogs

dogs to put down his volume in despair. No man, he says, can be completely successful without what he calls lots of animal magnetism—that is, the power of making dogs obey him by the force of will only. With a man possessed of this peculiar gift ordinary mortals (of course cannot compare themselves, and sportsmen must read of his triumphs in the breaking line as of something which Nature has placed beyond their reach, and which it is useless to emulate. Our author devotes several pages of his book to this subject, and gives curious instances of the effect of the human will upon horses, one of which is too remarkable to be omitted :

'I was out for a ride one day with an argumentative friend along the road, and was on a very celebrated old hunter that had been my friend and partner for many a season. We were talking on this subject, and my friend scoffed at the very idea of such a thing, as a sort of visionary nonsense. A hundred yards ahead there was an intersecting cross-road, at right angles to that on which we were riding. I pulled up my horse.

6.66

Now," I said, "look here; I will prove my theory to you: choose and tell me which of those roads my horse shall take. You shall ride three lengths behind me, I will throw the reins on his neck, and I will bet you a sovereign he goes the way I will him, and you shall be the judge whether it is possible for me to have influenced him by any word, touch, or sign; only you must keep at a walk and not utter a word or sound."

'He made the bet, and fixed on the right-hand cross-road as being the one he knew very well the horse had never been before, whilst the two others were both roads to "meets."

'I simply fixed my eyes and my will on the road, and when the horse arrived at the spot he turned down with the same alacrity as if his stable had been in full view.'-P. 87.

We shall not pursue the subject any further, since magnetism can never be relied upon as an ordinary agency for dog-breaking. But within a narrower sphere, requiring only such qualities as may reasonably be expected of every man who undertakes to train animals at all, a great deal may be learned from our enthusiastic friend, as well as from General HutchinThe former divides his subject into four heads-Kennel Management, Retrievers, Pointers and Setters, and Spaniels. On the first of these heads we shall confine ourselves to repeating the sound general admonition which he addresses to all dog-keepers :

son.

-

'It is to me perfectly astounding the carelessness and shortsightedness of the generality of the world about the way in which they lodge their dogs. Here is a man who does not care what he gives for a brace of setters or pointers, and resolves to go in for

breeding

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