previously tried my pretension, and, consequently, with the advantage that confidence always bestows. Like a jockey in a waiting race, I lay close to him, with the conviction that I could go by at my pleasure. Away we stretched, neither speaking word, fast as arms could ply, and eager and elastic boundings win for us a passage. Once I threw

a glance back, and felt my heart beat quicker as the indistinctness of objects on the land told how far we had left it behind. The stream of flood, too, setting with great rapidity to the southward, had carried us much below the point from which we started; still we held our way silently, and with the quiet energy of those who, having taken a desperate resolution, were as desperately carrying it out.

From a window of the hotel two or three men were following our course with their telescopes. Once or twice a hurried exclamation escaped them as the distance that separated us from the shore was rapidly increased, and at length each began to express his feelings and his fears.

My host was the first to break silence. "What are those two fools about," he began, in an uneasy tone: "surely--bless my soul !— surely, that Englishman never can mean to Good God! I hardly see their heads. Impossible-drown a companion-but, Lord save me!—can anybody see them now? Where are the two little black spots? I can make out nothing. Oh! it's horrible!" "Here they come," cried the best look out of the party; "they're making for home; but the tide will carry them as low as the bridge of Bundrows: let us go."

About the time that our friends on shore began to converse, the silence of those afloat was first broken. "By heaven! I can not shake him off." A muttered to himself, "he swims stronger than I do stronger? there is no strength in me." "Come," said I, "this is going too far; let us make for shore: the result of this contest shall be a secret that I will never divulge." "You have saved my life," was the reply, with which he turned his face to the land, "these waves should have covered me for ever, sooner than I would have had it known that you had beaten me." The return was effected; but even now the memory of the wild death struggle with which one, at least, accomplished it, sends the blood back to my heart. We joined the breakfast party, but not in the mood characteristic of either. I remained on the banks of Loch Melville till the middle of August, and no day arrived of which A did not pass the greater part with me. He had a fine heart, but with sorrow I say it, hopelessly, irrecoverably, "warped to wrong." He wooed and won the maiden so nearly the unconscious heroine of a tragedy; but their lives were not happy. Their story was a sad one; its moral, plain, and peremp

tory: who would make account of a life wherein youth, beauty, love, and ease, could not secure happiness for their possessor!

66

Leaving the prospects of grouse-shooting behind me, I returned to the metropolis. All were on the qui vive in anticipation of the visit of George the Fourth. The streets seemed as if some vast masquerade was being celebrated. Here you met a dandy with the skirts of his coat suspended, as it were, from his shoulder blades, and the abdominal prominence of his "cossacks" giving to his person the appearance of one as ladies wish to be who love their lords;" and there, a savage from the deserts of Connemara, or the wild isles of Arran, naked and natural as it had pleased Providence to make him. Even at Golding's auction, matters were strictly in keeping. There was Golding himself, with his nose advanced from pink to purple, and Barney, as usual, "oiling a screw;" the steed with double the ordinary quid of ginger beneath his tail, and the rider with thrice his usual allowance of whisky under his waistcoat. I felt, as the scene passed before me, as one does on a first visit to Bedlam.

At length the royal visitor was announced to have taken his departure from the Welsh coast, and, en masse, all Ireland hastened to Dunleary (since named Kingstown) to give him welcome. I was invited to witness the arrival on board a cutter commanded by a son of Sir John Read,-Lieuenant Read,-who had the custody of the moorings prepared for the royal yachts, and commanded the crew of the royal barge. There never was so pleasant a dinner discussed in old Neptune's dominions. There were the syren Stephens, on her proper domain; her cousin of the silver notes, Miss Johnstone; Duruset, who sang like a bird escaped from a cage, and a colony of ultra good ones. But the king came not, having shaped his course for Howth; so, the feast concluded, the royal barge steered by Read in full dress, with his fore-and-aft hat mounted, and the rowers in state costume, was ordered alongside, to put us ashore. As we approached the jetty, the anxious crowds upon it at once recognised the royal set-out. Deafening shouts from ten thousand brazen throats hailed our approach. The hint was, in an instant, taken by our gleesome company, a boat cloak was thrown around me, and a travelling cap upon my head. We reached the shore; all arose as I passed majestically to the landingplace; and then, having also landed, walked backwards up the slip. Cheers rent the empirean; Duruset bowed to the earth; the Stephens made obeisances at which the Graces might have blushed; in half an hour all Dublin rang with the arrival of the king!!!

Such was my last scene in Ireland in 1821.

OBSERVATIONS, FROM PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE, ON OLD ENGLISH SPORTS.

THE FOREST, FIELD, AND RIVER; THE KENNEL, THE STABLE, AND THE GUN.

BY THE HON. GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY, M.P.

(Continued from page 96.)

As I do not intend to let a single circumstance pass which may come without trouble under my observation, and serve to show the inefficient and vexatious way in which the unconstitutional, as well as what might be, if properly directed, the useful power of the "Cruel Society" in London is exercised, let me commence my March paper with the following observation :

During the month of January, and in curious celebration of a providential and national event, as well as to rejoice over a solemn and religious ceremony, the public of the town of Blandford, in Dorsetshire, were regaled with this interesting ceremony :

A poor little pig was selected, either for the shortness of his tail, or to have his tail shortened by relentless hands, and then turned loose in a field, adjoining the bridge, to be hunted down by ruthless people, entered as swinish competitors for the prize. To make it difficult to succeed in the capture of the pig, and to prolong the misery of the animal as well as the enjoyment of a questionable convention of people, the tail of the porker was greased, and by that appendage alone was it deemed fair to capture him. I was, myself, from the accident of passing along the high road, a witness to the brutal attempts made to catch the miserable animal; and though I am, as I have ever professed myself, a friend to all and every fair amusement, whether of the ring, the stage, the pit, the field, or river, yet, from this wanton, brutal, and disgusting ceremony, "I turned away with honest indignation, and blushed that I

was a man.

Now, the fact of hunting a pig with a greased tail is by no means an uncommon occurrence in many parts of the country,-at fairs, and at other merry-makings ;-and I regret to say that, as there are generally stewards appointed of the middling classes, the suggestion to this wanton cruelty rests with persons who, from education and situation, ought to know better. I do not blame the lower orders for engaging in this sort of competition. A pig is purchased for the event; it is to be run for under certain conditions, and it becomes, however obtained, a valuable acquisition to the winner. I blame the stewards of the game for having suggested the act, and the "Cruel Society" for not interfering to prevent it.

I hold this to be a barbarous amusement, as uncalled for as it is offensive to the mind of a truly humane man. How much better would be the fair combat of man or animal, beast or bird, to which there is no indecency attached, than such an exhibition as the one complained of! and yet many a sickly-minded sinner, many a hypocrite, many a man