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"DOWN AMONG THE RUSHES, O.”

ENGRAVED BY J. H. ENGLEHEART, FROM A PAINTING BY C. B. SPALDING.

That's your game! down on him at last, Master Reynard, and a mouthful of feather and bone, after a week's scheming and longing, perhaps.

But then it's all the way of the world-what are half the pleasures of this life when you get thoroughly hold of them; or as Robin Burns Bings it

"You seize the stork-the flower is dead."

Another case against poor foxy of course, who, like missis's cat, has to answer for everything. If the hen-pheasant is killed on her eggs he did it; if the Bantam cock has lost his erow he took it; or even if the pet lamb has eloped, a hundred to one but she went away with the redwhiskered gentleman. "There is no keeping nothing at all while he is about." ." However, a moll-hern or two cannot signify, for Mr. Barr flies his falcons now at trapped pigeons, from grand stands-appropriate spot for pigeon sacrifice; so that we need not get uncomfortable on that score. And then only consider all the waiting and creeping and scheming required to get on the blind side of so wide-awake a bird as our long friend there. What condition it will get the other in for the first hoik in" of the season- -when you view him drawn as fine as a race-horse with strong work and light feeding.

We let the charge stand in this form-that a fox does perhaps kill a heron-when he can catch him!

LITERATURE.

THE ERNE ITS LEGENDS AND ITS FLY-FISHING. By the REV. HENRY NEWLAND. London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. 1851.

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That class of English literature of which Beckford and Walton were the founders has of late years enlisted a large accéssion of forces, regular and irregular-of the line, and volunteers." Seribimus indocti doctique" is the burden of the sylvan chorus. "Pindar sang horseraces" -so does "Joe Muggins's dog." The quaint old cruel coxcomb" wrote a watery "Sentimental Journey"-lo! disciples out of number have "girded up their lines," and followed him. Hunting and fishing, however, were the themes more especially popular; and, as arts and sciences, the chase and the angle have probably exhausted all that human skill and intelligence can do for them But, nevertheless, on the margin of each, taste and fancy can still find verge enough. Upon the pleasant borders of the gentle craft a worthy brother has recently wandered, and under the title of "The Erne: its Legends and its Fly-fishing," given to the world the narrative of his adventures. Mr.

Newland's racy volume is not a hand-book of "trouting made easy:" it is not a magnet for the finny tribe. It is a graphic, gentlemanlike narrative of a fishing excursion, for whose fidelity in all that relates to local and characteristic details the writer of this notice will be responsible. With every hook and corner referred to by the Saxon icthyographer he was once as familiar as with the chamber in which he read the retrospect of them-to him a "glimpse of auld lang syne." Still, it must not be supposed that the reverend sportsman-the fisher of salmon-has lost sight of art in his boon perception of nature. from it; while now and then-by a slip of the pen, as it were-out pops a proposition full of the philosophy of flood and field. Most of the readers of these pages know what has been said and sung about scent, on fallows, plough, turf, and such-like grounds: have they ever mused upon the myth "in the running brooks"? The author of "The Erne" loquitur:

Far

"What made you all so positive about the day?" said the scholar. "You are always finding out some excellent reason why fish will not rise. Now it's the water, and then it's the air, and another time it's the sun. The other day, Paddy Mooshlan drawled out, "Sure, it's Friday-my honour would not have the poor fish break their fast!'

"Well, I'll not answer for the Friday's fast," said the Captain; "but the fact is that, compared with the moderate days, or even the bad days of our calendar, the number of real good fishing-days is small indeed."

"That is the reason why one gets so disgusted with the fishing-books," said the Squire. "It is easy to catch fish on paper; and they generously give you magnificent days' sport, which, when you come to put them into practice, turn out nothing better than a Barmecide's feast."

"And yet," said the Parson, "they tell you the truth. There are few of us who may not recollect one such day in the season, or, at least, one such day in our lives. The fault lies with ourselves: we read of what was done once, and expect to do it every day."

"It is a deceit no less," said the Captain: "If a book professes to give you directions for everyday practice, and describes what cannot happen to you on more than three days in your life, I say that book deceives, though it tells the truth."

Bits of fact like this are the grains of gold of literary" diggings." Apropos of the connexion between fish and the fair sex, Mr. Newland offers the following hypothesis:

It is a very curious phenomenon in human nature that the invariable effect of dealing in salt-water productions acidulates the temper and sharpens the voice; but so it is in all nations, and so it was in the present instance. These ladies' voices were unquestionably the loudest, the angriest, and the most piercing in the street.... And a no less curious phenomenon it is that the horse-who is, as has been justly observed of him, a very honest animal-should, nevertheless, possess the peculiar property of making rogues of all who have anything to do with him; and thus the slangish looks, cunning eye, and knowing demeanour of the men who are tethering long lines of stubby ponies and rough-coated horses to the strong ropes picketed along the street, would lead one to suppose that in that particular at least, there was no very material difference between Belleek and Tattersall's.

The amateur of the angle-he who takes his pleasure in the pastime of streams rather than in the practical machinery of their craft-will find Mr. Newland a "guide, philosopher, and friend" eminently to his He may consult, with good service to his learning," The Erne its Legends and its Fly-fishing."

taste.

PERCY HAMILTON; OR, THE ADVentures of a WeSTMINSTER BOY. By LORD WM. LENNOX.

This popular work was first published in our pages; and the flattering notices it received from the press have induced the noble author to give it to the public in its present form-three volumes octavo. There can be no doubt that this novel will add considerably to the writer's literary reputation. It is replete with stirring incident, romantic exploits, and truly amusing events. The fictitious characters introduced must have been modelled after life. Mary Wilmot, the heroine, is not one of those high-flown ideal personages that too often figure in works of imagination, but a pure-minded English girl, with sense, feeling, and the warmest of hearts. Frank Alderson, the stage-struck lawyer, who never utters a word except to introduce lines from Shakspere, is admirably delineated; the quotations are most apt, and flow naturally forth while his friend the hoaxer, Billy Sanders by name, is the beau ideal of one of those mischievous practical jokers who infest London, and who generally make Hampton, Epsom, and Ascot races the scene for their ill-timed pleasantry. Lina Bell, the danseuse, and her partner, the strolling pantomimic, are equal to the Fugglestone family immortalized by Hook. Of true characters, Wellington, Byron, E. Cannon, the author of "Sayings and Doings," S. Beazley, Drs. Cary, Page, and Dodd are hit off to the life. The author gives what he has seen, and not what he has heard. The life at Westminster, the frolics at the private tutor's, the scenes in the south of France, Belgium, Paris, and Cambray, are very graphically given, and bear a genuine stamp of reality not to be mistaken. The lover of fun will have a hearty laugh at Gooseberry Fair, the dinner at Salt Hill, the Newbury Theatre, and the stag-hunt; the admirer of stirring events will read with pleasure the sudden march from Coventry on the war of 1815 breaking out, the embarkation for Ostend, the battles of Waterloo and Peronne, the march to the French capital; the moralizer will dwell upon the reflections after the battle of Orthes, the sabbath in the Bois de Boulogne, and the death of Mary Wilmot; the historian will find the narrative of Napoleon's escape and the great Duke's movements told with brevity and precision; the "fast young man" of the present time will revel in the "larks" of the last generation; and every man or youth brought up in Dean's-yard will retrace their school-days, and have the scenes of their college-life brought back vividly to their remembrance. In conclusion, considerable additions have been made to this work since it appeared in our pages; and we recommend "Percy Hamilton" as a most amusing novel to all classes of readers.

THE BOOK OF ENGLISH SONGS. FROM THE SIXTEENTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Illustrated News Office, Strand.

The gentleman who engaged to get himself into a quart-bottle, it is affirmed, never succeeded in so doing. The compiler of this pleasant little volume must have felt something of the same kind of difficulty. "The Book of English Songs" is rather a comprehensive title, and to contain the sing-song of three centuries in three hundred prettilydisposed pages a task requiring some power of concentration. The selection comprises songs of the affections, pastoral and rural songs, convivial songs, moral and satirical, sea songs, patriotic and military,