The Shooter went to beat, and found

No sporting worth a pin,

Unless he tried the covers made
Of silver, plate, or tin.

In Kent the game was little worth,
In Surrey not a button;
The Speaker said he often tried
The Manors about Sutton.*

No county from his tricks was safe;
In each he tried his lucks,
And when the keepers were in Beds,
He often was at Bucks.

And when he went to Bucks, alas!
They always came to Herts;

And even Oxon used to wish
That he had his deserts.

But going to his usual Hants,
Old Cheshire laid his plots:
He got entrapped by legal Berks,
And lost his life in Notts.

* [Charles Manners Sutton was for many years Speaker of the House of Commons.]

I CANNOT BEAR A GUN.

"Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, and this absurd notion gives rise to more false starts, than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at wasps, sauve qui peut at sight of a gun. Surely, when the military exercise is made a branch of education at so many ladies' academies, the use of the musket would only be a judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a month's practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small arms." HINTS BY A CORPORAL.

It can't be minced, I'm quite convinced,
All girls are full of flam,

Their feelings fine and feminine

Are nothing else but sham.

On all their tricks I need not fix,

I'll only mention one,

How many a Miss will tell you this,

"I cannot bear a gun!"

There's cousin Bell can't 'bide the smell

Of powder-horrid stuff!

A single pop will make her drop,

She shudders at a puff.

fear

My Manton near, with aspen

Will make her scream and run:

"It's always so, you brute, you know I cannot bear a gun!"

About my flask I must not ask,
I must not wear a belt,

I must not take a punch to make
My pellets, card or felt;
And if I just allude to dust,
Or speak of number one,

"I beg you'll not - don't talk of shot, I cannot bear a gun !"

Percussion cap I dare not snap,

I

may not mention Hall,

Or raise my voice for Mr. Joyce,

His wadding to recall;

At Hawker's book I must not look,
All shooting I must shun,

Or else—"It's hard, you 've no regard,
I cannot bear a gun!"

The very dress I wear, no less

Must suit her timid mind,

A blue or black must clothe my back,
With swallow-tails behind;

By fustian, jean, or velveteen,

Her nerves are overdone:

"O do not, John, put gaiters on,

I cannot bear a gun!"

Ev'n little James she snubs, and blames
His Lilliputian train,

Two inches each from mouth to breech,
And charged with half a grain-

His crackers stopped, his squibbing dropped,
He has no fiery fun,

And all thro' her "How dare you, Sir?

I cannot bear a gun!"

Yet Major Flint,— the Devil's in 't!
May talk from morn to night,

Of springing mines, and twelves and nines,
And volleys left and right,

Of voltigeurs and tirailleurs,

And bullets by the ton:

She never dies of fright, or cries "I cannot bear a gun!"

It stirs my bile to see her smile
At all his bang and whiz,
But if I talk of morning walk,
And shots as good as his,

I must not name the fallen game:
As soon as I've begun,

She's in her pout, and crying out,
"I cannot bear a gun!"

Yet, underneath the rose, her teeth
Are false, to match her tongue :

Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares,
Or pheasants, old or young

On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal,
And yet objects to none:

"What have I got, it's full of shot!

I cannot bear a gun

י !

At pigeon-pie she is not shy,

Her taste it never shocks,

Though they should be from Battersea,

So famous for blue rocks;
Yet when I bring the very thing

My marksmanship has won,

She cries "Lock up that horrid cup,
I cannot bear a gun!"

Like fool and dunce I got her once
A box at Drury Lane,
And by her side I felt a pride

I ne'er shall feel again:

To read the bill it made her ill,

And this excuse she spun,

"Der Freyschütz, O, seven shots! you know, I cannot bear a gun!

Yet at a hint from Major Flint,
Her very hands she rubs,

And quickly drest in all her best,

Is off to Wormwood Scrubbs.
The whole review she sits it through,

With noise enough to stun,

And never winks, or even thinks,

"I cannot bear a gun!"