beside it, and never froze, made it, in hard weather, a favourite haunt for wild fowl, who, like market gardeners, had been regularly frozen out. Frequently after marking a crowour keeogh into a corner of the copse, my eye fixed upon the very holly he had pitched beside; the spot of vantage gained, twelve or fifteen paces only between me and the doomed victim, and while in fancy picturing the interesting foreigner as a woodcock "past praying for, up would spring a duck and mallard from the brushwood; and the contents of Mr. Purday intended for the northern tourist found a mark for which they had not been designed. A hasty sketch of a day's operations may not be uninteresting to the easy-going English partridge-shooter, who goes to work in broad daylight, without any necessity of trenching on his usual quantum of repose.

Since morning the sky has assumed a leaden hue, the wind chopped round to north-east, and men, without the prescience of the late Mr. Murphy, prognosticate a fall of snow. As day advances, the clouds grow duller; and presently some scattered snow-flakes, as its videts announce the approach of an army, indicate that the storm is at hand. Before evening closes, all doubt is at an end, for down it comes in earnest. My old and constant companion, O'M- (alas! now gone

to the bourne where all cock-shooters must go) comes, and we arrange the intended movements. A messenger is despatched to warn the beaters to be ready. Before supper the snow is a foot deep, and we part to meet punctually at breakfast two hours before daybreak the next morning. To ensure punctuality, sandwiches are prepared, the pocket pistols replenished, and all things necessary for the matutinal meal are paraded on the table, while the housemaid is implored on her faith as a true woman, to have a rousing peat-fire in the dining-room, and her kettle in active ebullition. We are dressed, accoutred, and at breakfast as the jail clock strikes six. In half an hour, the munitions of war, offensive and defensive-by the latter, we mean a cold chicken and flask of genuine cogniac-are reported stowed correctly in the dogcart; the same with lighted lamps is ordered round; great coats and shawls are put in requisition; and at the suggestion of the butler, a personage of great prudence, we take a dram of pure alcohol for the double purpose of drinking "luck," and averting evil consequences from the inhalation of raw air. As morning breaks we gain the scene of action. The horse is introduced to the kitchen of the caravansary, that we annually patronize, for as Mr. MacHale observes, "the fellow, bad luck to him, the thief! who hung the door upon the byre, cut the posts so short, that devil a baste bigger than a cadger's pony can manage to get in. Biddy, astore, bring the bottle from your mother's press. Och troth ye'r honours must have a squib before ye begin the work. Tho' I made it myself, search the parish round and round, and ye'll not in poteeine find its fellow. Jist see the bead it carries ; and it's mild as mother's milk."

Mr. MacHale's overture meets but feeble resistance; the alcohol is bolted. The light is now sufficient, we proceed to the covers, and in ten minutes a woodcock is flushed and falls, and the business of the day

commences.

* Anglice, Darling.

+ The beads are Lubbles on the surface of the whiskey, and indicate its strength.

I subjoin from a diary I then kept-a "Watson's Almanack" into which fly-leaves had been inserted-a correct list underneath, of the day's produce as exhibited on our return upon the hall table, and I believe my lamented friend and I estimated the 27th December as our most successful sporting one. We shot the line of covers until they terminated in Moorland, and then sate down at the well-head, from which the rivulet that ran through their whole extent had its source. The water rushed copiously from a rock, in whose fissures a mountain ash and a dwarf-oak had obtained a settlement; and in a thread that a gun-barrel could have vented, the silvery fluid spirted from the hill-side, falling into a natural basin in the whin-stone, its own action had produced.

"Non vi, sed sepe cadendo."

The basketeer was close at hand; for although myself a native Emeralder, and perfectly assured that its peasantry are, without contradiction, the finest on the surface of the globe, still, from the omission of the usual padlock, I had deemed it prudent to retain Murty Donavan in personal attendance, lest the devil might tempt him, when behind a convenient hillock, to ascertain what the difference in flavour was between white cogniac and mountain dew. The creel was unpacked, the contents paraded on a napkin. I looked at my watch, it was just one. Out came a cold chicken roasted to perfection; and as to the construction of a sandwich, I would back my butler even to the mortgage of a property, from whose possession I am merely barred by three or four family elder-borns, who assert they have precedence. I have never in a cookery-book discovered a recipe for making nectar; but in my poor opinion, a morning's work, a lunch al fresco, cogniac first quality, and no mistake, diluted in a thread of silver water that comes welling from the rock-if the admixture, judiciously apportioned, be not nectar, I wonder what Jupiter and the other members of the mess indulged in on Olympus.

Well, lunch ended, we took the covers in returning; and every woodcock who, from accident or a miss, had escaped us, was certain to be flushed again. We sprang from the rivulet where there were sundry detached couples of ducks and teal, and reached Mr. MacHale's caravansary as the sun sank behind the summit of the mountain range. There we changed our nether habiliments for dry ones; stowed gamebags and matériel in the dog-cart; lighted the lamps, cigars ditto; reached Castlebar without a spill. And of our dinner performance, ante and post the removal of the table cloth, it is unnecessary to say more than it was respectable. A passing remark will prove that we were in peace and harmony with mankind. When Frank brought in the post-bag at nine o'clock, we were vis-à-vis fast asleep; and my friend, without comparison, the more melodious snorer of the twain. He certainly had an advantage over me, for the only arm-chair was in his occupation.

The game return exhibited was, 16 couple of woodcocks, 7 ditto snipes, 3 wild-ducks, 1 teal, 3 grey plovers, 1 hare, 1 owl!-57 head in all.

I think before Somnus and his excellent auxiliary, brandy-hot(memorandum the kettle simmering always on the hob)-overpowered

115,

and we dropped into that sweet oblivion which winter-exercise, early rising, a good dinner, and its subsequent symposium so delectably produce, we estimated our day's artillery expenditure as touching upon. one hundred rounds. Now, under favour of the community be it written, sportsmen remember their hits correctly; but by a singular I never in my infirmity of the memory, the misses vanish altogether.

life shot better. I was the larger contributor to the bag, and I have no doubt I missed a dozen birds I should have killed, and wasted in fancy shots at least a dozen more, in which the snap of a copper cap was an absurdity.

I have said passing that a fortifying glass of pure cogniac, when starting two hours before daybreak to cover, is not only pardonable, but prudent. I have admitted that a nip of mountain dew while your horse is being unharnessed, and the matériel brought from the dog-cart to the kitchen, may be exculpated; but let no private gentleman hope that his vision will be correct, should he, to save the trouble of early rising, avoid that nuisance by sitting up all night.- Voilà l'exemple:

O'M. and I were engaged one fine snowy evening to dine on the 6th of January (the anniversary of the storming of Badajoz) with the glorious 8th. All for Nephin had been arranged, and we swore by everything temperate-no, that could not have been the oath, for temperance in Ireland was then considered unfashionable-but we swore, however, that before midnight chimed, we would sneak from the messroom as if we had adopted a spoon or two. I am happy to say the vow was not registered in heaven, for at five o'clock A.M. we might have been heard uniting our most sweet voices in that pleasant catch, whose burden is "We won't go home 'till morning."

Well, we kept that vow religiously-at six had deviled bones, mulled claret, vice tea and coffee, got our dress habiliments changed for shooting garments, and started for Mr. MacHale's hostelric. I was Phaeton on the occasion; and, in a sound sleep lasting from the Barrack gate to the poteeine house, my worthy friend enjoyed all the advantage which Nature's sweet restorer" is poetically held to administer.

86

We proceeded selon le règle to work, a squib from Mother MacHale's private bottle being thankfully accepted. I never had seen, or never will see, the same exuberant supply of woodcocks as that which on this inauspicious day colonized the covers. They sprang in couples, threes, nay fours; and we fired and missed, and loaded and fired, missed again. Let me end the disgraceful confession. We expended half a stone of shot, and returned-the last charge exhausted-with five couple of woodcocks, and half as many snipes; and, "Oh! sin and sorrow!" as Byron says, we should, as Christian men of the scalopax tribe alone, have brought back, in round numbers, half a hundred. So much for hip-hip-hurraying on the anniversary of a battle, when you should be snug and warm in your virtuous bed.

With an anecdote I shall close the present paper. I once took an ungentlemanly advantage of a couple of woodcocks, and I will confess the extent of my offending. I tenanted for a year or two a small but pretty circumstanced residence in the immediate vicinity of Castlebar, and its young plantations were occasionally tolerably stocked with longbilled visitors. Immediately behind the lodge, a shrubbery extended to the river, whose banks there were marshy, and thickly planted with

willows.

There was a garden-seat close by, and as I was passing from the stable-yard, gun in hand, I met the post-boy with his bag. I had expected some important letters-took them from the messenger, and turned into the shrubbery to peruse them. That task over, I was about to rise and resume my walk, when suddenly I caught sight of a woodcock moving under a large willow within twenty yards, and poking his long bill into the soft surface around the root of the tree. The gun was loaded, and I was about to flush and fire at him, when lo! a companion appeared. The spot under the willow was a spring, and likely a favourite feeding-place, for to it the unhappy birds confined themselves. What was to be done? Of course, try to obtain a double shot. That would have been sporting conduct, and the cocks would have had a fair chance. Alas! what will not temptation lead men to do? The illstarved birds approached each other, and almost crossed their bills. It was too much. The gentleman in black was undoubtedly at my elbow, and the fine maxim of the Emerald Isle, which inculcates that "fair play's a jewel," was forgotten. I drew the trigger, and a couple of unsuspecting woodcocks were sent to their account. Through life, probably, they had been associated-in death they were not separated, and three evenings afterwards, side by side, they made their last appearance on the supper-table, each gracefully reposing on a bed of buttered toast.

THE TIMES, THE CHANGE OF TIMES, AND THE
PRESENT TIMES.

BY HARRY HIEOVER.

This, I must allow, is not only rather, but a very, indefinite term as a heading to any article; for it might, under ordinary circumstances, be supposed to relate to the Times newspaper, the once known" Times" coach, the now well-known times-table of the railroads, or the equally well-known, but, as it should seem, little-to-be-trusted present times or

era.

That it does not in any way relate to that stupendous machine, the Times paper, I hope any or all of those who have flattered me by reading what I have ventured to present to the public, will feel at once convinced of; for I must have taken leave of every particle of common sense I ever possessed, if I selected such a subject for my pen; for if I said that the mode of publication of this leviathan journal is perfection, and that its leading articles are so written as to be a safe beacon by which every man may safely steer his course, from the statesman to the most unimportant member of society, I should be only saying what would be tantamount to informing the reader that we derive light from the sun; and any panegyric of mine on such a journal would be of about as much consequence to it as would be the opinion of an omnibus conductor to Sir Robert Peel, if that opinion was that the exminister was a man of talent; and if, on the other hand, I was weak enough to say a word that could be construed into dispraise, it would

only show that either I wrote on subjects that I had not read, or if I had read, that I had not sense to appreciate the talent that produced them.

What I have said will satisfy the reader that the article on The Times has nothing to do with that great engine that carries public opinion with it, whether as first, second, third-class, or penny-a-mile passenger.

It does not relate to the once-known "Times" coach, with its wellappointed, well-bred team, its gentleman coachman, and knowing guard; for though some years ago, if the cheering key-bugle gave us "A Southerly Wind," "Old Towler," "The Mail Coach," or "Love's Young Dream," as suited the taste or inclination of the performer, we then said "There's the Times' gone by." Ah! well-a-day! if we allude to such things now, we must say "Those are bygone times"a sad difference, both in ideas, reality, and, in sooth, effect.

6

Now, though I am quite aware that to say anything at the present time in favour of coaching would be about as heterodox in the opinion of the rising generation as it would be to utter a word as to the neat, knowing, and jaunty cut of short waists and petticoats to our wives, or more particularly to our daughters; yet, though coachmen, guard, or short petticoats are mere old abominations to many, let me remind the beauties of the present day, that if in eighteen hundred and twenty we had said a word in praise of the long waists of our grandmothers, we should have been set down as Goths and Vandals, though now our wives very composedly wear the identical waists that I have often seen laughed at, and laughed at myself, in the print, where St. Preux makes so much fuss about "le premier baiser d'amour." Faith we take a first and second with less to do, now a days, and, in fact, a third; for "there's luck in odd numbers," said Rory O'More.

Now if in so important a thing as a waist or petticoat such changes have taken place, it comes quite within the bounds of possibility they may also take place in coaching. Some one may thoughtlessly say that a petticoat is a most trivial concern; whereas the mode of transit through a country is a serious one. "Infandum puer!" if you have said so, hide your diminished head. I grant that, so far as the actual interest of a country goes, the mode of getting through it is the most important circumstance; but the length of a petticoat or waist undergoes as much consideration, and is a matter of as much importance to half of the community as railroads or coaches are to the other; so if opinions change as to an important point in one case, so it may in another.

I believe--and if it turns out to be fact, "laudamus fortunas meus' -that a coach or two are preparing to start from certain towns, patronized by the leading members of those towns. Who knows what this may eventually produce? 'So bide you get," as the song goes; and let us add the second line, as applying to coachmen, "you little know what may betide you yet."

may

I used the terms gentleman coachman and knowing guard: neither of these terms could have been applicable to either individual seventy years since, but they are appropriate to both of some ten years since. The coachman, ever since I knew anything of coaching matters, was always held as of a higher grade than the guard, simply from the cir