breadth, with pendulous lips, and deeply-set eyes; the ears were large and long, and hung very low; the nose was broad, and the nostrils large and moist. The voice was deep, full, and sonorous. The general colour was black, passing into tan, or sandy-red, about the muzzle and along the inside of the limbs.

THE FOXHOUND.

No other country can produce such a breed, in figure, speed, strength, and perseverance. This dog stands about twenty-one or twenty-two inches in height; the limbs are straight and clean; the feet

round, and of moderate size; the breast is wide, and the chest deep; the shoulders thrown back; the head is small; the neck thin; the back broad; the tail rather bushy, and well carried.

The fleetness of some of these dogs is extraordinary. Merkin, a celebrated foxhound, belonging to Colonel Thornton, ran four miles in seven minutes. Formerly, the foxhound was bred rather for

endurance than great speed, and then the chase would last for several hours. On one occasion, the Duke of Richmond's hounds found the fox at a quarter before eight in the morning, and killed him at ten minutes before six, after a chase of ten hours' hard running. Many of the sportsmen tired three horses each; eleven couple and a half of the hounds only were in at the death, and several horses died during the chase.

THE STAGHOUND.

A FAR-FAMED picture, from the easel of Sir Edwin Landseer, is called "Low Life." It is one of a bulldog, the pet of some butcher; and the bulky frame, rude face, eye injured in some fierce combat, and lolling tongue, are all in perfect keeping with the circumstances of such a huge brute. We give this in an engraving, with another of "High Life," by the same artist, representing in contrast, which cannot be surpassed, a thorough-bred staghound, in a chamber scene, from days of chivalry. The noble animal is the property of his Royal Highness Prince Albert.

Her Majesty has a very fine pack of hounds, most of them being fully 26 inches in height; they have broad short heads, and straight hind legs, and tails more "feathered" than is often seen in the ordinary foxhound. Long, indeed, was stag-hunting a royal pastime.

When the feast was over, in Branksome Tower, as the minstrel sings

"The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all;

Knight, and page, and household £quire,
Loitered through the lofty hall,

Or crowded round the ample fire;

The staghounds, weary with the chase,
Lay stretched upon the rushy floor,
And urged, in dreams, the forest race,
From Teviot-stone to Eskdale moor."

This breed was the result of a cross between the fleet foxhound and the large old English, or southern breed-now almost extinct. The Royal, the Derby, the Englefield, the New Forest, and the Darlington packs of staghounds were formerly celebrated.

The staghound is generally considered the same, but only a larger variety of the foxhound; but though originally descended alike, they are not now bred from the same strains indiscriminately. As with

the old deerhound and greyhound, so with these dogs, though in organization and appearance identical, yet, from being entered and kept for many generations to different game, they are to be readily distinguished by their style of hunting. "Nevertheless," says Stonehenge, "no one could say where the line which divides them passes, and it would be impossible even for Mr. Davis to distinguish a large spiry foxhound from one of the smaller and lightest of her Majesty's beautiful pack. The staghound, therefore, may be considered as a large foxhound, or the foxhound as a small staghound; the one devoted to the hunting of deer, the other to that of the fox."

The original stock of these two varieties is considered to be the southern hound, bloodhound, or Talbot. Changes in the face of a country lead to others, and among them the condition of its dogs. England, like other countries of Europe, was largely covered with forests. Those of Thickwood and Stokenchurch, in Oxfordshire; Windsor Forest, in Berkshire; and the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, are still extensively wooded, and may recall a state which was, in former times, far more extended, and when slower horses and dogs were sufficient for all the purposes of the chase. The increase of population tending to the destruction of forests, by causing a demand for the productions of arable land, has wrought so great a change, that we have now hardly any forests of considerable extent, though, perhaps, there are few countries over which timber is more equally distributed.

As the country was cleared more speed was required, and when the horse could be used, in order to keep pace with it, a faster hound was sought for, and the old-fashioned, deep-toned, and careful hound was bred, of which our fathers read in "Beckford on Hunting," and in "The Chase," by Somerville, who was said by Dr. Johnson to have written "very good verse--for a gentleman." That poem has, undoubtedly, enjoyed a long career of favouritism with those who have combined a taste for such reading with an attachment to the sports of the field. It is written in tolerably harmonious blank verse; and, as Somerville was practically master of his subject, his descriptions are always accurate, and frequently vivid, while he has varied them by comparing the rural sports of other countries with those of his own.

During the reign of George III., who was devoted to the chase of the stag, several of the most tremendous runs on record took place; at some of which the king-a daring horseman-was present. On one occasion, the deer was liberated at the starting-post of Ascot Heath, and, after making Bagshot Park, proceeded, without head or double, over the open country, through Finchamstead Woods, Barkham, Arborfield, Swallowfield, Mortimer, across the river Kennett, and over the intervening country to Tilehurst, below Reading, where the deer was taken unhurt, after a desperate run of four hours and twenty minutes-horsemen being thrown out in every part of the country through which they passed. One horse dropped dead on the field; another immediately after the chase, before he could reach the stable; and seven more within the week. Of such severity was this run, that tired horses, in great danger, and others completely leg-weary, or broken down, were unavoidably left at various inns in different parts of the country.

Cowper wrote, in the view of such facts :

"Does law, so jealous in the cause of man,
Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None!
He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boasts
(As if barbarity were high desert)

Th' inglorious feat, and, clamorous in praise
Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose
The honours of his matchless horse his own.
But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth
Is registered in Heaven; and these, no doubt,
Have each their record, with a curse annexed.

"Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,

But God will never. When he charg'd the Jew
Tassist his foe's down-fallen beast to rise;

The dogs of former days, as of the times of George still slow when compared with the modern foxhound.

And when the bush-exploring boy, that seized
The young, to let the parent bird go free;
Prov'd He not plainly, that his meaner works
Are yet his care, and have an int'rest all-
All, in the universal Father's love?
On Noah, and in him on all mankind,
The charter was conferr'd, by which we hold
The flesh of animals in fee, and claim
O'er all we feed a power of life and death;
But read the instrument, and mark it well:
Th' oppression of a tyrannous control

Can find no warrant there. Feed, then, and yield
Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin,
Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute!"
III., were faster than the southern hound, but
Then the fox was tracked to his woodland

retreat early in the day, and consequently being full of food, which he had not had time to digest, his pace was proportionably slow to that he adopts now, when the chase occurs several hours after his morning repast. The improved state of the bound arises from crossing the breed with the greyhound

VOL. II.

HIGH LIFE. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. (BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. GRAVES.)

As a proof that neither the Greeks nor the Romans had any idea of such packs of hounds as we have at present, we have only to consider Ovid's description of the death of Acteon, and we shall be convinced that his hounds were a mixture of dogs, with very different qualities and characters in scent, sight, velocity,

53