fellow. Thou shalt have our vote for any office thou desires in the shades.

Those other yeomen named with Robin and little John, must not be lightly passed over. Modern times are shamed by their strength and skill. William of Cloudlesley, with an arrow from his bow, cleft a hazel rod in twain, at the distance of four hundred yards; and with another arrow shot an apple from his boy's head, at the distance of one hundred and twenty-five yards! Is there any gentleman hunter extant who will shoot against this performance? Bring up your rifles, and your boys, good people. William and his associates, we regret to admit, had some vague and indefinite notions on the subject of other people's property; and it does not appear that they were so discriminate as Robin Hood. But then they all repented, and were pardoned by the king, and were confessed by the bishop, and the king made William a gentleman, and gave him eighteen pence a day to bear his bow, and the queen gave him thirteen pence a day, and made his wife her chief gentlewoman; and then these good yeomen went forth and got cleansed with holy water,

"And after came and dwelled the kynge

And died good men all three."

And so finally concludeth the legend ;

"Thus endeth the lives of these good yeomen,
God send them eternal blysse ;

And all that with a hand-bowe shoteth,
That of heven may never mysse. Amen."

Amen! amen! with all our heart.

Three cheers for the

ghosts of Adam Bell & Co. Go it boys! hur-wait for the word;-Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

Much remains to be said of hunting. Many hunters remain

unsung. We have only brief moments to commemorate that exquisite fancy of the sport, fierce and gentle falconry.

We have a notion, that of all delights that ever it was given to man to enjoy, this must have been the most delightful.— Gentlemen of the cockpit, a fight in the air between a pigeon hawk and a blue heron!-Bold was he, and cunning, who first tamed the fiercest birds of prey, and taught them to sit upon his fist, to fly at his command, to pursue, to strike, to return, docile, faithful servants. Gentle, eager, and as humble, and fond of the sport as our own good setters, Horatio.-Think of the king of birds soaring to the third heaven, and then hovering and swooping, and hovering and swooping, until, as it were, he could get good sight, and then, with terrible certainty, dashing down upon the devoted shoulders of an antlered monarch of the scrub oaks, and tearing out his brains, at the command of a master! Imagine yon duck hawk,-falco peregrinus-tamed, and thrown off, unhooded, from your fist, mounting into upper air, and thence, with lightning speed, striking out a wild gander from a flock of straining honkers, and then, conscious, of his deserved reward, sailing back to the bondage of his accustomed jesses! Why, people now-adays do not understand the virtue of birds. We are neophytes in ornithology and ornithodynamics. We hardly know "a hawk from a hand-saw."

For ourselves, it is our delight to read and dream of the goodly companies of noble knights and high-born dames of olden time, riding out with princely attendance to fly their hawks. We seem to hear their prancing steeds, and their gentle

"Jennettes of Spain that ben so white,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright,"

their happy voices, and the dogs beating the bushes by the VOL I.-15

stream-side. We see the bittern flushed; and then, falcon, and marlyon, and gos-hawk, quick unhooded, and upsailing. We hear the tinkling of their silver bells-we see the general rush of the whole happy throng following the pursuit-our breath is quick-up, up soars the bittern in lessening gyration higher and yet higher, to keep, if, alas! he may, keep above his unpitying pursuers, and avoid their fatal beaks. Vain hope that falcon hath o'ertopped him, and now he pounces, and the poor victim feels death in his struck skull, and surrenders his life among the stars!

Not always victorious is the falcon. There are vicissitudes in the war. The hern hath a long, strong, straight, sharppointed bill; and if the hawk be unwary, he will spit his breast upon the dangerous spear thrown up to receive him, and, pierced through and through with a fatal wound, die ingloriously. We know a kindred bird, which baymen call “the s.raight-up" a biped something between the heron and the quaack, that is competent to do good execution after this wise. -We once ourselves, unhappy, received a fearful thrust in our dexter, from a scoundrel whom we had wing-broken on a salt marsh, which disabled us from pulling a trigger for a good fortnight. Somerville describes the performance to the life —to the death ;—

"Now like a wearied stag
That stands at bay, the hern provokes their rage,
Close by his languid wing, in downy plumes
Covers his fatal beak, and, cautious, hides
The well-dissembled fraud. The falcon darts
Like lightning from above, and in her breast
Receives the latent death; down plum she falls
Bounding from earth. and with her trickling gore
Defiles her guady plumage.”

Henry Inman wilt thou not paint this picture? It is a striking illustration of "catching a tartar."

We are determined to become a faulkoner. We will build

us a mew and an aërie, and we will speak to some country friend to catch us a young hen-hawk, and a few butcher-birds, and we will revive the science. We know a pleasant meadow, where the curlew screams, and the straight-up flaps his heavy wings, and the newly-paired seges of blue herons sit solemn by the border of the interwinding rivulet, watching, with hungry patience, what truant eel, or backsliding young crab, leaving the safe channel, shall "coldly furnish forth their marriage breakfast," and dear Mary shall ride with us to the green rushes, and—

Here Mary, leaning over our shoulder, shakes us gently by the ear, and reminds us that we are impecunious, and points to a passage in aristocratic, cross, old Burton, and reads to us unwilling-we confess we hate the truth sometimes-as follows; "Hunting and hawking are honest recreations, and fit for some great men; but not for every base, inferior person."

"That is not we, Mary dear. Docti Sumis; we are a gentlemen bred, and educated, and❞—

"Fiddle-de-dee; what are birth and education in a bank note world? listen! listen! 'who while they maintain their faulkoner, and dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth runs away with their hounds, and their fortunes fly away with their hawks.'"

Reader, farewell! We are melancholy.

COLLINEOMANIA.

NO. II.

"TOXOPH. Of the first finders out of shoting, diuers men diuerslye doo wryte. Claudiane the poete sayth that nature gaue example of shotyng first, by the Porpentine; whiche doth shote his prickes and will hitte any thinge that fightes with it; whereby men learned afterwarde to immitate the same in finding out both bow and shaftes. Plinie referreth it to Schythes the sonne of Jupiter. Better and more noble wryters bringe shoting from a more noble inuentour; as Plato, Calimachus, and Galene, from Apollo. Yet longe afore those days do we reade in the bible of shotinge expreslye. And also if we shall beleve Nicholas de Lyra, Lamech killed Cain with a shafte. So this great continuaunce of shoting doth not a lytle praise shotinge; nor that neither doth not a lytle set it oute, that it is referred to the inuention of Apollo, for the which poynt shoting is highly praised of Galene; where he sayth the mean craftes be first found out by men or beastes, as meaning by a spider, and suche other; but high and comendable sciences by goddes, as shotinge and musicke by Apollo. And thus shotinge for the necessite of it used in Adam's days, for the noblenesse of it referred to Apollo, hath not been onelie comended in all tunges and writers, but also had in greate price, both in the best comune wealthes, in warre time for the defence of their countrie, and of all degrees of men in peace tyme, bothe for the honestie that is ioyned with it, and the profyte that followeth of it." ROGER ASCHAM.

WE have heretofore reviewed the Brigades of ancient hunters, as they tramped before us magnificently upon the parade ground of history; from Captain General Nimrod, and stately riding Queen Diana, down to those savage Loco Focos, Robin Hood and Little John.* Something now is due to the vanatical artillery of later days. The hunter tribe is not extinct. Collineomania rages yet. Human nature is still projectilitarian. The same excellent love of destruction that moved the old world to swing the catipult, and scatter javelins and arrows, urges on this modern age of civilization and philanthropy, to throw rockets, hot water, and cold lead.