a most select and numerous field, by the late Master of the Hambledon Hounds, on this, his last concluding day.

A more appropriate locality could not have possibly been selected than Broadhalfpenny Down: the spot fixed on for the "rendezvous" of the large field, assembled on the 3rd of April, 1852, to witness the performances of Tom Smith's closing reign; in a most wild and picturesque looking valley, embosomed amidst the green turfy slopes of the Downs, partially clad with venerable woods, brown heather, or glistening under the influence of the golden and perfumed furze-

"Delightful scene!

Where all around was gay-men, horses, dogs;

And in each smiling countenance appeared
Fresh blooming health and universal joy."

Time is up! The "Master" arrives, and mounts a powerful sporting looking chesnut mare. Now

"Huntsman lead on! Behind, the clustering pack,

Submiss attend, hear with respect thy whip

Loud-clanging, and thy harsher voice obey."

Whatever may have been Somervile's, such, however, is not Tom Smith's style of leading his hounds to the covert side. All was dore most quietly, and as a matter of course, till his fine manly and deep-toned voice was heard arousing the echoes of Highden Wood. He appeared to me to draw hastily through this extensive covert, from whence in times gone by I had seen many a good fox unkennelled, and had enjoyed many an exhilarating run. Highden proved blank; with the same unaccountable and apparently careless haste, did we next try Tiglace Gorse and Wood.

I could not help remarking on this apparent remissness, to an old habitué of the hunt-a remissness so completely at variance with what I remembered of Tom Smith's usual persevering, and unremitting endeavours to find his fox.

"Have a little patience," said the gentleman whom I addressed; "I'll be bound for it, he has some object in view, and knows right well what he is about. I should'nt wonder if he has an eye to Stoke Down, and to the fox there, which beat him a short time ago.'

My friend's prognostications proved correct; and to Stoke Down Gorse we now trotted rapidly away. Here I recognized at once Tom Smith of former days. Amidst an apparently boundless extent of stiff unyielding furze, immediately dashed in the Huntsman and his Whips. All their efforts were, however, long of no avail: there was, apparently, not even the slightest appearance of a drag-nothing, under the withering influence to scent, of a hot sun and dry easterly wind, to encourage the gallant pack in breasting the formidable thorny chevaux de frize impeding their onward progress through the stunted and prickly gorse.

Nearly an hour had elapsed; not a challenge had been given, not a tongue was thrown; all-save when some complaining hound got entangled amidst the labyrinth of furze-all continued within the dense thorny covert, silent as the grave. The forenoon was passing rapidly away, the heat of the sun was becoming momentarily more great, thereby, of course, decreasing our chances of a run, even should we be

successful in a find; and although the hounds were mute, a few croakers began already to give tongue, and the face-or rather faces-of the field, became overclouded with disappointment and hope deferred.”

Not so our gallant and persevering chief, spite of continued failureswhatever might have been his reasons he seemed convinced that Stoke Down Gorse contained a fox : a gallant one, and one destined to give him a last splendid run.

The unfortunate "Whips" whose legs had been matyrized by wading so long through this ocean of unyielding thorns, had just remounted their nags after pulling off their boots, in order to clear them of the prickly furze with which they were filled; the hounds, with drooping, blood-tipped sterns, sneaked out, all looking most unhappy and abashed. I concluded we had-after, as I thought, every possible effort-again drawn blank, and that we were now about elsewhere to try our luck.

Such, however, was not the case. Trotting back along the edge of the "fretful" and much "fretted" gorse, Tom Smith still persevered, and, like a skilful general looking out for some weak point in the enemy's stronghold, appeared determined to make one effort more to dislodge him from his place of strength. I happened to be close behind him at the moment when I observed him to check his horse, as "Destiny," a favourite bitch, suddenly threw up her nose and appeared to sniff the "tainted" breeze-but tainted only, as a less experienced observer might have imagined, with the powerful aroma of the flowery gorsefor not even a whimper responded to that whiff

"Or in triumphant melody confest
The titillating joy."

Far otherwise, however, thought the veteran chief, who intently watched and followed his "Destiny's" unerring steps. The hound evidently feathered on the drag, and was eagerly cheered on into the furzy brake by Smith, who rode into the very midst of it himself. Then next occurred an anxious moment of suspense.

66

Destiny" now threw her tongue; Barrister" and "Barmaid" instantly responded to the joyful sound. The fox had evidently been moved: Tom Smith eagerly exclaimed, "By Jove! here must be a fox, for I see the furze quivering not two yards from my horse's feet."

"I'll bet a thousand pounds we've found him," added he, as he cheered in, the now assembled pack.

A find indeed it was, and a more beautiful one a sportsman could never wish to see. We were near one extremity of the gorse, around which, in every direction, was scattered the numerous field I have described. What, if after all this trial of patience, crowned finally with success, our fox should unfortunately be chopped, and our anticipated sport nipped in the very bud? With less skilful management, such a contingency might probably have occurred; but Tom Smith having shown how by sheer perseverance he could find his fox, now showed how having found him-he would ensure us a gallant run.

Not a moment was to be lost; the obedient pack he kept so well in hand, that they followed at his horse's heels, as the latter bored through, or sprung over the opposing furze, on which the rider now perseveringly plied his heavy whip. I shortly observed immediately in his front, a tremulous movement amidst the summits of the blossoming gorsean universal opening cry next proclaimed sly reynard to be a-foot.

Tom Smith had fairly whipped him up, unkennelled him from his snug warm berth; he broke gallantly through his surrounding foes, full in view away, with every hound well laid on, and a hundred and fifty horsemen thundering in his rear. Straight down wind he went; then led us at racing speed for upwards of a mile, along the magnificent, smooth, and turfy slope of Stoke's undulating Down.

The pace was too good to last; so probably thought friend pug, who, even during this short, but rapid spurt, drew after him a "tail" fully as long as that of Dan, the great Hibernian fox of old. Turning, therefore, sharply to his left, he next-cutting the turf-tried the fallows and high lands. Here, under a blazing sun, with a dry easterly wind sweeping over a hard, parched-up soil, he probably flattered himself that he could give us all the slip. He had, however, reckoned without his host; for Tom Smith was of another mind. The scent it is true was often lost, but as often hit off again by most masterly forward casts.

In vain did sly Reynard try every artful dodge; the turf he liked not, the fallows would not do; the hounds stuck to him in covert, through Wallop, Stoke, and Brookes' Woods; he tried to ring it back to Stoke Down Gorse; and next-apparently as a last resource-seemed to make for Waltham Chace, taking in his way Soberton race-course down.

His previous circuitous flight, together with a check or two which had recently occurred, enabled the greater part of the field to come up, as the hounds hit him well off again, on the northern side of the racecourse, when a scene took place such as is seldom recorded in the annals of the chase.

From the Droxford and Hambledon road, the race-course-a beautiful piece of turf-slopes down for about a mile into the hollow, where lies embedded the rural little village of Soberton; over this smooth velvetty slope, the hounds now rattled along at their topmost speed, closely followed by the whole field en masse, and having more the appearance of a furious charge of cavalry than aught else I can describe. Thus they thundered along in the "race of death" which was shortly to ensue; for our fox-which proved not to be a vixen, as some of the "knowing ones" had predicted-after a chase of fifty minutes, at a clipping pace, was ran into and killed in an open field, close to the southern extremity of Soberton race-course, where this splendid "charge" had taken place. Never, perhaps, was there a more brilliant finale to the reign of any Master of hounds.

The steady perseverance manifested in drawing for his fox-the thorough scientific knowledge of his craft, and of the habits of that animal, so clearly evinced by the nature of the " find"-the selfpossession and coolness he had so opportunely shown in preventing him from being chopped, when first on foot-his numerous and judicious casts, when there appeared not to be a particle of scent-the successful manner in which he had contended throughout the day, with what to some, would have proved the most baffling difficulties, and managed to keep his pack on the very best of terms with their quarry-all tend to show that the Author of the "Diary of a Huntsman" and of the "Life of a Fox,"* could in an exquisite degree, combine practice with theory

* Popular sporting works written by Thomas Smith, Esq., late Master of the Pytchley and Hambledon Hounds.

in that most difficult science of the chase; a pursuit followed by so many, but in which are found so few proficients, such as the late Master of the Hambledon Hounds has ever proved himself to be; and on this occasion, all agreed that he had fairly surpassed himself.

A hundred voices were loud in their congratulations-a hundred hands pressed forward to grasp that of their veteran leader of the chase—a hundred applications were-in most cases-vainly made, for some relic of the fox, to preserve as a memento of so memorable a day.

In the midst of all his triumph, the "chief" forgot not the dictates of that gallantry for which he had ever been so famed; he had promised the "last brush" to one of the two young ladies who were present at the end of the run. But the fair" Huntress of South Hants"-fair in every sense of the word, and one of the most graceful, accomplished, and dashing horsewomen I ever beheld-protesting that she had not fairly won it, most courteously, and amidst murmurs of applause, handed the much envied trophy, to her sister Amazon of the chase, whom she averred had been in, before her, at the death.

Thus smiled on by beauty, and amidst the unanimous plaudits of this numerous and brilliant field, was sounded the "whoop" of "Thomas Smith, Esq., late Master of the Hambledon Hounds."

HOW THEY "SQUARED" HIM.

ENGRAVED BY J SCOTT, FROM A PAINTING BY E. CORBET. WITH ANOTHER LEAF FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

BY A. SOFTUN, ESQ.

"Well, but that's very odd, Alfred. You say he could have won he race; and yet he didn't!"

"He was nobbled,' my dear."

"He was what?"

"Oh !—well, I mean 'roped.'

"And what do you mean, then, pray?"

"Well, d-n it!-I beg your pardon-why, they made him 'safe,' of course."

"There, now-you say he was safe; and yet why didn't he win?" "Good gracious, Mrs. Softun, what an ignorant girl you must be! Don't you see they squared him-SQUARED him not to win; and so, how the deuce could he?"

I didn't go into the Church, after all; for Bessie didn't care much about it: and what with the Doctor's savings and Mamma's leavings,

*It is with feelings of sincere gratification, we are enabled to announce that a handsome testimonial is shortly to be presented to this distinguished Sportsman, in token of esteem and respect, by his many friends and habitués of the Hambledon Hunt,