A Fox-Hunt-from "The Commissioner." 127 male fox, which darted on along the road, and ensconced itself quietly in a large hole under the hedge near the spot where Joey Pike had disappeared. Scarcely had reynard thus entrenched himself, when a number of black and white ill-looking dogs, with hanging ears and open mouths, poured down from above, some tumbling head-over-heels in their eagerness, some treading the precipitous descent as delicately as if they had been taught to dance the tight-rope. The chevalier paused, doubting much whether he was not about to be eaten up alive. But the hounds, smelling something that they liked better, rushed forward full-cry upon the track of their long-backed prey. A more real danger, however, threatened the chevalier the moment after; for scarcely had the hounds chosen their own course when a gentleman in a red coat, mounted on a splendid black horse, appeared suddenly on the top of the bank, made a violent effort to pull in his beast, and came down head-over-heels into the lane below. He was just jumping up when a second appeared above, and, without being warned by his companion's fate, dashed on to the very edge, where the earth giving way, the horse slipped, rolled over, jammed its rider between its body and the earth, and striking full against the stump of an old tree as it descended, broke its back, and lay kicking convulsively upon the ground. Another followed, but with more skill, though not with less rashness, he leaped his horse over a small bush, threw himself back with an easy rein, then gave him a lift of the head as they came down, and hunter and huntsman descended safely on the turf at the bottom of the bank; the only little accident that occurred being that the horse kicked one of the gentlemen who had fallen as he descended, and broke his leg. At the same moment a number of similar scenes were going on in various parts of the lane; and with not much care for the killed or wounded, the red-coated gentry rode on after the hounds, till a loud cry of 'gone to earth, gone to earth,' and 'dig him out, dig him out,' brought their sport for a time to a conclusion. "The chevalier put his hand into his breeches-pocket, and advanced quietly into the midst of the group which had by this time assembled around the hole to which reynard had betaken himself. He bowed courteously to the different gentlemen he passed, and was greeted universally with a benignant smile, which certainly no native of this lower sphere would have received from the sportsmen at that moment. "I beg your pardon,' he said to one of the most prominent of the huntsmen, but I am a stranger, and you will permit me to ask, what is all this about?' "About?' replied the other, why, it is a fox-hunt, man.' "And do you mean to say,' asked the chevalier, that all these men, and these horses, and all these dogs, have been running after the little beast I saw go into that hole?' "To be sure,' answered his companion. It is the most glorious sport in the world.' "And are such accidents as these of frequent occurrence?' demanded the chevalier, "Oh, continually,' replied the other; seldom a day passes without something of the kind. I myself have twice broken my collar-bone, once my arm, once my leg, and have been once trepanned.' "And do you really pretend to say you like it?' said the chevalier. "Why, as to liking it, you know,' replied the other, one gets accustomed to it; it is very exciting, you know, and all that.' "What a nice thing a fox must be,' said the chevalier. I should like to eat a bit very much.' "Eat a bit of a fox!' cried the huntsman, 'the nasty stinking carrion. Why, man, you are mad!' "I beg your pardon,' said the chevalier, with a low bow, 'I think it is you. However, I am much obliged to you for your politeness, and shall be very happy to see you all in my country when you come there, which you will be obliged to do within six months, according to the tenor of these presents;' and taking out a whole handful of billets he distributed them amongst the members of the hunt, much to their surprise. "The chevalier then made his bow and retired, leaving them to unearth the fox at their leisure; and taking his way quietly onward towards the village, determined to wait in peace the consequences of the late duel." London by moonlight: "It was dark when they entered London, and the dearly beloved reader may perhaps suppose, that such was not the moment the chevalier should have chosen for taking his first view of the British capital; but in this point the reader is mistaken; for one of the most characteristic times of London, if I may make use of such an expression, is in the spring time, about an hour after dame night has let the train of her black petticoat fall down upon the floor of the earth. "All the varied objects of that scene rushed upon the keen eyes of the chevalier, one by one, as he looked out from the window of the vehicle in which he was whirled along. The multitude of gas lamps, the blazing shop windows, shawls, stockings, macintoshes, shoes, silver, gold, jewels, plate glass, books, newspapers, medicines, doctors' bottles, toys, prints, furniture, guns, pistols, swords, epaulets, breeches, stays, petticoats, bustles, bonnets, caps, handkerchiefs, gloves, vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, game, all came dashing upon his visual organs with a rapidity that might have blinded any other unaccustomed eyes but those of the Chevalier de Lunatico. It seemed as if he was being pelted with every thing eatable, drinkable, wearable, usable, readable, feelable, hearable, smellable, thinkable, that the world ever produced. But this was not one-half of the affair, for these were all objects fixed and immovable: it was he that was whirled past them-they, in reality, did not make the assault upon him. But, in addition to this, there were all the moving sights of the place; there were hackney coaches carrying ladies of one rank out to tea-parties; there were gentlemen's carriages carrying persons of another class out to dinner-parties. London by Moonlight-Duelling. 129 There were cabriols, and their harnessed lightning, whirling Members of Parliament down to St. Stephen's with the view of governing or misgoverning the nation. There were police-vans, like the carts of a vagabond menagerie, transporting their gaol birds (that were likely soon to be retransported) from the torture-house of the police office to the torture-house of the prison. There were wagons rolling the riches of the world in and out of London; there were carts carrying the goods and chattels of the citizens from one part of the city to the other; there were coster-mongers, dwindling down from the pony, through the ass, to the dog, whirling about their lesser vehicles, and their retail wares. There was the omnibus, the voracious omnibus, the Leviathan of the great city, with a dozen Jonahs in its belly, and likewise the locomotive solitude of the hack cab with the driver perched upon his wandering observatory behind, and then there were all the thousands of asses, and horses, and dogs, drawing their vehicles upon their destined course. But, besides all these, there were the two-legged things that kept the pavement, merchants, tradesmen, shopmen, mechanics, labourers, swindlers, pickpockets, thieves, gentlemen and blackguards with cigars in their mouths. Then there were ladies, shopwomen, marketwomen, tradesmen's wives, personages of a sadly distinct profession, and young ladies carrying bandboxes, as if they were taking home bonnets; and there were multitudes of little children engaged in every sort of laudable occupation, staring, chattering, hooting, crying, screaming, wondering; learning how to become thieves, engaged in picking pockets, or occupied in being run over. It was a wonderful sight, and all by lamplight; but the reader may wish to know, before we convey the chevalier to the inn, at which he was destined to stop, what impression all this made upon him. What he thought of it in short. The answer may be very soon given. Why, he thought it very like the capital of the moon, indeed; and, had he not inadvertently packed up all his billets in his portmanteau, he would certainly have showered forth whole handfulls out of the window, summoning the mixed multitude to appear at St. Luke's. He did in truth put his hands in his pockets, as Worrel asked him, if it did not seem like bedlam broke loose. But, finding no tickets there, he merely replied, 'Very,' and in a few minutes after, the coach made a rush at the Golden Cross, Charing-cross, which may well be considered as the centre of every thing, except gravity, and, at which, consequently, the worthy commissioner from the moon determined to put up." Duelling: "For a couple of miles they were very silent, but at length the chevalier, always having the end of his perquisitions in view, thought fit to address a few questions to his companion; inquiring, in the first place, in a quiet, easy tone, whether he went upon this affair with the most comfortable feelings in the world. "Not exactly,' answered Harry Worrel, with that peculiar sort of candour which the chevalier engendered in all with whom he was VOL. VII. NO. XIII. I brought in contact. 'In the first place, my dear chevalier, I look upon duelling as criminal, as foolish, and as blackguard. I wouldn't tell any body but you for the world that such are my opinions, and I shall certainly take care on all occasions to make every body believe that I go to fight my man as quietly as I sit down to eat my dinner; and that I look upon the practice as absolutely necessary to society, for the purpose of giving every man, who is injured or insulted, a sort of ultima ratio to which there is no reply. In the next place, I don't like the idea of being killed at all; and, do what I will to prevent it, the thought of a nasty hard bullet coming and sticking into me like a piece of hot iron, will present itself to my imagination. Nevertheless, as I have tolerably good nerves, not very easily shaken, that will never prevent me from going out with an unpleasant friend. The thing that is most disagreeable to me, is, I confess, the thought of killing a fellow creature in cold blood. I know and feel, and am perfectly aware, that I am just as much committing a murder as if I cut a man's throat in his bed, and ought to be hanged for it too; only, thank God, we have plenty of jurymen in England, who are quite ready to perjure themselves, whenever a gentleman thinks fit to shoot another through the head, and to find him not guilty; though, if a poor man had done it, driven by starvation, they would hang him as high as Haman. Thus I am sure of immunity in this world; and, as to the next, Macbeth says: If the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time- Besides, this sort of murder, unlike all others, is punished by the world, if we do not commit it, and not if we do. So now, my dear chevalier, having told you all I think upon this subject, let us change the topic; for on my life it isn't a pleasant one, and I would rather think of something else."" Our specimens are, we fear, too grave to give a fair representation of the book; but the truth is, that when the author is in a jocose vein, the fun is so exuberant as to defy all endeavours to select a manageable extract. For fun alone, quality and quantity, he stands, to our thinking, above all his compeers. Analysis of the story is in the same way impracticable, from the variety and complication of incidents. But the plot is good, and well worked out; Harry Worrel one of the best of heroes, and Laura the prettiest and most spirited of heroines; while, not to mention minor characters, Lord Outrun, Jerry Tripe, Mr. Longshanks, and Joey Pike, are each a very gem of clever sketching. Joey is confessedly an extravaganza; we recommend him strongly for Fitzurse murdered by a Maniac. 131 a piazza, as he would call it, in the good graces of our readers. But it is to Lord Outrun himself that we wish more particularly to advert. Had the story stopped short of its finale, the character of the jolly Viscount would have been worthy of all admiration for the cleverness of the performance, but certainly liable to the charge of making sin far too attractive, The laughter-loving bon vivant, with abundance of natural ability, and no moral principles of any kind, creates a sort of kindly interest, in spite of all the coarseness of his mirth; and, whether addressing the magistrates in the water-tank, "like St. Anthony preaching to the fishes," or announcing his intended reformation to his friends, magistrates, constables, boys and girls," he makes us feel that goodhumoured vice, with a dash of cleverness, may after all be a very pleasant thing. Here most of our popular authors would have stopped. The terrible tragedy which closes The Commissioner teaches a far sounder moral. From the midst of the broadest farce, we are hurried in a moment to see Lord Outrun's only son overtaken by retribution for an old unrepented sin. He is killed on his wedding-day, at his father's table, by the maniac father of a girl whom he had formerly seduced. Here is the picture "Mr. Fitzurse ran back into the dining-room; but the madman, brandishing an iron bar of one of the doors which he held in his hand, darted after him, the company rising and scattering before him in dismay. It was at the bridegroom alone, however, that the maniac aimed. His eyes were fixed upon him, with wild unnatural fire flashing from them, and he had chased the deceiver of his child half round the table, when, at the very same moment poor Jane cast herself before him and clasped his knees, Mr. Fitzurse stumbled over the misplaced chair of Darius, and the arm of the madman descended, striking the head of the unfortunate fugitive with the iron bar that loaded it. There was a crash like that of a broken fence, the blood gushed from his mouth, ears, and nostrils, and down he fell prone upon his face, with his limbs quivering, and his feet beating the ground." "I have killed him-I have killed him!' cried the madman, with a loud laugh of exultation. That's done, and I'm satisfied. I should like to have some of his blood-let me have some of his blood!'"' “This is a sad and terrible thing,' said Tom Hamilton. "It is indeed,' said Mr. Longshanks. 'Let it be as the voice of heaven to all that see it, warning them to repent while time is yet allowed them.' "Be comforted,' said Harry Worrel, coming to the side of his uncle, and taking his hand with more tenderness than any thing but such misfortunes could have induced him to show towards one who had so cruelly treated his mother. 'Be comforted.' |