frequently exposed in the public prints. By such evidence-unfortunately, no idle slander-who do we find made the turf a bye-word for infamy of the lowest description? Whose jockey threw himself off, to avoid winning a race that his master had backed himself to lose? (Who on earth does Captain Jesse allude to here?-Leatherlungs aside). Who clean lads out, and then excuse themselves on the plea that when young they were treated in a similar manner? Who marks the cards? Who becomes the stake-holder of a woman's seduction? Who is the prosecutor of his own strumpet, and by that means becomes the herald of his own gross tastes? And who are the fashionable bill-brokers, the jackals of eldest sons and the willing instruments of their vices? Who? Unworthy members of the second estate fashionable commoners, their dependents and toaders, and men who, having been enabled by money or interest to enter the profession of arms, have subsequently thought fit to engraft upon it the dirty occupations of usurers.' Now, that's what I call plain writing, whether it be true or false. But it's true-point blank fact-in all its worst features, without as much of the leaven of professional legism' as would go to the materiel of a favourite at Hampton

races.'

"Are you not talking of something you know nothing about, my honourable friend on the left?" I asked with a perfectly inoffensive approach to the inquisitive. "Do you quote the biographer of the Beau as an authority? Do you read works of a similar class and think them gospel? Do you believe in Cecil (Mrs. Gore), and Puckler Moskau, and Amedée Pichot, and ladies and gentlemen of their school? Is Lister an artist who draws from nature? is Bulwer, D'Israeli, or even Dickens, save from such foul and filthy scenes as are begotten of sin and vice, and which taste turns from in disgust, while pity shudders and deplores? Taste, in all cases, shuns too strong relief: it is urged by those of a bad school, that the modern style of dress is defective in comparison with that of pantaloons and leather breeches, into which the victims were compelled by machinery. Somebody says trowsers have ruined our legs, and Mackintosh has done nearly the same for our bodies. All this is a flavour of the ancient barbarity. When Praxiteles cut out his gentlemen, and sent them into the world sans culottes, it was because there did not exist the idea how their extremities should be clothed. If he were at his chisel in London, in our days, he would encase his Apollos in trousers, after the cut of our friend Cooke, of Poland-street."

"It's not for me," observed the artist of the corner, " to offer any opposition to your remarks; but I may as well let you save them for another opportunity and listener, to whom they may be of service. They are likely to do about as much in my case, as whistling a jig to a mile-stone. My present business, I apprehend, is to blow this cloud, engulph this liquid, and expound the routine of a sporting gentleman's occupation in Paris, in the middle of the nineteenth century. You observe, that the natural secretions of rouge-et-noir, roulette, and such ducts of excitability, have been closed against the

French constitution of recent years, by the French constitution of the present dynasty. You take a Frenchman's life, when you take the means whereby he plays. He must gamble-for livres in the Palais Royal, or for lives in the low counties: each the especial mise en scene, as Mademoiselle Pas de Zephyr says, of his contests social and military. The rage for play, at the present moment, is at delirium tremens height. The effect of abolishing the maisons de jeu upon the thirst for speculation, is similar to that which cutting off the possibility of moisture would have upon the drought of the palate. The folks are crazy for it. It's my conviction, if the thimble men, that Sir James Graham has brought to poverty and ruin, were to come over here, in a gentlemanly condition, with nice little rosewood tables, clean shirts, and discretion enough to hold their tongues, they might make their fortunes between Christmas and Midsummer. I have a strong notion of getting up a company to carry out the plan. In the meantime, it's finding money to operate in horse schemes here just now. The Société de Jockeys (that's what they call themselves, I think), are as mad as Bedlam about the turf, and racing, and Tattersall's, and the like. Only talk to a member about the odds, and he'll thank you to put him into your book at any price. Don't imagine I'm romancing. Just let me prime and load with this Turkish again, and I'll tell you how to circumvent the chivalry of France upon a scale that would astonish the Governor of Moscow !"

BRUSH.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY A. COOPER, R. A.

The whole economy and proper arrangement of a household depends, as any gentleman's gentleman will tell you, on every member of it confining himself and his labours carefully and scrupulously to his own department. This one expresses himself ready to take your name, and that one your hat: here six feet of accomplished assurance condescends to carry a card; and there a fellow-labourer, rather lower in inches and wages, favours us with a coal-scuttle. So fair a division of toil, and so good and general an understanding of every man doing his duty, are not, we are happy to say, confined to the house, as a walk to the dog kennel or a stroll through the preserves will at once assure us. No sooner have you shouldered arms than pointers, setters, or spaniels intimate their readiness to attend you, just as the nature of the ground or the season of the year may call on either of them for assistance; while, at the last moment, old

Brush introduces that very expressive phiz of his, with a look that says as plain as possible-"And here I am too, it will never do for you to start without me; my friends will find the game before you shoot it, and I'll undertake to do as much after your verdict has proclaimed dead! dead! dead! winged or wounded."

Dogs of a mixed breed, generally speaking, are not apt to arrive at any great excellence in field practice; of this, however, the retriever is a grand exceptiona species of sporting dog nearly always the result of a cross, and when only properly tutored, evincing qualifications for the shooter's service of the very highest order. Of all the many varieties and fancy mixtures tried, experience has long proved that the best retrievers are produced from exactly that description of animal from which Mr. Cooper has produced so natural and charming a portrait-the Newfoundland dog on one side, and the common setter on the other; thus uniting in a very great degree all the wonderful and useful sagacity of the former, with the dashing determination and true mettle of the latter. With these ingredients to work upon, a man, providing he have only half as good a head as the one he professes to instruct, or as fair a supply of kind words as hard blows, may achieve miracles in the way of canine instinct or intellect that will afford a never-failing source of gratification and agreeable surprise. We have alluded to the happy results of keeping every faithful servant, whether biped or quadruped, to his own trade; but in the face of all this, we know many instances in which the gentle and ready nature of some of Brush's brethren has been so far used (we can't say abused) as to make them appear, and with very great advantage, in the character of the Scrubs of animal life-figuring as setters one day, pointers the next, and as water spaniels a third; very frequently indeed "doubling the parts two or three times in the same day's sport, and working away steady at points, or strong in chase, fetching and carrying, creeping through covers, or rushing at rivers, with the acuteness of a prime minister, the alacrity of a light horseman, and a delicacy of touch worthy of any lady-fair who can boast of a soft hand and a heart to match.

We have been expecting a little assistance from the artist-a tried and good man in handling either pen, pencil, or trigger-as to the chosen representative of this race in the present number; not having heard from him, however, we conclude that there has been nothing very extraordinary in the life and exploits of Brush, beyond those usual characteristics of his kind we have already spoken of. He is, we should say, the property of that thorough sportsman and excellent country gentleman, Sir James Flower, Bart., of Eccles Hall, Norfolk; gentleman whom to know is to esteem, and who enjoys a popularity wherever he goes-in no case, we are confident, more deservedly acquired. May Brush, with that sound sense we give him credit for, ever evince his gratitude to the master, house, and home which it has been his good fortune to find.