One day, while the men were at dinner, not wishing to be subject to their gibes, I took my basket of provisions into a short, narrow passage, long unused and considered dangerous, till at last I arrived at a large cavern, which I was attentively exploring, when I heard a loud explosion, and found my retreat cut off. "Now is the cup of misery full!" I cried: "here, alone, deep in the bowels of the earth, must I end my weary pilgrimage." Yet still full of hope, I turned round, and with much solemnity exclaimed-"I am indeed monarch of all I survey;' no one will encroach upon my prerogative; no anticorn-law unions to disturb my repose, no annoyances about civil lists, no petitions against taxes, no church reform, no society for diffusing useful knowledge, nor any other humbug."

Consoling myself thus upon my exclusiveness, sleep stole over my eyelids. How long this lasted is to me unknown; but a rat, crawling over my face, aroused me. After considering what could be done, I resolved to scrutinize the cavern more closely upon minute examination, there appeared to be a small passage, in an oblique direction, sufficiently large to admit a man on his hands and knees. To resolve to explore this was the work of a moment; exploring it took a considerable time, but it brought me out in the open air, in the middle of a field. After expending some little while in congratulations on my delivery from captivity and slavery, fear came over me lest the accursed captain or any of his crew should see and reconduct me back; feeling this, and thinking flight was my only chance of retaining freedom, away I ran, and did not stop till completely exhausted, then, espying a village, made for it, but had no sooner arrived than the villain of a captain stared me in the face. To attempt escape was useless, so, making the best of a bad bargain, I tried to pass him, hoping that my residence in the coal-pit, and consequent black visage, would render me unknown; this was, however, calculating too strongly upon my disguise. He saw, and pointing to me, gave me in charge of the constable as the man for whom £100 reward was offered, and was charged with blowing-up the coal-pit. Hand-cuffed and placed in a cart, I was taken to a justice. The description in the handbills was compared with my features, and they agreed exactly. The magistrate concluded this evidence sufficient to remand me. In vain I claimed his protection, it was useless; upon my telling him how infamously I had been used, he merely shook his head, and said he thought mine was touched. Seeing no prospect of redress here, I made up my mind to attempt an escape. Gathering all my strength, I struck my right hand out and knocked down one man who collared me on that side; I was going to treat the man on my left to a similar mark of my regard, when I heard my wife's voice hollaing as if hurt, and, upon turning round to see if my senses had deceived me, I found it was her indeed-that, instead of knocking a man down, I had hit her a prodigious blow, and, far from having undergone such trials, was in bed, and the whole was a long, awful dream.

ON BEATING FOR GAME IN THE OPEN FIELDS.

BY A VOYAGER.

It is as certain as that I am now writing with one of Perry's threepointed pens, that not one sportsman in every hundred, trying the English stubbles, beats them properly. Yet on this depends the amount of game he kills; or rather, for it is not exactly synonymous, the number of shots he gets.

Impatience is the besetting sin of almost every man of the pointer and gun; and it is a prime cause of this slovenly imperfect searching for game. He jumps over a gate, or rushes through a gap, and stalks towards that part of the inclosure where he judges the game to be crouched. This is certainly the way to get over the ground fast; but it is also the way to miss finding the game: and it is a most admired way of spoiling your dogs. But of this, more anon.

Another cause of this slovenly mode of beating, is having a large extent of country to beat over. "Is your's a good shooting district ?" "Pretty well: I have the right to sport over three thousand acres." When this is the response, be tolerably certain that he who thus answers does not beat his ground well. He is one of the if-I-don't-find-them-there's-some-in-the-next-field fellows. Virgil has very justly observed

which in plain English means that a wide extent of country is all very well, but that a small breadth is made the most of. Columella tells a story in point: "A man had two daughters, and a large vineyard, of which he gave a third part with his eldest daughter in marriage; and yet he gathered as much fruit as he did before. Afterwards, he married his younger daughter, giving with her another third of his vineyard as a portion; and still he found that the remaining third part produced as much as the whole had done." Now, why was this but that because the third part remaining was by far better cultivated? That is a moral tale for the farmer; but I have one quite as piquant for the sportsman. A gentleman in one of our eastern counties had the right of shooting over one thousand acres of land, in the midst of a country well stocked with game. His gamebook showed that he bagged on the average about one hundred and fifty brace of all kinds during each season. He shot with a single barrel. Circumstances arose which deprived him of the right of shooting over about half those thousand acres. Yet his game-book showed at the end of each shooting year that he still bagged his one

hundred and fifty brace. Now why was this? His own answer is in four words: "I was more careful.”

Having thus explained why a sportsman usually beats slovenly, let me advise my young friends of the shot-belt how to get over their ground more workmanly; and I will give the lecture in the words of one speaking from the actual experience of some years:

"I never get over a gate or through a hedge into a field I intend to beat, without putting my dogs upon their guard. Take heed' are never misunderstood words of warning; and it is almost needless to observe, that I never allow my pointers to precede me in going into a field. When within the inclosure, if the wind be upon our noses, I at once cast them off, and make them quarter the ground closely until they reach the windward hedge. I then bring them round the entire of the hedgerows of the inclosure before I leave it. In these final circuits, in the course of the season, I get as many shots as I do in the open; for when birds have been well shot at, they most frequently alight close to a hedge, and run into any long grass or other high cover in its vicinity.

"If I enter a field on its windward side (that is, with the wind at my back), I walk quietly down one side, with my dogs well 'to heel,' until I get to the opposite side of the inclosure, and can begin beating with the wind upon our noses. If this be not done, the dogs must be liable to run over their game. It is not fair to them making them hunt down the wind; and if they are thus unfairly hunted, they will either quarter timidly, and point or check over every lark's trail, or they will refuse to hunt at all.

"I once shot to an old setter, who by no management could be made to beat down wind. If I entered a field on the windward side, whatever might be the size of the field, he would set off at full speed along one side until he reached the furthest hedgerow, and would then quarter the field regularly throughout. He found more game than any dog that went with him into the field. This dog I found belonged to one of the most-haste-and-less-speed sportsmen, who blundered on right a-head without pausing to look whether the wind was astern or athwart; yet he punished the dog unmercifully if he flushed the game. This was a hard school, and old Nelson' was soon taught the remedy; he sped away of his own accord to the leeward side, totally unmindful of his master's voice or whistle.

"This puts me in mind that in a former communication I observed, that I prefer a dog's name ending in O, because it can be most easily pronounced emphatically; but when beating for game, the whistle ought to be almost the only medium of obtaining a dog's attention. Game is not alarmed by that so much as by the human voice. 'Take heed' when the field is entered, and To-ho' when a dog is drawing to a point, are the only words necessary for the sportsman's vocabulary. The whistle, and a wave of the hand, are alone requisite to recall a dog to heel, or to guide him in the direction he is desired to beat."

In a future communication I will give some advice from the same source as to beating in cover.

RIDING AND DRIVING FOR THE MILLION.

BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

"This is the patent age of new inventions." So wrote Byron more than a quarter of a century ago; had he lived until now, he would indeed have had cause to make the remark, for since the days of the noble poet how many inventions have been introduced! Steam boats and railways instead of sails and horseflesh; policemen instead of the superannuated sleeping "Charleys;" gas instead of the darkness visible light

"Whose oily rays shot from the crystal lamp."

No longer can we talk of the "officious link boy's smoky light." M'Adamized streets instead of paved ones-then wood instead of M'Adam; Broughams and cabs instead of the lumbering "agony" coach; iron vessels instead of the wooden walls of old England; the Polka instead of the country dance; light French wines instead of good old humble port.

Independent of the above, we have patent life preservers, patent candles; patent waterproof coats, cloaks, boots, and shoes; patent wigs, patent night-caps, patent lamps, patent horseshoes, patent pens, and ever (query, never) pointed pencils; patent guns and pistols, patent locks, patent piano fortes, patent portfolios, patent "cabs," patent harps, patent stoves, patent arms and legs, patent spectacles, patent pen makers, patent teeth and tooth powders, patent knife cleaners, patent mud boots, patent razors and straps, patent medicines, patent ink and inkstands, patent copying machines, patent needles, patent butter-churns, patent mangles, patent elastic stocks; patent hoes, drills, ploughs, rakes, and harrows; patent manure; patent cables, anchors, and rigging; patent stucco and cement, patent axle trees, patent slate billiard tables, patent indian-rubber galoches, patent firewood; patent watches, clocks, and chronometers; patent belt bands, patent brandy capsuled, patent gelatine, patent wadding and cartridges, patent platylithic water filters, patent fire-proof safes, patent shower baths, and a variety of others "too numerous for this advertisement;" and last, not least, the patent elastic saddles, and patent hames, of which more anon.

There are few things more amusing than to read the advertisements of the present day. In them we find every luxury that art and science can suggest; we have balm for all our sufferings, and a panacea for every complaint. Take the following, selected by chance.

We first read of the "atrapilatory, the only liquid hair dye that really answers for all colours," and which can transform "sweet auburn" to bright locks, convert carroty curls to golden coloured

hair, and change grey into raven black. Then we have the kalydor, which remove freckles, sun burns, and all cutaneous eruptions; the odonto, or pearl dentifrice, which would almost whiten the black notes of a piano forte; meen fun, or celestial skin powder; moelline, or extract of oleaginous substances for the hair; succedaneum for stopping decayed teeth. One individual, who describes himself as a trichomatist, and who decries all puffed nostrums, advertizes to restore the hair speedily and safely. We all recollect the wonderful bears' grease described by the late Charles Matthews, which upon one application would convert a deal box into a hair trunk. Of garments we read of the paletot d'été, and the registered paletot of llama cloth; "Corazza shirts," "hygeinic corsets,' "antigropelos mud boots," ""Templar nightcaps.'

Among the luxuries for the table we must mention "turtle soup for the million," "custards without trouble," "preserved fish, fowl, and flesh," "pot de mille viandes," "Rien qui manque fish sauce," "tous les mois, or Thulema grits." No longer are we satisfied with ice from our own ponds, but are called upon to patronise crystallized ice from Wenham lake, North America, and which has been transported more than three thousand miles for our use.

We then find the following cures for asthmas, consumptions, coughs, and colds:" Pulmonic wafers," "essence of liquorice and linseed," "balsam of aniseed," "asthmatic candy," "delectables lozenges,' "pectoral confection," voce mistura.' While for the thousand other ills that human flesh is heir to, we have the "reanimating solar tincture," "Zoorzaka oil for the rheumatism," and "Parr's life pills."

Then we have the following high sounding articles :-The heptafræmion fine arts distribution; the exacuo and metalometer razor straps; the electro magnetic turning lathe; the eukerogeneron soap; ne plus ultra needles; novargent, or silver solution; diamine ink; photolypon extinguisher; oleum pascens oil; pannus coriam boots and shoes; potosian liquid silver; fluid renaiscance; albata plate; absolutorium razor rectifier; hydropathy; homoeopathy, mesmerism. In these days, corn doctors are denominated pedicures and chiropodists; squib makers, pyrotechnists; tooth drawing is politely described as dental surgery; country gentlemen are styled the squirearchy; shopkeepers, the canelocracy (xavýλoc); the rich, capitalocracy and plutocracy. Shops are designated-repositories, divans, magazines, emporiums, bazaars, and temples of fancy and taste. One erudite personage, who keeps a house of entertainment for man and beast, writes plovia (hospitalitas) upon his sign. wonder some speculating man does not transform his simple name of Brown or Smith, into "Inkervrnkodsdors panokinkadrachdern," importer of genuine Dutch schedam and cigars; or some Welch harpist advertise himself as Collen-ap-Gwynnawg, ap Cowrda-ap-Caradoc, Friechfas ap Lyn Merim ap Einion-yrth ap Cunedda Wledig. Nor are our continental neighbours, the French, very far behind us in their puffing notices, as the following anecdote of Monsieur Curedent, the dentist, will show; we have extracted it from a clever paper entitled, "The ugly Horses of Paris," written by a talented French

We