in the winter, the wind gets colder, and the damp air or dew depresses the scent and prevents its expansion. He afterwards, in my opinion, gives a much better reason, namely, that when hounds run a fox till late in the evening, their catching powers are not what they were in the morning, for there is a limit to all animal exertion.

Mr. Smith concludes this chapter with observing that, although hounds may appear to be beat at the end of a long run, it occasionally happens that on the hunted fox being fresh-found, or recovered, the same hounds" will run clean away from these men who were probably remarking that the hounds were dead beaten."

THE FINE ARTS.

That which the frieze of the Parthenon has done for the ancient practice of charioteering, the Messrs. Fores, of Piccadilly, are doing for the modern, but, alas! obsolete system, once known as "The Road'in merry England. Coaching-woe is ourself!-to all intents and purposes of pride and circumstance, is no more. Here and there a Unicorn may be seen, but even that is almost as rare as the animal after which it is named; and to the scandal of locomotion, there are pair-horse concerns at work in some places. But the "slap-up turnout" has taken the way of the megatheriums; like Othello's, "its occupation's gone." It is therefore that our acknowledgments are due to the spirited gentlemen who are publishing their coaching incidents in a most admirable fashion, several plates of which we have had occasion already to notice in this work. Two more now claim justice at our hands-"The Road versus the Rail," and "Flooded," both drawn by C. L. Henderson, Esq., and engraved by J. Harris. The former represents a very complete road coach, probably the Brighton Item, that was (from its colour and style of appointment) a slapping drag; while parallel with it, a railway train is slipping off an embankment. The latter, a Cheltenham fast concern with six horses, making its way through a flood under a little deluge. Nothing can be more characteristic than these sketches; they are, in every way, worthy of ranking among Messrs. Fores' graphic "Reminiscences of the Road."

LITERATURE.

Messrs. Simpkin and Marshall have lately published a seventh edition of "The Sportsman's Directory," written by old John Mayer, and re-written some half-dozen years ago, in form of a sixth edition, by ourself. A more practical hand-book for the sportsman generally, and sporting servants especially, does not exist. It is true,

you may look in vain through its pages for receipts for champagne, punch, or hints how to make provision for "a sporting exile" among the purple hills and hospitable hearths of Scotland; but if you desire to know how to deal with the material of the field, to learn and understand the routine of field sports, this little volume will stand you in good need. It is the cheapest and best manual of its class.

THE PRACTICE OF ANGLING, PARTICULARLY AS REGARDS IREBy O'Gorman. Curry, jun., and Co., Dublin.-What, another long learned treatise, another "complete work" containing the natural history, for the ninety-ninth time, of every fish from the gudgeon to grampus, followed up with every possible method for catching and cooking him that science has invented or necessity hit upon. Another agreeable compilation which has taken a thorough enthusiast years to write, and others not quite fond almost as long to read. Or, stay; after all, this PRACTICE OF ANGLING may be nothing but the false figure-head of some fine gentleman tourist, wherewithal to palm off his search for the picturesque and matter for making a book; a trout stream to lead the way to a ruined abbey, and a horrible legend appertaining to the walls thereof; a dozen of dace to introduce us to his romantic proceedings with "the miller's only daughter;" or a two-pound perch to be brought to hand with the "character" of the country, combining a happy eccentricity of appearance and behaviour, and overflowing with short answers and long stories.

It was with some such surmise as the above that we cut our way into the volumes now under consideration; but we were glad even for our own sake to find, on a more intimate acquaintance, that our aim for once was very wide of the mark. With neither of these descriptions of treating the art of angling will the latest arrival admit of any classification; it is, in fact, a work almost, if not altogether, sui generis. No laboured elegance of style, no attempt at making what is called the most of any remarkable encounter or anecdote; no thought, reference, or respect for any of the many and great authorities that have preceded the writer, but an openly avowed, manly, and deservedly confident reliance upon his own powers and experience. O'Gorman, in short, well knows his strength, the inviting nature of his subject, and the open field afforded him to display his doings and directions in. No branch of British sports, take it generally, has perhaps found more friends ready and willing to go to press than this said art of angling. Angling, a very term which (we will not attempt to decide whether justly or not) is usually allowed to signify the diversion of such as are not formed for strong exercise or strong drinks, peculiarly adapted for the lady-like, nervous, gentle, and simple. If such be the correct, as it is the common, acceptation of the verb to angle-and, to a very great extent, we are inclined to believe it is-then has O'Gorman's book been unskilfully christened; 'tis rather the practice of fishing-a distinction we trust with a difference-of about the finest fishing in the world; the sport of Irishmen, if not of kings; the sport to be had on the Boyne and the Shannon, where forty and fifty pound salmon have been and are taken with the fly; where pluck, stamina, and science make the man;

and where our author depicts, with exquisite relish, the practice, in which at once we feel certain he must so pre-eminently excel.

To speak, then, in the matter-of-fact, straightforward style, so characteristic of the work, this essay on angling contains little beyond the salmon, trout, and pike fishing of the Emerald Isle; an offering made in and for, as far as the practice goes, the land of its birth. The small fry find small favour with one who can only conscientiously consider the three we have named as sporting fish; and though tench may be good to eat, perch fine fun for cockneys, roach very good baits for greater things, and so forth, the thousand-and-one remaining varieties of fresh-water life are knocked off in less than half-a-dozen uncommonly scanty pages. Here again we cannot but repeat our objection to the title of a book that in every other respect is ably qualified to rank as a companion to Mr. Scrope's salmon fishing in the Highlands. The simple truth of the matter is, that the art and elegance of throwing the fly, and the dash, wildness, and energy of the struggle with a salmon, have given O'Gorman a contempt for other kinds of water-work which he seldom even endeavours and never really conceals. This sort of feeling, however, is by no means rare. Fox-hunters will look down on the more easily satisfied whipper of the thistle, and Turfites may quiz the winner of a Royal Thames Yacht scurry. Regarding this, then, as more or less a natural consequence, and making due allowance for an "over-critical," ticklish temper, we will proceed to look a little more minutely into the handiwork of one who, in his own words, has "the hardihood to say, that he never yet saw the man who could throw a salmon line as he could, or kill more fish even in those rivers in the neighbourhood of which they had lived for years."

The first half-dozen or opening chapters are devoted to the tackle, and we have some excellent advice on rods, hooks, lines, &c., rendered still the more valuable by the plain, unaffected colloquial strain in which it is given a portion of the work that ought rather to be got off by heart than read with what is commonly called "attention." To this succeeds the body of the first volume, by far the best written as well as the most interesting pages O'Gorman has yet penned. In them we have the history of his first day's salmon fishing, and some of the best of subsequent seasons-so good indeed, teeming with such a succession of wild and wonderful adventure, that by the time "the king fish" salmon, "three-feet broad," and nobody knows how long, has pulled our friend head foremost from his boat into the river, we begin to draw in our breath and speculate as to where this sort of thing can end? After this the trout gets his turn, if not at so great a length, yet with the same degree of practical excellence; then we have a touch of the descriptive in what the racing calendar people would term the "places of sport;" and a short chapter in compliment to the pike (which, somehow or other our author will have it, is worth dressing as well as catching) winds up volume the first, and what properly should have been volume the only one. In sober seriousness, we must say the second is a sad headless, tail-less affair, and, barring the two or three chapters on flies, which might have been well included in the first, of very little real service, particularly

when brought into comparison with its companion. But this is a flaw that time and another edition (to which the innate value of the treatise as a whole well entitles it) will, or should in these days of a little compression, apply the remedy that in pure good faith we have pointed out. In conclusion we must not withhold a word in praise of the store of anecdote and example with which every branch of the subject is carried out and enriched; a plan of blending the utile dulci, which we seldom remember having seen more effectively brought into play, despite the somewhat hard manner that tells now and then on the humorous stories. What a scene, Lever, Lover, or some other of his countrymen, would have made of the crack Shannon fisherman shaving himself with a boiled potato! Here, however, we must bid adieu to our useful and entertaining acquaintance; one that, in the character we have had the fortune to meet, we can strongly recommend to our friends, as the city Dons do each other"We assure you, Sir, you will find Mr. O'Gorman very much of a gentleman and quite a man of business."

PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS OF THE METROPOLIS.

"The present moment is our ain,

The neist we never saw."

WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.

Mrs. Caudle will vouch for the truth of our motto, that the present moment alone is our own. In the musical world the pleasant nights are fast fleeting which now give the fashionable dilettante and the enthusiastic opera-amateur a delight unprecedented of yore. The close of the musical season will be lamented by every lover of harmony, of grace, and of those various arts that more immediately fascinate the senses, for it has been, and still is one of unique brilliancy. Her Majesty's Theatre, for the moment, combines the practical display of every theoretic excellence in the twin pleasures of music and the dance possibilities of excellence lectured upon and discussed from age to age from the time of their invention; acknowledged but not felt or seen, perchance till recently, that astonishing genius, combined with adequate powers, has realized the conceptions of imagination. England, so long in the rear of European superiority in the arts, bids fair to rival her ancient teachers. The intense appreciation of the nation for the highest genius will, at some future period, produce its anticipated effect it will cultivate and ripen the native germ into good fruit. If we are now the most munificent patrons of foreign excellence in these arts of the senses, the very patronage is bringing forth a school of our own that may, in its turn, sway the world of

civilization. Even now, we know of some young artists who will, if they live to maturity, probably surpass the powers even of a Rubini, a Lablache, and a Taglioni.

At the ITALIAN THEATRE Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" has been revived with great satisfaction to the conoscenti in true melody. Let the combinations of other composers be what they will, the grandeur of Weber, the sweetness of Rossini, the simplicity of Donizetti, etc., etc., no musical author ever did or ever will compare with the immortal Mozart for melody: melody all mind, emanating from the depths of soul, and the well of feelings dedicated all to the master passion of his life and death, the passion to which he sacrificed the privilege of mortal existence. The chief songs in "Cosi fan tutte" combine somewhat more of the mere master's art with melody than in some of his operas. The duet of "Ah! guarda Sorella," between Fiordiligi and Dorabella, is an admirable specimen of this union; as also the lovely trio of "La mia Dorabella." In our last number we so amply discussed the peculiar characteristics of the vocalists who take the leading parts of this opera-Mesdames Anaide Castellan, Rossi Caccia, and Rita Borio, Mario, Lablache, etc., that we will not repeat ourselves.

All the arrangements of the ballet are, briefly, perfection. Carlotta Grisi the earthly, and Taglioni the more spiritual divinity of dance, were admirably seconded by Cerito's bounding grace, and the classically elaborate poses of Lucile Grahn. The new pas de quatre in which this quartette of Terpsichorean divinities figured composed by Perrot, expressly to exhibit their different styles, display'd to much effect their peculiar characteristics. The acting of Carlotta Grisi as the inimitable Esmeralda, and in "La Giselle," proves her worthy of a high station, apart from her excellence as a first-rate dancer. Cerito's exaltation into matrimony has perhaps deteriorated the Hebelike appearance that was wont to make her springing limbs and bounding motions but the type of a joyous youthfulness that scorned the results of art.

The pretty Theatre of ST. JAMES'S has been filled to the last with the distinguished admirers of Arnal's genre of acting. Great in all his varieties of character, there seems scarcely a role in his repertoire that does not create in him a different identity. In this he is unlike most eminent actors. The Soirées Mysterieuses, on the off nights, have been the delight of the frequenters of this elegant salle de spectacle, so that we trust Mr. Mitchell will have no reason to regret the liberality of his management, and feel himself fittingly rewarded by the liberality of the high patronage so deservedly accorded him. Indeed, in his case, and in that of Mr. Lumley, we think the great prices that have been given for boxes and stalls at their houses will go to prove that it is no bad speculation to provide the public with entertainments of the first order, and worthily filled up to the minutest detail, in contrast with the olden mode of arranging an opera, when a single star shed scanty interest over the dull monotony of a host of bad actors and singers.

The career of DRURY LANE, and the apparent failure of Mr. Bunn's management, may not improbably be traced to a conduct the