offer violence to the public impression in this-ward. All that transpires, therefore, of our hero's life and adventures, must be regarded as some passage of cunning where the histrionic artist makes the audience cognizant of such matters as he has no possible means of placing before them. It shall be a game of catechistic "dummy"our friend is wont to amuse his leisure in that sort of contrivance with the cards, and therefore it shall seem more germane to his likelihood. Of course, the door being opened and a stranger announced, he is becomingly courteous-you may suppose him hospitable if you please -and that it being well advanced in the evening, he has set you down to liquor and tobacco-(his Hinterhausen we can tell you is not to be despised, and positively sometimes his Havannahs are heavenly)— and straightway some such conversation as this arises between you:

"If you want to do anything about Sting, it must be to-morrow, at Tatt's. My practice is, never to take business out of its turn. Have you been able to get a stall" (was it instinct that made him stumble upon something relatively professional?) "for the approaching season? It's gammon about their being all taken; a stag-trick-a weak invention borrowed from Capel Court in the good days of the rail rig. I'll take odds half of 'em aint let: Lumley's coming it too strong. Can't he be content to let people suppose he's getting a living where all his fellow managers got the gazette? It's the worst sign of a man's folly when he sets about proving too much. That's sound wine you're drinking: suppose I told you it was Johannisberg, that Metternich sent me out of his own cellar-it's ten to one you would conclude I bought it at a flash auction, instead of having brought it home with me from Ehrenfels, at some small cost of money and trouble, I can assure you."

"You have been to Germany then?"

"There's nothing to be done in Paris; and where is one to spend the off months of autumn? Nowhere that I can point out, except Baden Baden, or Homberg, or Wiesbaden, and a few such places. Homberg's the best; it's quieter: more still, and consequently more cheap than most of them."

"Did you like the Rhine?"

"Of all things, it is full of truth. When you embark on it at Cologne, it does not promise you more than it performs before you reach Mayence. And in your intercourse with its people, you get, without a shade of reduction, all you were taught to expect. They tell you in the guide-books that the Rhine steamers are fleets of pirates. You order breakfast there, and you get it: tea and mutton chops. The bill: Breakfast, a thaler; cutlets, two thalers.' In English--Breakfast, eight shillings and ninepence. You are not disappointed of what the guide-book promised. The scenery is beautifully magnificent, without having any more effect on the national phlegm than if it were a counterpart of Whitechapel. The first time I made the voyage, we were set down to dinner, immediately after starting from Bonn, by the " Princess of Prussia:" you encounter a very startling mountain soon after getting under-way. At that moment the waiter (they call him kelner) was handing round one of

the courses,Pray,' said I, 'is that the Drachenfels?' 'No,' said he, it's sauer kraut?' That was characteristic. The Germans themselves tell you their great fault is, too much thinking and too little doing the old fellows who built their castles on the tops of the crags must have put their shoulder to the wheel, for all that. Some of these fortresses are the most singular places in the world; and to think you may buy a batch of them for a rouleau a piece, is a libel on the poetry of housekeeping. Every furlong from Bonn to Bingen there is a ruin, that for a little money might be made a dwelling place more noble and picturesque than Windsor or Warwick Castles. Not far from Bingen there is a tower called the 'Mouse Tower,' once the abode of a great church lord; like other lords, both lay and ecclesiastical, in later times, a great exclusive in agricultural produce. He had ten thousand times more corn than he could eat himself, and therefore could not understand how anybody else should want bread he was what it is the fashion just now to call a protectionist; that is to say, one who takes care of himself. They say, some of them, that he was a real character-a bishop of Fulda; others that he was altogether a fabulous personage, got up only for the use that might be made of him as a warning and example to the corn-law faction of the time. It's so long since the date of the story, you can't exactly trace its foundation whether in fact or fiction; but, for my part, I think it was a prophetic outline of what was to come to pass in our days. I'll give you Southey's version of it, and if Bishop Hatto be not an allegorical type of the Duke of Dough-andall-dough, he's very like it.

66 6 THE TRADITION OF BISHOP HATTO.

"The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet;
'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground.

"Every day the starving poor

Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door,
For he had a plentiful last year's store;
And all the neighbourhood could tell
His granaries were furnished well.

"At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the poor without delay;

He bade them to his great barn repair,
And they should have food for the winter there.

"Rejoiced at such tidings good to hear,

The poor folk flock'd from far and near;
The great barn was full as it could hold
Of women and children-young and old.

T

"Then when he saw it could hold no more,
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;

And while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the barn and burnt them all!

"I' faith, 'tis an excellent bonfire!' quoth he;
'And the country is greatly obliged to me
For ridding it, in these times forlorn,
Of rats that only consume the corn.'

"So then to his palace returned he,
And he sat down to supper merrily;
And he slept that night like an innocent man-
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.

"In the morning, as he enter'd the hall
Where his picture hung against the wall,
A sweat like death all o'er him came,
For the rats had eaten it out of the frame.

"As he look'd, there came a man from his farm; He had a countenance white with alarm— 'My lord, I open'd your granaries this morn, And the rats had eaten all your corn.'

"Another came running presently,
And he was pale as pale could be-
Fly, my lord bishop, fly!' quoth he,
Ten thousand rats are coming this way;
The Lord forgive you for yesterday!'

"I'll go to my tower on the Rhine,' replied he, "Tis the safest place in Germany;

The walls are high and the shores are steep,
And the stream is strong and the water deep.'

66 6 'Bishop Hatto fearfully hastened away,
And he crossed the Rhine without delay,
And reach'd his tower, and barred with care
All the windows, doors, and loop-holes there.

"He laid him down and clos'd his eyes,
But soon a scream made him arise;
He started, and saw two eyes of flame
On his pillow, from whence the screaming came.

"He listen'd and look'd-it was only the cat; But the Bishop he grew more fearful for that, For she sat screaming mad with fear

At the army of rats that were drawing near.

"For they have swam over the river so deep,
And they have climb'd the shores so steep,
And now by thousands up they crawl
To the holes and windows in the wall.

"Down on his knees the Bishop fell,
And faster and faster his beads did he tell,
As louder and louder drawing near

The saw of their teeth without he could hear.

"And in at the windows, and in at the door,

And through the walls by thousands they pour,
And down through the ceiling, and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before,
From within and without, from above and below,
And all at once to the Bishop they go.

"They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the Bishop's bones;
They gnaw'd the flesh from every limb,

For they were sent to do judgment on him.'"

"The suppression of the French, or rather the Parisian gaming houses," continued the Leg, or rather so he went on, musing aloud, apparently with no purpose, but indeed extremely intent on his hobby; "the suppression of play in the French metropolis was nothing more than an act of the Chambers, protective of it everywhere else. Sir James Graham gave it another shove up; and now the German princes are making a handsome thing of it. I could say who the principals in the dreadful trade' are, but it might not be relished in certain quarters. Somebody or other will show some time or other the true effect of protection; just now everybody is taking and putting forth versions of it after their prejudice or their profit. Devils of fellows some of them are, that rush into rouge et noir on the Rhine; I saw a London merchant lose £7,000 one morning last autumn at Homberg. Wherever the money comes from, it goes to the tables of the German watering places. There's no such thing as picking up a shilling in a quiet way here; no chance ever turns up. If there's a good man on the town, he either gets into matrimony or the Bench."

串

As the last word came from the indignant lips of Leatherlungs the door opened, and a servant announced "Colonel Howard de Montmorenci."

244

ENGLISH SPORTS.

FISHING, BOATING, YACHTING, HUNTING, RACING, SHOOTING,

COURSING, &c., &c.

BY SARON,

PART II.-FISHING.

(Continued.)

There is a great variety in the growth and colour of trout, as every stream and lake differs in the quality of this fish. In the clear, pure lakes in rocky and mountainous countries the trout grow very large, and sometimes weigh nearly thirty pounds; large rapid rivers contain trout from ten to fifteen pounds weight, though the generality of them in our streams do not exceed five pounds. There is a small trout to be found in rapid brooks which, upon the fall of heavy showers, swell to a great height, but which in fair weather has but little stream. Here, amidst the eddies, deep holes, and amongst the roots of trees, may be found plenty of "swift trout" from one to three pounds weight. The rod for artificial fly-fishing should be light, so as to be easily managed with one hand; it should taper gradually to the very point, and be so pliant that it will scarcely support its own weight, so that when you have hooked your fish it should bend and yield to every spring which it makes, but regain its straightness and elasticity immediately upon the fish being loosed. Your line should be thick next the rod, and diminish by degrees, getting "beautifully less" at the end, where it should be very fine; and you should have at least five feet of silkworm gut next the fly. Your first care must be to keep as much out of the sight of the fish as possible, throwing your line as far and as lightly on the water as you can, so as not to make the slightest splash; your fly must fall on the water as light as a thistle-down would settle upon it, and the "artful dodge" by which you may deceive the trout is to keep the point of your rod in a tremulous motion, thus giving apparent life to the fly. In natural fly fishing it will only be necessary to observe that those are the best which present themselves by the waterside in the greatest numbers. The best weather for this fishing is a cloudy day, keeping the wind at your back, by which means your line will be carried fully out, and you will be enabled to keep your fly dancing upon the very surface of the stream. With a May-fly, and such a day as I have described, the fisherman may calculate upon having an excellent day's sport.