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THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPORT.

Petermann. Good Lord! what's that—there's some one shot off-what, Sacra-you must be mad!

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Wiedemeier (pale as chalk). I-don't-know,-the-gun-went-off -in-my-hand,-I-haven't-hurt-you,-I-hope?

Petermann. You're a pretty sportsman! If I hadn't had a guardian angel, you'd have shot me.

Forester. Well, I fancied that the first thing in going out shooting was to know how to manage a gun.

Wiedemeier. Yes-such-a-thing-never-happened-to-me-before-in-my-life.

Petermann. I can believe it, because you never went out shooting before it was nearly being your trial shot. Didn't I tell you yesterday, at the shooting-gallery, that you must have the cock down when you're not shooting?

Wiedemeier. Well-come-you-won't be angry with me—I—won't do it again.

Forester. I see you won't. But it's all up with this covert now, and I'm certain there were two or three foxes in it.

THE BATTUE.

Mausle. How do you load in covert, my good friend?
Schiessmeier. Exactly as you do in the town.

Maüsle. Yes-still I should be obliged if you'd load my gun.

Assistant. Very willingly, Herr Maüsle. Ah! that is a powder-I never saw such a beautiful sort, and you have such a quantity! Maüsle. Pray take half of it, if you like.

Assistant. God requite you-yes, if it wasn't for the gentlemen-but you won't carry all this shot about with you? We shall have to walk twenty miles to-day. We've seven preserves.

Maisle. Take out as much as you like; it's very heavy for me to

carry.

Assistant. Thank ye-I've been longing for such a godsend. Yes, if I was to come into the world again now, I should soon be a rich manand that shot-belt I wouldn't refuse. You'll see, we shall have a famous day's shooting.

WAITING FOR THE GAME,

"Would you like a drop of good arrack, Herr Schiessmeier ?" "Thank ye, Herr Wiedemeier. Ah, it's very good. I tell you, Herr Wiedemeier, you'll shoot to day: remember my words."

THE STATION.

"Now look there, at that very oak Herr Dr. Wünschenmayer shot, three years back, three foxes and two bucks in the same day."

A WHITE LIE.

Forester. Have all the gentlemen got one barrel loaded with slugs? There's a head of game in there-take great care that you don't miss -you'll hear it break through the bushes a long way off-give it time Jesses! if the gentlemen were to miss the buck!

HALF AN HOUR LATER.

"But, really, Herr Wiedemeier, why didn't you fire ?" "Why? I saw nothing."

"Hang it all! A buck came up to me and I let it pass at ten yards' distance, that the gentlemen might shoot it, and you haven't seen it. (To himself.) It's a good thing a man can help himself; I haven't a head of game in my preserves for thirty miles round."

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"At a hare."

"Where is it, then?"

"I fancy I hit it-for when I fired it plucked up its ears, and sat on its hind legs-I only had one barrel loaded, or else I should have fired again."

"You missed it. Well, if the gentlemen miss everything, it's not my fault; there's game here-you've convinced yourselves of that."

THE RETURN TO THE FORESTER'S.

Forester. Well, that's a pretty story: I've just come from the magistrate's Mr. Höllenstein has been firing at sparrows-but a cow was grazing just behind the hedge-he missed the sparrows-but gave the cow a deuce of a charge-the peasants have collared him—that'll cost a tidy sum.

AFTER DINNER.

Forester. Well, I'm very sorry, gentlemen, that I couldn't find you more sport: but the gentlemen know how things turn out at times: the wind was in the wrong quarter, and then you missed-and if Herr Wiedemeier had only seen the buck-that would have been something.

Wiedemeier. Well, the fresh air and exercise are worth something, and the haunch of venison and the dumplings are famous. Help yourself, Höllenstein,

Höllenstein. My appetite is spoiled: the cow is dead, and I haven't money enough about me to pay for the racket.

Forester. Yes, you must take care for the future: you'd better have gone on the moor: the cow don't suit your rheumatism either.

THE RECKONING.

"Now, gentlemen, we must settle the bill."

"Well, then, we brought the forester a box of my best cigars, real Lampresas, at five pounds a thousand, that makes fifteen florins apiece; a tip for the assistants-we can't give them less than four florins."

"I think two kronenthaler-four florins would be a disgrace." "Now come the beaters, we can't offer them less than a shilling apiece."

"What are you thinking about?—at least a florin."

"Next comes the supper: beer for ourselves and the gamekeepers, and

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"Martin, the bricklayer, who went with us, he mustn't be allowed to pay; he knows the country

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"Of course, he must be added in."

"I was obliged to drink a toothful of wine over my fright about the cow."

"All goes in—the bill amounts to nine florins fifty-nine kreuzer." "And I don't call it at all dear. The dumplings were first-rate." "But I do. I could dine at the Bavarian Hotel for that money." "Further: now comes the coachman. The carriage costs five florins;

drink money, a florin; the ostler, a shilling at least."

"Give him a florin, it will do for next time."

"Now we've finished: it makes altogether—"

"Stop, we've forgotten the main point-the cook, and she must have two florins."

"Well, I don't care, but now reckon it up. I haven't earned so much the whole month.”

"Well, then, count it up-it makes altogether forty-four florins twenty-three kreuzer; that is, eleven florins five and a half kreuzers per

man."

"This is a nice neighbourhood: and then, three crowns lost at tarok.” "I lost six florins forty-nine kreuzer."

"I five florins twenty-one kreuzer."

"I didn't count, but I'm sure I haven't won anything."

"Ah! the forester was the only winner; he's got the luck of nine devils."

“Ei, ei, ei, ei! that's a shameful sum. If my old woman only knew it !" "Well, don't cry about it! A man who bothers himself all the year round for his family, can have a little amusement-say twice a month." "Of course!"

THE RETURN HOME.

In the Carriage.

"Well, what have we killed when we get home?"

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Only a cow, after all!"

"Oh! nonsense, we must have shot something!"

"It's a question what the game-dealer has got in stock. One of us must go the first thing to-morrow morning and buy all he can get. We might tell folk we couldn't bring the foxes with us.”

"I want lots of hares-I must have five at least: wait a minute-for my wife two, or else she'll kill me; my father-in-law one, makes three; then the burgomaster one; and then one for the round table in the Court Brewery-that makes five."

The Carriage is upset.

"Oh Lord, Herr Gott von Bentheim, my leg!"

"That's a pretty look out; I'm up to my neck in water. Kreutz, millionen donrrr, there's the butt of my gun broken. Jesses! and that's the burgomaster's favourite gun. I had to beg and pray for two hours before he would lend it me.'

"I feel quite stupified-I fell right on a pile of stones. Devil! I am quite ill."

"Kreiden element, that is sport. I'll go out shooting with you again. How a fellow can be so stupid! But it serves you right, Philip; you must shove your nose into everything. Now you've got it, you miserable fellow. Jesses! and such weather, too. I feel as if I was drowned. Well, I shall remember my day's shooting as long as I live!"

THE MONARCHY OF JULY.

THE striking and instructive episode in representative government which was presented by the reign of Louis Philippe, has never been so clearly delineated as it is by Dr. Véron in the newly-published fifth volume of his "Memoirs." During the period that the monarchy of July lasted, M. Thiers upset and dissolved more than one cabinet solely for his own personal interests; but after having obtained power, he could never keep it. The reason was, that he had no principles to guide him, and under a representative form of government no minister can command a majority without some fixed principles.

M. Guizot and the Conservative majority have been much condemned for corruption. But at least they had fixed principles, and Dr. Véron has the courage to defend those principles. He compares Guizot's position to that of Sir Robert Valpole-as he calls him-defending the House of Hanover from the dangers of a civil war. "M. Thiers," Dr. Véron sums up, "is revolutionary without being liberal; M. Guizot is a true liberal, yet not a revolutionist."

Dr. Véron is equally clear and precise, and, what is much more rare in a French writer of memoirs, exceedingly unprejudiced in his view of the Eastern question, as it presented itself after the battle of Nizib. In Louis Philippe's time, as in that of Napoleon III., the question of the East resolved itself into the same formula-mistrust of Russia. It was not Ibrahim Pasha who was dreaded, it was the Czar. The Pasha had been victorious; if he followed up his great success, he would cross the Taurus, and oblige the Sultan to seek the aid of his formidable neighbour; and Russia would be at Constantinople. M. Thiers had the singular weakness to act upon this point in opposition to his own convictions. On assuming the reins of government that statesman spoke in the sense of the question unanimously entertained by all the other powers, but at that moment the cause of Egypt was extremely popular in France. The French were as passionately in favour of the Egyptians as they had been of the Greeks in 1828. Thiers had the weakness to yield to this clamour from without, and to ask for such large concessions in favour of the Pasha, as neither Lord Palmerston nor any of the other parties could for a moment concede; and hence was France excluded from the treaty of the 15th of July, and a European war very nearly being lit up upon the ridiculous point, whether the Egyptians were to retain in Syria the pashalik of Acre only, or the pashalik of Aleppo and Damascus also. The Austrians, as usual, understood the true geographical bearing of the question better than France and England; that power was satisfied with stipulating that the Egyptians should not hold the pashalik of Adana.

Thus, for the instruction of those who are implicit believers in the wisdom of great statesmen, were France and England on the very verge of going to war in 1840, for the same cause in which they are now acting as allies-mistrust of the Muscovite power. But though united on that point in 1840 as in 1855, they were disagreed as to the amount of concession to be granted to the Pasha. And upon so frivolous a pretext, and the humiliation of being excluded from the treaty, after sending

M. Eugène Périer upon a mission hors cadre to Egypt, was M. Thiers ready to involve all Europe in war. It is to be hoped that no question of concession of a port or a pashalik coming after the actual war may lead to any such misunderstandings as those which preceded the AngloTurkish assault upon the Egyptians in Syria in 1840.

There is not much in Dr. Véron's narrative that is new upon the question of the Spanish marriages, or the banquets which led to the revolution of February. Dr. Véron, as one of the rédacteurs of the Constitutionnel, received his invitation to the said banquets sur papier rose. It would have been more appropriate had the colour been of a darker hue. The National and Réforme papers of the 22nd had the audacity to publish the plan of the campaign; the position for the schools was indicated, the most favourable disposition of the different legions of the National Guard was even pointed out. The same day Paris was occupied militarily. Dr. Véron depicts the members of the opposition as positively terrified at the ghost which they had evoked. M. Odilon Barrot lifted up his hands to heaven and declared that he had nothing to do with it. MM. Duvergier, Maleville, and Berger, were full of regrets, and offering their assistance to the ministry. The banquet was given up. The secret societies, however, remained resolute in the intention of a projected movement. "I affirm this fact," says Dr. Véron, "to be

exact."

Dr. Véron studied the progress of the revolution from the windows of his apartment in the Rue de Rivoli. It does not appear very clear if he did not also penetrate into the Tuileries at the time of the sack of the palace. Certain it is that his description of the scene presented is exceedingly minute and detailed-quite that of an eye-witness-and the most curious and interesting documents published in the present volume were avowedly a result of the general pillage: only it is not said whether obtained at the time, or by purchase afterwards.

"Nothing was more easy to those who had ventured as far as the Place du Carousel, and to the mass of curious people every moment increasing," writes Dr. Véron, "than to advance first timidly, afterwards with more resolution, as far as the railings, and then the gates of the palace, and at last to penetrate into the interior."

Again, at another place, he describes the presence there of many curious persons, or at least amateurs of curiosities:

"Another flock of birds of prey had fallen down upon the palace of the Tuileries these were the amateurs of curiosities, dealers, all kinds of receivers of stray property. More than one of these effected a razzia, the produce of which are still secreted in drawers or libraries, till they can be brought out to open day or be sold in safety. The police-officers had to keep a sharper look-out upon these black-coats than upon the blouses. The common people were gratified to the full at being able to slip on the waistcoats or trousers of princes, but the black-coats kept their eyes and hands upon cabinets, pictures, drawings, seals and rings of great value."

Reminiscences of this remarkable pillage have, however, led us to anticipate events. If representative governments have one great advantage over despotisms, that the power not being centred in one person, there

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