given of his habits is that he equally divided his time between these duties, his books, and the sports of the field, to which he was greatly attached. He has celebrated one of these sports in his poem on shooting, to which he prefixed a motto from Virgil, singularly appropriate to an invention not dreamed of when the lines were written.
"Volans liquidis in nubibus arsit
Signavitque viam flamrais."
The poem is written in smooth heroics, and is as good as any didactic poetry on such subjects can very well be. After invoking "Sylvan Muses," and paying a tribute to Somerville, the author of "The Chase," he lays down special laws to be observed by sportsmen; and although he indulges an occasional digression, as, for instance, the story of Atys and Adrastus, he keeps in the main closely to his subject. We will give the reader one specimen.
""When the last sun of August's fiery reign
Now bathes his radiant forehead in the main,
The panoply by sportive heroes worn
Is rang'd in order for the ensuing morn;
Forth from the summer guard of bolt and lock
Comes the thick guêtre, and the fustian frock.
With curious skill, the deathful tube is made,
Clean as the firelock of the spruce parade:
Yet let no polish of the sportsman's gun
Flash like the soldier's weapon to the sun,
Or the bright steel's refulgent glare presume,
To penetrate the peaceful forest's gloom;
But let it take the brown's more sober hue,
Or the dark lustre of the enamell'd blue.
Let the close pouch the wadded tow contain,
The leaden pellets, and the nitrous grain;
And wisely cautious, with preventive care,
Be the spare flint and ready turnscrew there;
While the slung net is open to receive
Each prize the labours of the day shall give."
He enters with as much elaboration of detail, as in this passage, into the comparative merits of partridge, phea-
