his we we cunnin, pinkin, glimmerin een, an’ catchin him ‘bith stump o’ th’ tail as he were gooin in an’ handing as long as he could,” as James said.  O, it was a very caricature of a caricature.  But list, I hear them scuffle, they are coming out.  Notice the monkey shaking his “bit staff;” here they come like a chimney swept in a hurry, they are out.  “What a gernin, glowerin, sneerin, deevilitch leuk can a tod gie when hee’s keepit at bay just afore he slinks off,” exclaimed the poet, as Reynard was stealing away; but yonder they go before the wind, down the sweeping, outstretched glen, like smoke in a blast.  Ay, there they go, two stag hounds, monkey, and grew, and Toby yelping behind; what a view we have of them—­the grew is too fleet for him, he turns him and keeps him at bay till the hounds come up; now they are off again, and now we lose them, vanished like the shadow of a dream.

We followed, and on our way we met a herdsman, with his eyes staring like two bullets stuck in clay, or rather two currants stuck in a pudding:  he said he had met “the deevil, a’ dress’d like a heelanman o’ tod huntin;” of course we laughed from the bottom end of our very bowels; but that was not the way to undemonize him, no, he pledged himself that he saw him “wi’ his own twa een lowp off the shoather o’ a thing lik a snagged foal, an’ gie the tod such a dirl ’ith heed, that he kilt him deed’s a herrin, an’ we micht a’ witness the same by gannin to the Shouther o’ Birkin Brae.”  And truly it was as he said, for we found the mark of the little Highlandman’s shillela on the fox’s head, while he himself was sitting a straddle on him, like “the devil looking over Lincoln Minster,” and the dogs lying panting round about.

On our road home to Hogg’s we paid a visit to a wild-cat’s lair in the Eagle’s Cragg, and of all the incarnate devils, for fighting I ever saw, they “cow the cuddy,” as the Scotch say; perfect fiends on earth.  There was pa and ma, or rather dad and mam, (about the bigness of tiger-cats, one was four feet and a half from tip to tail) and seven kittens well grown; and O, the spit, snarl, tusshush and crissish, and mow-waaugh they did kick up in their den, whilst in its darkness we could see the electricity or phosphorescence of their eyes and hair sparkling like chemical fire-works.  But I must tell you the rest hereafter, for my paper is out!

W.H.

* * * * *

FINE ARTS.

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MR. HAYDON’S PICTURES.

Mr. Haydon has nearly completed his Xenophon, which he intends to make the nucleus of an Exhibition during the present town season.  The King has graciously lent Mr. Haydon the Mock Election picture; (for an Engraving of which see Mirror, vol. xi. p. 193,) for the above purpose.  There will be other pictures, of comic and domestic interest by the same artist; among which will be Waiting for the Times, (purchased by the Marquess of Stafford;) The First Child, very like papa about the eyes, and mamma about the nose; Reading the Scriptures; Falstaff and Pistol; Achilles playing the Lyre; and others, which with a variety of studies, will make up an interesting Exhibition.