Be this as it may, as regards the Homeric age, the use of the hound for this purpose solely was unknown in later times, as may be inferred from what Xenophon says on the subject. It is to this accomplished Athenian, the general, the philosopher, the friend of Socrates and Plato, and at the same time ardent sportsman, that we are indebted for the earliest treatise on huntinga treatise equally interesting to the sportsman and the scholar. Banished from Athens, Xenophon settled himself at Scillon, in the neighbourhood of Olympia, where, having religiously applied the fund devoted to that purpose by the retreating army, out of the money made by the sale of their prisoners, in dedicating and endowing a temple to Artemis, and appointing an annual festival in honour of the goddess, he diverted himself with hunting as well as literature, and composed this treatise, known by the name of the Kunegetikos. It treats of three kinds of hunting-hare-hunting, staghunting, and boar-hunting; but the work is principally devoted to hare-hunting, which was plainly the favourite sport of the author, who evidently would not have agreed with the poet Thomson, when he says: sure. Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare. The work in question gives the fullest account of this form of hunting; but the sport is certainly not such as, according to our ideas, would be deemed sportsmanlike. It consists not in the fairly running down the hare by the hounds assisted by the skill of the huntsman-a result which, according to Xenophon, seldom occurs, and which he seems to think it too much to expect-but in driving the hare, by means of the hounds, into nets placed to receive her, where, when entangled in the net, she is to be knocked on the head by an attendant stationed there for the purpose. But though this mode of hunting may be repugnant to an English sportsman, it is impossible to read this treatise otherwise than with interest and pleaAn account is given of the nature and habits of the hare, which even a naturalist might study with advantage, and in the course of which the author appears to be worked up to an enthusiastic admiration of the creature, the destruction of which is the very subject of his work. Οὕτω δὲ ἐπίχαρί ἐστι τὸ θηρίον, ὥστε οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐκ ἂν, ἰδὼν ἰχνευόμενον, εὑρισκόμενον, μεταθεόμενον, ἁλισκόμενον, ἐπιλάθοιτ ̓ ἂν εἴ του έρῴη. ‘So charming an animal is it, that no one, who sees it either tracked, found, followed, or caught, but must lose all thought of all else he cares for.' Elaborate directions are given for the construction and use of the different nets, and for the breeding, choice, and training of the hounds, which he divides into two sorts, one of which he ascribes to a cross between the dog and the fox, and of which he speaks with contempt; the other, which he calls the Castor hound-as being the breed with which Castor himself used to hunt-and of which a detailed description is given-probably the Spartan or Cretan hound, which would seem to have been of the same or a very similar species. We have then full directions to the hunter for finding and pursuing the hare, and a most animated description of the chase. We all but see and hear the hunter, on starting the hare, or when the hounds are on the scent, cheering and calling out to them—ἰῶ κύνες, ἰῶ κακὰς, σαφῶς γε ὦ κύνες, καλῶς γε ὦ κύνες, εὖγε, εὖγε, ὦ κύνες, ἕπεσθε ὦ κύνες. He is especially warned not to head the hare, as being a sure way to spoil the sport. He is to call to his hounds by name, in tones of encouragement or reproof, as the occasion may require. The whole scene is portrayed with a degree of vivacity equalled only by the elegant simplicity of the diction. : Xenophon next treats of stag-hunting, for which he recommends the employment of Indian hounds, as being large, strong, swift, and high-couraged, and so best suited for work. But he proposes to pursue the sport in a way which we should deem highly unsportsmanlike. He recommends the use of a foot-snare (Tоdоσтρáßn)—a sort of wooden trap, the construction of which it is not very easy to understand or explain, but which the Egyptians appear to have used centuries before, and which Sir Gardner Wilkinson tells us the Arabs use to this day to this contrivance a noose is to be attached. When complete, the trap is to be placed in the track of the deer, below the surface of the ground, and carefully covered over with earth and leaves, so that, stepping on it, the foot of the deer may be caught, and the animal, unable to disengage it, may be compelled to drag the wooden log after it. Coming afterwards with his dogs and finding the trap gone, the hunter is to follow the track it will have left on the stones and ground, and with the aid of his hounds will soon come up with the deer, which, its progress being thus impeded, will fall an easy prey. Not but what, if it proves to be a stag, Xenophon advises that it should be approached with caution, as the animal can strike furiously both with horns and feet. It should therefore be killed from a distance with darts and javelins. It is remarkable that Xenophon makes no mention of the use of the bow. With him Artemis would no longer be loxtaipa. Nor in treating of hare-hunting does he speak of the throw-stick (the λaywßóλov), which, as we know from other sources, the Greek hunter used with effect to knock over the hare when he could get within reach of her. The third form of hunting treated of by our author is that of the wild boar, which, as described by him, was of a formidable nature, and the preparations for which required to be of a corresponding character. The nets must be of greater strength. The heads of the javelins used by the hunter must be broad, and sharp as razors, the shafts must be of hard wood. The spears should have an iron head, five palms long, VOL. VIII.--No. 44. Q Q strongly guarded by cross-bars. And the prudent advice is given not to hunt alone, but always in company. The hounds should be, not of a common sort, but Indian, Locrian, Cretan, or Spartan. A Spartan hound, these hounds having apparently been remarkable for keen scent, is to be first employed to find the boar, the rest being carefully kept back. Generally speaking, when found by a single hound, the boar, Xenophon tells us, does not condescend to rise from his lair. The hunters are then to take advantage of this to spread the nets around him; having done which they are to set the hounds on him, but, if possible, at sufficient intervals to allow him to pass between them, so that he may not kill or injure more hounds than can be helped, the object being to get him entangled in the nets, in executing which the hunters are to assist by shouting and throwing darts and stones at him. When he is well entangled in the net, one of the boldest and most skilful of the hunters is to attack him with his boar-spear-an operation, however, which requires great dexterity and care. The blow is to be struck with the right hand, while the spear is supported by the left. But in this dangerous sport hunters, as well as hounds, sometimes perished. Woe betide the hunter if the boar, by turning his head, should succeed in averting the stroke, and should knock the spear out of the hunter's hand. Great and imminent is then the danger. The only resource of the hunter is said to be to fall flat on his face. The boar will endeavour to raise him with his tusks, in order to rend him therewith, and, if he fails in this, will trample on him, and possibly trample him to death. The wild sow, being without tusks, will always, under such circumstances, endeavour to trample on the prostrate hunter. The peril can only be averted by some brother sportsman coming to the rescue, and attacking the beast with his spear, and so diverting its fury from the fallen man. But this must be done with caution, lest the spear thrust at the boar should injure the man whom it is intended to protect. Many hunters as well as hounds, Xenophon tells us, found their death in this perilous amusement. Lions and other beasts of prey are beyond the scope of our author's treatise. He disposes of them, therefore, in a few words. Lions, panthers, lynxes, bears, and the like, he tells us, are not to be found in Greece, but in foreign parts; some in Nysa, which is above Syria; some on the Mysian Olympus, and Pindus, and the mountain ranges between Thessaly and Epirus; some on the Pangean range of mountains between Macedonia and Thrace. The mountainous districts of Thessaly and Thrace, in which, as also in Macedonia and Epirus, the abundance of wild animals made the inhabitants of these countries hunters par excellence, were especially productive of bears. Ovid makes mention of the Hæmonii ursi' as a savage species. The known fierceness of the Thracian bear gave occasion to the spirited lines of our Chaucer : Right as the hunter in the regne of Thrace, Or, as finely paraphrased by Dryden : So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear, Lions and the other beasts of prey were destroyed, Xenophon proceeds to tell us, as they could not well be hunted in these mountainous districts owing to the roughness of the country, by means of aconite, as poison, mixed with the food they liked, and placed near the water or other places they were in the habit of frequenting. Sometimes they were caught in pitfalls, a she-goat being tied to the spot over which the beast had to pass, to attract him by her cries. Sometimes the animals, coming down into the open country by night, were then surrounded by men and horses, and taken, not without danger to the hunters. Xenophon concludes his interesting treatise by an eloquent but somewhat exaggerated eulogy of hunting. According to him, the chase is the source of health to the mind as well as the body. It makes men strong, hardy, active, fit for labour, manly, bold, courageous; it prepares and fits them for war and for their country's service; it diverts them from mischievous and demoralising habits and pursuits, and, giving a healthy tone to the mind, tends to make men virtuous and happy. So much for the hunting of the Eastern world in ancient times. We pass on to the West; and here the Romans claim our first attention. Not indeed as hunters-for the Romans cannot be said to have ever taken to the sports of the field in the spirit of the East. It is— strange to say-as jurists, rather than as hunters, that the Romans. have a claim to our attention in connection with the present subject. It is with the Romans that we first find any question raised as to the relative rights and obligations of the hunter and the owner of the soil, inter se, a matter fully discussed and settled by the Roman jurists, and as to which their views have been accepted by the nations who have adopted the Roman law. But we must reserve the consideration of this not altogether unimportant topic, as well as of the view of the subject taken by our own jurists, to a future occasion. A. E. COCKBURN. THE UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF PARTIES. THE political bewilderment which followed the General Election was primarily the effect of surprise. The victors were profoundly astonished at their own success, though most of them speedily convinced themselves that they had anticipated and predicted it all along. The most confident-and they were very few-found their anticipations so far exceeded by the event that they could not in decency claim the credit of soothsayers. Like the hero of the Arabian tale who spurred his enchanted steed to leap the brook and was suddenly lifted far above the moon, the triumphant party hardly knew whether to exult in the magnitude of their majority or to look upon it with inward misgiving. Four months have since passed away; the new Parliament has been worked hard, and at the end of its first session the main result of its toils is that it has inspired the public mind with a vague sense of disquietude, and an apprehension of coming change. Men cast about to discover the causes of the barrenness and the instability of politics, and they fasten, according to their temper or their partisan feelings, upon different political phenomena. Some find the disturbing influence in the blunders of the Government, others in the obstructiveness of the opposition; others, again, in the indiscipline of parties, or in their subjection to external dictation, in the excessive accumulation of public business, in the recklessness of one school of politicians, in the timidity of a second, in the obstinacy of a third, in the perversity of a fourth. There is a leaven of truth in all these criticisms; but they touch the effects, or, at most, the secondary causes, which operating at the same time, though in different directions and degrees, are combined in the confused and unsatisfying result. It is necessary, however, to search deeper for the root of the evil. Parliament has not now for the first time to contend with the difficulties which have nullified the force of a great majority in its opening session. Can any one suppose that if Mr. Gladstone's Government had been strong with the strength which carried through the legislation of 1869 and 1870 the history of the past four months would have been what it was? The ministry would have overborne all obstacles, even those created by their own |