"Hold hard! hold hard! you'll lame the dogs!"

Quoth Huggins, “so I do;

I've got the saddle well in hand,

And hold as hard as you!"

Good lord! to see him ride along,
And throw his arms about,

As if with stitches in the side
That he was drawing out!

And now he bounded up and down,
Now like a jelly shook ;

Till bumped and galled-yet not where Gall

For bumps did ever look!

And rowing with his legs the while,

As tars are apt to ride;

With every kick he gave a prick

Deep in the horse's side!

But soon the horse was well avenged
For cruel smart of spurs,

For, riding through a moor, he pitched
His master in a furze !

Where, sharper set than hunger is,

He squatted all forlorn;
And, like a bird, was singing out

While sitting on a thorn!

Right glad was he, as well might be,
Such cushion to resign:
"Possession is nine points," but his

Seems more than ninety-nine.

Yet worse than all the prickly points That entered in his skin,

His nag was running off the while The thorns were running in!

Now had a Papist seen his sport,
Thus laid upon the shelf,
Although no horse he had to cross,
He might have crossed himself.

Yet surely still the wind is ill
That none can say is fair;

A jolly wight there was, that rode
Upon a sorry mare!

Now seeing Huggins' nag adrift,

This farmer, shrewd and sage,
Resolved, by changing horses here,
To hunt another stage!

Though felony, yet who would let
Another's horse alone,
Whose neck is placed in jeopardy
By riding on his own?

And yet the conduct of the man
Seemed honest-like and fair;

For he seemed willing, horse and all,
To go before the mare !

So up on Huggins horse he got,
And swiftly rode away,

While Huggins' mounted on the mare
Done brown upon a bay!

And off they set in double chase,
For such was fortune's whim,
The Farmer rode to hunt the stag,
And Huggins hunted him!

Alas! with one that rode so well
In vain it was to strive;

A dab was he, as dabs should be—
All leaping and alive!

And here of Nature's kindly care

Behold a curious proof,

As nags are meant to leap, she puts A frog in every hoof!

Whereas the mare, although her share

She had of hoof and frog,

On coming to a gate stopped short
As stiff as any log;

While Huggins in the stirrup stood
With neck like neck of crane,
As sings the Scottish song-" to see
The gate his hart had gane.'

And, lo! the dim and distant hunt
Diminished in a trice :

The steeds, like Cinderella's team,

Seemed dwindling into mice;

And, far remote, each scarlet coat
Soon flitted like a spark-

Though still the forest murmured back
An echo of the bark!

But sad at soul John Huggins turned :
No comfort could he find;
While thus the "Hunting Chorus" sped,
To stay five bars behind.

For though by dint of spur he got
A leap in spite of fate-
Howbeit there was no toll at all,

They could not clear the gate.

And, like Fitzjames, he cursed the hunt,
And sorely cursed the day,
And mused a new Gray's elegy

On his departed gray.

Now many a sign at Woodford town

Its Inn-vitation tells :

But Huggins, full of ills, of course
Betook him to the Wells,

Where Rounding tried to cheer him up With many a merry laugh :

But Huggins thought of neighbor Fig, And called for half-and-half.

Yet, spite of drink, he could not blink
Remembrance of his loss;

To drown a care like his, required
Enough to drown a horse.

:

When thus forlorn, a merry horn

Struck up without the door-
The mounted mob were all returned;
The Epping Hunt was o'er!

And many a horse was taken out
Of saddle, and of shaft;

And men, by dint of drink, became
The only "beasts of draught."

For now begun a harder run

On wine, and gin, and beer;
And overtaken men discussed
The overtaken deer.

How far he ran, and eke how fast,
And how at bay he stood,
Deerlike, resolved to sell his life
As dearly as he could :—

And how the hunters stood aloof,
Regardful of their lives,

And shunned a beast, whose very horns
They knew could handle knives!

How Huggins stood when he was rubbed
By help and ostler kind,

And when they cleaned the clay before,
"remained behind."

How worse

And one, how he had found a horse

Adrift a goodly gray!

And kindly rode the nag, for fear

The nag should go astray;