He never plumed his wings to lofty flights, nor sought the refinements of Art where Nature's bounty could be obtained. As he lived superior to ambition or interest, he fell no sacrifice to party rage or political malice; but, after the long enjoyment of unsullied reputation, withdrew from the stage on which he had performed his part so well. Blush not, whosoever thou art, that with the poring eye of P. Gemsegel or W. Toldervey[1] does decypher these letters, to receive instruction from the example of a PHEASANT. [1] Two old and respectable correspondents of Mr. Urban (in _The Gentleman's Magazine_). Only a man of singular thoughtfulness and sweetness of nature would thus go to the trouble of celebrating his pets. Modern poetry contains many such tributes, notably Matthew Arnold's poems on Geist and Max, and Matthias the canary; but little of Gough's tenderness and solicitude had come between his own day and that of the bereaved gentlemen of the Greek Anthology, how many centuries earlier. That is to say, in literature; but, in fact, I suppose, men have always loved their pets with equal depths. There is a dead partridge in the Greek anthology:-- No longer, poor partridge migrated from the rocks, does thy woven house hold thee in its thin withies, nor under the sparkle of fresh-faced Dawn dost thou ruffle up the edges of thy basking wings; the cat bit off thy head, but the rest of thee I snatched away, and she did not fill her greedy jaw; and now may the earth cover thee not lightly but heavily, lest she drag out thy remains. That pairs off with Mr. Cough's pheasant, and indeed may have given him his inspiration. And here are two epitaphs on favourite dogs, also in Mr. Mackail's beautiful translation:-- Here the stone says it holds the white dog from Melita, the most faithful guardian of Eumelus; Bull they called him while he was yet alive; but now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night. And Thou who passest on the path, if haply thou dost mark this monument, laugh not, I pray thee, though it is a dog's grave; tears fell for me, and the dust was heaped above me by a master's hands, who likewise engraved these words on my tomb. Richard Gough of course knew these, and, as I say, he very probably took his inspiration from them; but the circumstance does not diminish the beauty of his own affectionate thoughtfulness in composing epitaphs of his own and having them cut in the stone. Nichols, who, of course, after his quaint manner, buries all the human characteristics of his antiquarian and scholastic friends in the small type of the footnotes, gives also a model address of a candidate to his constituents as prepared by Mr. Gough for a friend who thought to contest a seat. It is a brief but amusing document, obviously the work of a golden-hearted, pure-minded recluse, removed by nature and circumstances far from the turmoil of ambitious men. It runs thus:--