“Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour” is valuable for our purpose because it illustrates so many sides of English country life. The hero is a somewhat shady adventurer who spends half the year in hunting and the rest in talking about it, and is famed for being a guest whom, once you get into your house, it is impossible to eject. He hires his hunters, and sells them if he can at a profit; and, as he can ride almost anything, he is able to show a vicious brute to the greatest advantage, sell him for a good sum, and then make a great favour of taking him back. He generally succeeds in getting invitations, partly because he is supposed to be a rich man, and also on account of a rumour, of which, to do him justice, he is unaware, that he is able to give people, anxious for notoriety, a good notice in the newspapers. One can almost smell the English country in winter time as one reads the book and in imagination plough one’s way, as the dusk draws on, through the muddy lanes on a tired horse after a long run, which has left one several miles from home with the short winter day closing rapidly. Or, one can feel the exhilaration which the sight of a fox gives when he goes away with the hounds at his heels, apparently their certain prey, and then vanishes as he slips through the next fence, not to be caught, if caught at all, for many a long mile. The author’s description of the different houses visited by Mr. Sponge in his tour gives no bad idea of rural life and sport in the “fifties.” The first house which Mr. Sponge honours is Jawleyford Court, inhabited by Mr. Jawleyford, a gentleman of good lineage, but only moderate means, on which he manages to make an appearance of living in great state. Jawleyford, as his name implies, is a pretentious fellow, apparently hearty and hospitable, but very deceptive to those who come in close contact with him. He poses as a man of culture and refinement, and also as an ardent devotee of the chase. Sponge cares for only one thing on earth, and that is hunting; and he is emphatically a man of one book, namely, a work on London cab fares by a certain Mogg--whether the title is an invention or not, I do not know. When Mr. Sponge has nothing better to do, he takes this work and studies imaginary drives about London, amusing himself by calculating the price of each. One can imagine how this ill-assorted couple--Sponge, who cared for nothing but hunting, and Jawleyford, who liked to pose as a man of culture and refinement--got on together. But Mrs. Jawleyford was impressed with the idea that Sponge was a man of wealth and was a most eligible suitor for one of her pretty daughters. Consequently she received her guest with much hospitality, and gave him a hearty welcome. The first day was unsuitable for hunting; and Sponge had to amuse himself in the house with his host, who conducted him over his picture gallery, and was intensely disgusted when Sponge failed to recognise the bust of