far from the busy, money-getting world, to breathe empyreal air; to enjoy a sport that should be monopolized by princes--if, indeed, princes could be found deserving of such a monopoly! Every person the shooter meets with seems this day to have thrown off his sordid cloak, and to be divested of those meaner passions which render life miserable: all are now warm, open-hearted, frank, sincere, and obliging. The sportsman’s shooting-dress is a sibboleth, which introduces him alike to his superiors, to his fellows, and his inferiors: an acquaintance is formed at first sight: there are no distant looks, no coldness, no outpouring of arrogance, or avarice, or pride; but a happy rivalry exists, to eclipse each other in the number and size of birds killed--the chief object of emulation being to kill the finest old cock. Let us be understood to express that this happy state of things subsists only so long as the shooter’s peregrinations are circumscribed by the limits of his own or friend’s manor. The moment he becomes a borderer, a very different reception awaits him! To the sportsman in training, full of health and strength, and well appointed, it is of little consequence whether there be game or not. The inspiriting character of the sport, and the wild beauty of the scenery, so different from what he is elsewhere in the habit of contemplating, hold out a charm that dispels fatigue! He feels not the drudgery. To him the hills are lovely in every aspect; whether beneath a hot, autumnal sun, with not a cloud to intercept the torrid beam, or beneath the dark canopy of thunder-clouds; whether in the frosty morn or in the dewy eve--whether, when through the clear atmosphere he surveys, as it were in a map, the countries that lie stretched around and beneath him, or when he wanders darkly on, amidst eternal mists that roll continuously past him--still a charm pervades the hills. The sun shines brighter, and the storm rages more furiously than in the valleys! The very sterility pleases: and to him who has been brought thither by the rapid means of travelling now adopted, from some bustling mart of trade or vortex of fashion, the novelty of loneliness is agreeably exciting! The stillness that reigns around is as wonderful to him as the solidity of land to the stranded sailor! Scarcely is there a change of scene--stillness and solitude, hill and ravine, sky and heather, everywhere magnificent, the outline everywhere bold, and where the view terminates amid rocks and crags, frequently sublime! At noonday, near some rocky summit, perchance on the shepherd’s stone, the shooter seats himself, and shares his last sandwich with his panting dogs. We will suppose him to be on the boundary of the muir-lands: on one hand he sees an unbounded expanse of heathery hills, by no means monotonous if he will look upon them with the eye of a painter, for there is every shade of yellow, green, brown, and purple,--the last is