ss the woodlands be
preserved. The fox is a travelling animal. Knowing well that
"home-staying youths have ever homely wits," he goes out and sees the
world. He is either born in the woodlands, or wanders thither in his
early youth. If all foxes so wandering be doomed to death, if poison,
and wires, and traps, and hostile keepers await them there instead
of the tender welcome of the loving fox-preserver, the gorse coverts
will soon be empty, and the whole country will be afflicted with a
wild dismay. All which Lord Chiltern understood well when he became
so loud in his complaint against the Duke.

But our dear old friend, only the other day a duke, Planty Pall as he
was lately called, devoted to work and to Parliament, an unselfish,
friendly, wise man, who by no means wanted other men to cut their
coats according to his pattern, was the last man in England to put
himself forward as the enemy of an established delight. He did not
hunt himself,--but neither did he shoot, or fish, or play cards. He
recreated himself with Blue Books, and speculations on Adam Smith had
been his distraction;--but he knew that he was himself peculiar, and
he respected the habits of others. It had fallen out in this wise. As
the old Duke had become very old, the old Duke's agent had gradually
acquired more than an agent's proper influence in the property; and
as the Duke's heir would not shoot himself, or pay attention to the
shooting, and as the Duke would not let the shooting of his wood, Mr.
Fothergill, the steward, had gradually become omnipotent. Now Mr.
Fothergill was not a hunting man,--but the mischief did not at all
lie there. Lord Chiltern would not communicate with Mr. Fothergill.
Lord Chiltern would write to the Duke, and Mr. Fothergill became an
established enemy. _Hinc illae irae._ From this source sprung all those
powerfully argued articles in _The Field_, _Bell's Life_, and _Land
and Water_;--for on this matter all the sporting papers were of one
mind.

There is something doubtless absurd in the intensity of the worship
paid to the fox by hunting communities. The animal becomes sacred,
and his preservation is a religion. His irregular destruction is a
profanity, and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous. Not long
since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a
hunting country. He had mistaken it for a hare, and had done the deed
in the presence of keepers, owner, and friends. His feelings were so
acute a