xcept that he is grown
more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. I cannot conclude, sir,
without informing you that I have lately introduced a dog to his
acquaintance, a spaniel that had never seen a hare, to a hare that had
never seen a spaniel. I did it with great caution, but there was no real
need of it. Puss discovered no token of fear, nor Marquis the least
symptom of hostility. There is, therefore, it should seem, no natural
antipathy between dog and hare, but the pursuit of the one occasions the
flight of the other, and the dog pursues because he is trained to it;
they eat bread at the same time out of the same hand, and are in all
respects sociable and friendly.--Yours &c.,

W. C.

"_P.S._--I should not do complete justice to my subject, did I not add,
that they have no ill scent belonging to them, that they are
indefatigably nice in keeping themselves clean, for which purpose nature
has furnished them with a brush under each foot; and that they are never
infested by any vermin."

Our readers know his fine verses or epitaphs on his hares. We may quote
from the biographer to whom Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington
left all their papers and memoirs, a sentence or two on Cowper's hares,
and on the other pets of that lovable man. Earl Stanhope[176] says of
this poet and "best letter-writer in the English language--"Such,
indeed, were his powers of description and felicity of language, that
even the most trivial objects drew life and colour from his touch. In
his pages, the training of three tame hares, or the building of a frame
for cucumbers, excite a warmer interest than many accounts compiled by
other writers, of great battles deciding the fate of empires. In his
pages, the sluggish waters of the Ouse,--the floating lilies which he
stooped to gather from them,--the poplars, in whose shade he sat, and
over whose fall he mourned, rise before us as though we had known and
loved them too. As Cowper himself declares, 'My descriptions are all
from nature, not one of them second-handed; my delineations of the heart
are from my own experience, not one of them borrowed from books.'"

HAIRS OR HARES!

A gentleman on circuit, narrating to Lord Norbury some extravagant feat
in sporting, mentioned that he had lately shot thirty-three hares before
breakfast. "Thirty-three _hairs_!" exclaimed Lord Norbury; "zounds, sir!
then you must have been