The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-22 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Tales and Traits of Sporting Life. By Henry
Corbet. One Vol. Pp. 202. Rogerson and
Tuxford, 246, Strand.
Since Charles Apperley, the famous Ninzrod,
and Charles Bindley, the hilarious Harry Hieover,
we have had no such sporting writer as Henry
Corbet, the writer of this most exhilarating book of
Turf Sketches. " Tales and Traits of Sporting Life"
as he calls them, these sketches have been collected
together from the pages of Bells Life in London,
of the sporting magazines generally, and of
Dickens's All the Year Bound in particular. Let
ui premise, at once, while drawing attention thus
pointedly to what we have found to be so really
delightful a volume of Sporting Sketches, that the
writer of it—Mr Corbet—is to 119 a mere name
upon a title-page. And, what is yet more to the
point, let us add, to this acknowledgment of ours,
that, until now, we were wholely unacquainted
with him, with his mere name, that is, as a sport
ing writer, although among these " Tales and
Traits" of his, we have, to our exceeding satisfac-
tion, recognised one or two papers read by us when
they were first published (anonymously) in one
or other of the periodicals already mentioned—
in Bell's Life, if we remember rightly, or it may
have
,been in All the Year Bound. We have
now recognised, we say, one or two papers so read
by us, without any knowledge then on our part as
to their authorship—papers so delightful in their
Way, so entirely to our own liking, at least, that we
possess to this day clippings from them, clippings
carefully preserved among our collection of News-
paper paragraphs. To be plain, we find that we
have thus, for example, already set apart, now, two
or three years ago, for pleasant reference to after-
wards, whenever we might so list to refer them—
fragmentary extracts from Henry Corbet's wonder-
fully graphic description of the late Fulwar Craven,
one dubbed by the writer of it " A Bit of a Cha-
racter !" A description that we had no notion (until
now) was Henry Corbet's when it chanced to be
first read by us—was it not in Bells Life in Lon-
don P Again we say of this sketch in particular
—now, upon our reperusal of it—a wonderfully
graphic description ! As graphic even as E. Core
bet's marvellous little coloured vignette portraiture
of "Fulwar Craven" himself—out upon the Downs
(with Fly-by-night, we may suppose, or Long-
waist, visible in the distance)—talking with a red-
cloaked gipsy-woman. Nay, to our " mind's eye"
—having often seen the man himself, and that, too,
in the days of his glory,when he was, intleed, in every
sense of the phrase, " A Bit of a Character"—H.
Corbet's pen-and-ink sketch of Fulwar Craven is
more vividly realistic as a life-like sketch than E.
Corbet's coloured vignette sketch of him, but just
now mentioned. Never were Lord Byron's words,
from the famous slang stanza in "Don Juan," so
aptly quoted as they are here by our author, as
directly applying to Fulwar Craven—
', So prime, so flash, so nutty, and so knowing I"
Yonder is the very man before us, with, as Mr
Corbet expresses it, that " slang defiant yet some-
how thoroughly sportsman's air about him!''
"Character"—as our Younger Nimrod has it—even,
as it were, "in the careless cock of his
(Fulwar Craven's) battered white hat—in
the wisp-tie of his crimson bandana, in the
half-open striped waistcoat, and the loose cut of
his brass-buttoned brown coat, with another
fogle flying from the pocket of it l'' Almost
equally decisive, it is added, were his drab breeches
and gaiters—" emphasised," as the latter were,
"by being carefully pulled down at the back to
show some inches of pink silk stocking !"
And so, too —in this wonderfully lifeslike
sketch—in regard to the mention made of the big
brooch in the shirt, the purple jacket in the hand
(together with the orange cap, Fulwar Craven's
jockey-colours on the race-course), the roving
glance—" a deal of devil in the eye, a life's story in
his very walk and bearing"--et voila ! the owner
of Deception ! the swell ex• Captain Craven! the
Game Evergreen ! as ready, says Mr Corbet—i❑ this
inimitable portraiture of his. of Fulwar Craven when
in his prime—" as ready still as any of you for a
bout, a lark, or a drink I" liere,already—even while
quoting thus fragmentarily from these "Tales and
Traits of Sporting Life"—we rest assured that we
have given our readers a flevourous taste of our au-
thor's quality ! And equally satisfied are we, that
even brief extracts like the foregoing will be recog-
nized by the more discerning, es affording the amplest
justification of the commendatory words already pros
nuanced by us upon the radiant, animated, capital
style in which Henry COrbet handles the pen as a
Sporting Writer. If he handles the ribbons only but
one half as well, he must be a splendid Whip ! How-
ever that may be, it appears to us perfectly manifest
—estimating our author's capabilities from the mere
manner of the man—that he is, to the backbone, a
thorough sportsman ! Oae ready alike—according to
the mere chance of the opportunity—to throw a fly,
to wing a partridge, or to clear a five-barred gate
—equally at home, as he must surely be, in the
saddle, among the stubble, or by the weedy
margin of the trout-stream. Those who turn to
his pages for arnuiement, will find ample store of
that same, closely compacted into this exhilarating
little half-crown volume, in which he sketches off,
besides Fulwar Craven, divers other• dead and gone
glories of the turf, man as well known in their time
as " John Gully," Pugilist and Member of Parlia-
ment—as " Old John Day," of his kind A 1 among
jockeys and trainers or as that other wearer
of the peaked skull cap and the silk jacket, " The
Last of the Chifneys I" Commend us, too—for
capital bits of fun—to our author's record, here, of
`The Love Bird" and "The H ird-up,"of "A Second
Fox" add "The Belles of Swindon." Such capital
Tales and Traits they are— these Sketches of Sport-
ing Life by Henry Corbet—that all sporting readers
who know them not already, will have reason to
thank us, after a perusal of them, for having thus
heartily commended these same Sketches to their
consideration.

BROTHER OF GENERAL LEE.—Rumour has it
that Captain Lee, a brother of the great Confederate gene •
ral of that name, is presently enjoying the fishing at Glen-
elg, in the West Highlands. He will find the prosecution
of the piscatorial art in a quiet Higland glen far more plea-
sant work than that in which his illustrious brother is
engaged at Petersburg.—Dg Courant.

A RIGMAROLE A POLOGUE l--related (apparently
by the Ghost of Mr Roundabout) in the Saturday
Review,—A lawyer with a taste for casuistical speculations
was one day walking over a common. He heard a noise
by the roadside, which appeared on examination to proceed
from a battle between a rabbit and a weasel. The wease
had the rabbit by the throat, axed it was drumming furiously
on the weasel's back with its forepaws. The lawyer began to
doubt whether he should interfere or not. By interfering he
would save the rabbit's life; but he would also deprive the
weasel of his dinner, which he was earning in the natural
way of his business: By not interfering, he would neglect
to save the life of the rabbit, which, as compared with de-
priving the weasel of his dinner, would produce a balance
of pain. It appeared to the lawyer, who was a practical
man as well as a casuist, that under these circumstance
the rabbit ought to have the benefit of the doubt ; and in-
stead of following the advice of ono of his own profession
who, when a notorious rogue was defended by an ingenious
quibble, proposed to "hang the man and save the point,"
he saved the rabbit's life from his antagonist, and als o
saved the point whether he had done right for further con-
sideration. Upon !affection, he arrived at the satisfactory
conclusion that he had done right, on tho ground that the
individual act produced more pleasure than pain, and that
it did not, and from the nature of the case could not, tend
to establish an injurious precedent. It', in order to save
the life of the individual rabbit, it had been necessary to
lay down the general principle that all rabbits ought to have
their lives protected against all weasels, he would have been
wrong ; for to affirm such a principle would have been to
interfere with the established order of nature whereby it is
ordained that rabbits should be the prey of weasels. Bu t
the particular act had no such meaning. rho lawyer had
not the remoteet intention of becoming a knight-errant ou
the part of rabbits in general against weasels, nor did he
even intend to set up a company for that purpose' His
connexion will the subjeci:oegan and ended with that par-
ticular interference, the plain result of which was life to
the rabbit, and a countermand of dinner to the weasel ;
and it was hundreds, perhaps thousands to
would never see such a sight again as long one that he
as be lived.
WIIALES.—WhiIa the Bar wick clipper the Tweed
was lying becalmed off the Porno Islands on Sunday end
Monday, it was surrounded during these days by as large
a shoal of whales as has been seen off our shores at this
season for many years. Tho sailors deplore they had no
harpoon on board, as they might possibly have bagged
some of these monsters of the deep. The presence of whales
is generally a sign of great eboals of herrings,—Beeweek
Advertiser,

oti,s
(11" r
E intik

HER MAJESTY.

OSBORNE, August 20.
The Queen, accompanied by Prince and Princess
Louis of Hesse, drove out yesterday afternoon.
AUGUST 21.

Tile Queen and Princess Louis of Hesse drove
out yesterday afternoon, attended by Lady Port-
man and Lieut.-Colonel Du P;at.
The Lord Chancellor arrived at Osborne and had
the honcur of dining with the Queen and royal
family.
Divine service was performed at Osborne this
morning by the Rev. G. Prothero before her Ma-
jesty, their Rayal Highnesses Princess Louis of
Hesse, Princess Helena, Princess Lcuse, end
Prince Leopold.

The Prince and Princess of Wales in

Scotland.
On Monday the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
Cambridge, Lord Hamilton, Col. Curzon, and pia'
jor Teesdale went to the moors, and made good
bags. The Prince shot 25 brace, the Duke of Col'
bridge 33, and Lord Hamilton and Colonel Curzon,
who shot in company, bagged 68 brace, 2 snipes'
and 1 hare. On Tuesday morning the Duke of
Cambridge and Col. Carzon left for Brechin Castle,
and the Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess
Mary of Cambridge, and the other ladies and gee"
tlemen of the suite went to Lochmuich to the
fishing, returning in the evening by Birkall. The.
Princess enjoys her u3ual walks and drives.
grand ball was to be given by their Royal EDP'
nesses at the Castle on Friday evening.

Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess
Louis of Hesse will cake leave of her Majesty on
Saturday
afternoon on their return to Germany. Their royal laigh-
nesses will embark either at Woolwich or Gravesend.
The Maharajah Dauleep Singh and the MAha"
ranee are expected to arrive at his highness's estate,
Elveden, near Thetford, Norfolk, in the course of next
month.
His Excellency Count Von Bernstoiff is residing
at Carlsbad, where he will remain some weeks for the bene•
fit of the waters. During his excellency's absence from
London the business cf the embassy will be conducted 11
Katte, the first secretary.
His Excellency Prince de Latour d'Auvergne is
still res Ping at Vichy, where ho will remain until the Bth
Sept., when he will prcceed to the department of Vienne'
and preside at the council general.
Toe Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch left their
residence in Belgrave-square on Saturday last for Dalhe,ith
Palace, near Edinburgh, on their way to Drumlanrig•
loft
Ladies Victoria and Margaret Scott had previously
town for Scotland.
The Duchess of Hamilton is residing at Baden.
weiler, a small watering-place on the Upper Rhino. Her
Grace was honoured by a visit from the Queen of Prussia
on Wednesday last.
It is stated that the Earl of Coventry is about to
be married to Lady Blanche Craven, third daughter of the
Earl and Countess Craven.
Viscountess Jocelyn and the Hon. Misses Jocelyn
have left town for the Continent.
Count and Countess Gurowski de W'tzele have

left Eaton-square for Scotland.
Lord Aveiand and the Hon. Miss Heathco:e have
arrived at the Portland Hotel, Southaoa, from Beigrave-
tquhro.