"TO BE DELIVERED IMMEDIATELY." ENGRAVED BY J. WESTLEY, FROM A PAINTING BY G. ARMFIELD. We remember some years ago-we'll not say "many;" for that would be neither just to ourselves nor correct to the reader-we remember then how, as schoolboys, we used to look for the monthly appearance of the N. S. M. with almost as much earnestness as to the vacation itself in prospective, or the next Saint Somebody due, whose graceship was to sanction us a day with the Oakley. We remember, too, particularly well, on one particular occasion, after scoring up a dozen or so of hexameters full of fine ideas and false quantities, falling pell-mell on a notice of Captain Medwin's "Angler in Wales." It was a dashingly-written de angling et quibudun aliis affair, and even more dashingly reviewed by, as we suspect, about the best sporting critic that ever "cut into" an author. Well, one of the notabilities of the volume is a certain "fair Cambrian" the gallant Captain makes his bow to--a double-dyed Di Vernon, who trains her own race-horses, quotes old Sam Chifney's "Genius Genuine," lands her own salmon, breaks her own setters, &c., &c., &c. She is "discovered," as the scene-shifters say, first of all in the old house at home, all ease, elegance, and full dress-with a rough terrier on the sofa beside her. We are coming to the point at last. In walks the Captain, ready to do the amiable; down. jumps the terrier, ready to bite his head off. "Lie down, Pepper!" says the lady to the dog, in a voice of authority; and then to the gentleman, with a sweet smile of welcome, "He won't hurt you, sir it is a fancy of mine to have him about me; for he comes of a good sort, and I like him much, for he's no varmint." "And here," remarks the most sagacious reviewer, "our gallant author makes a sad mistake; for a varmint terrier is just the thing he should have made his heroine dote upon." Exactly so; for a terrier that is "no varmint" is a good deal like a race-horse without speed, or a prize-fighter without pluck. A real rough-andready varmint terrier, that will face a fox, unpack a hedgehog, kill a cat, and settle a rat with just one twist of the teeth-that's a terrier, if you like; that's the sort the fair Cambrian ought to pet, and we to pourtray. Encore, then, here too our gallant artist has made a great mistake; for his terrier has little of the varmint in the act, however well he may promise it in the look. Mark young Clodpole, how he struts up to his "feyther," with the great grey-whiskered rogue in grain in his hand, and the triumphant Boxer at his heels. "Dang it, I say, feyther!" says he, " my little dog finished this here whopper in the barn, just now, in no time. An't he a good 'un?" Or fancy the unction with which the Etonian details to the helpers how "Bubble" and "Squeak" polished off old Mother Martin's great tom-cat, at the top of the Town Close. Or see Jack Joiner, the carpenter, make the most of a dog after he has done his duty in a go-in |