LORD MALMESBURY'S SHOOTING JOURNALS.
Half a Century of Sport in Hampshire : being Extracts from the Shooting Journals of James Edward, Second Earl of Malmesbury. With a Prefatory Memoir by his Great-grandson, the Fifth Earl. Edited by F. G. Aflalo. (Country Life. 10s. 6d. net.)—James Edward, second Lord Malmesbury, who was born in 1778 and died in 1841, after tasting political life, which he found unpleasant, retired to Heron Court and there occupied himself with country affairs. The death of his wife left him inconsolable ; but he was devoted to shooting, and had a passion for statistics, which he recorded in four volumes of elaborate journals covering the years 1798-1840. With his own gun during these forty seasons he fired 54,987 shots, killed 38,454 head, and missed 16,533 times. In the same journals he records a few remark- able or trivial circumstances : double shots made, rare birds seen, foxes shot by himself or his keepers. He also reckoned that he had walked fully 36,200 miles, or nearly once and a half the circumference of the globe. The MS. journals are curious documents, and interesting to examine for an hour or two. Lord Beaconsfield described them as "the most extra- ordinary example of patience and a sturdy character he ever saw." That he would have thought it worth while to print and publish a book with extracts from them, we do not believe. But that is not our affair. The present Lord Malmesbury has written a short Memoir of his ancestor, and has made the most of the very slight materials at his disposal. Mr. Aflalo has edited the shooting journals, an angling diary—which is, if possible, less interesting than the shooting diary—and an incomplete record of the weather during some thirty summers—which is, if possible, less interesting than either of the other two. He has also written a chapter on the collection of stuffed British birds, which is a remarkable private one. We cannot say that the editor's notes and comments on the journals are instructive or much to the point. Perhaps we ought to condole with Mr. Aflalo on having undertaken the thankless task of spinning out in- sufficient material into a book of over two hundred pages. Nothing else could excuse the following, taken from the intro- ductory chapter on Heron Court, which was originally a farm belonging to the Priors of Christchurch :—" Now and again, no doubt, the ascetic plainness of fare exacted by the publicity of the conventual life grew irksome to the ghostly epicures of monastic England, and at such times they of Christchurch must have been grateful for the asylum of Heron Court. Thither, accompanied perhaps by the more important of their brethren, these meditative souls would repair to seek seclusion, free to feast to their hearts' desire on fat luces drawn from the rivers, and plump, hand-fed capons and toothsome wild-fowl snared in the lush meads, and to wash down their solid repasts with unstinted draughts of generous wine from over seas, or spiced beer of more homely brew." We have quoted enough. Even the journals themselves will disappoint the reader who expects anything that can compare with Colonel Hawker's diaries. The book is illus- trated with a dozen excellent photographs of portraits and places.
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