LAYS OF THE DEER FOREST.
JOHN SOBIESKI and CHARLES EDWARD STUART, the authors of' these volumes, are already known by some researches into Highland history, and a work of fiction called Tales of the Century, which dimly intimated that a legitimate son was born to the Charles Edward of 1745-6, and his life preserved for a series of adventures then and there told. In the first volume of the work before us, the brothers Stuart have abandoned historical inquiry and prose fiction for "fancy's maze." Poems on a variety of subjects occupy the first of the two volumes : and some un- doubtedly are Lays of the Deer Forest, since the scene is laid there; but they have not a direct connexion with " venerie," like Somerville's Chase. Other pieces are of the usual miscellaneous kind, modified by the authors' habits and feelings. The second volume is an appendage to the poetry, as Scott's elaborate notes, which some readers preferred, formed addenda to his poems; and they mostly treat upon somewhat similar subjects— the animals and scenery of the Highlands, with the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the Highlanders. Apart from an interest which many may feel in the name of the authors, the volumes furnish a very remarkable instance of the difference between the real and the ideal : or it may strike the more from being brought into such close juxtaposition. In the Tales of the Century, the fiction, though probably more than intimating a foundation on fact, was not of a high kind ; and the Lays of the Deer Forest may be described in simi- lar terms. As far as externals are concerned, both prose and verse look and sound well enough ; but they are echoes of somebody else, or of seve- ral somebodies. In the Lays, the sentiments are pleasing and the verse is fluent; but it is imitative, and of rather a commonplace kind of imitation. The gods have not made the Stuarts poetical : the brother-authors have not been tempted to look inwardly on themselves, or outwardly on his- tory, life, and nature, by some power unconscious yet irresistible. They follow paths that others have opened up, and which have been pretty well trodden too since the first discoveries. Even the things that are to be seen along the road are looked at through the eyes of other people: they not only borrow subjects, mode, and style, but all that is contained within and between those three important sections of an imaginative work. Thus, " The Templar's Tomb," a Highland story by Charles Edward, is not so much an imitation of Scott as a counterfeit : had the fashion of Sir Walter's verse lasted, the piece might have been written to pass for his. In like manner, John Sobieski, when giving utterance to individual feelings and speaking darkly of injuries, is indebted for the idea of the plaint as well as tbr its cast of diction to Byron's " Dream," and similar personal effusions of the egotistical lord. In other cases, where the resemblance of the subjects is not so great, the brothers hardly suc- ceed so well as when they have stronger arms to lean on; but there is generally a touch of imitation. " To Ireland," where the two brothers club their forces, seems to recall the Nation newspaper : but it may be fancy, owing to the similarity of the topics, and a kindred feeling as re- gards the " Saxon " doings of the past.
When we turn to the prose illustrations of the second volume, all this is changed. The feeling is individual and independent, the matter de- rived from original observation or tested by an original judgment; the general deductions are large and broad ; the particular anecdotes, inci- dents, or stories, apt and well told, though occasionally the hunting nar- ratives may be over-particularized, and rather, like the chase, run down. It is of no use saying that the observations and studies of a life have been put into the notes : the matter was in the mind, and equally available for poetical purposes had the poetical testus been there, which would have seized upon subjects akin to its genius, and wrought out modes congenial. There is no overcoming deficiency of imagination. "One thing thou lackest."
Many of the topics of these notes are small and antiquarian ; but the larger ones, of which we have been speaking, branch out into long and ela- borate essays. Some are on Highland sports and the natural history of the animals pursued by the sportsman. The note on the title, "Lays of the Deer Forest," occupies above a hundred and fifty pages, and treats of the various modes of hunting stags and roebucks mingled with many remi- niscences of the sport ; goes popularly into natural history as regards the habits and powers of the animals, with the freshness of a keen and de- lighted observer; and describes the process of shedding and renewing the horns with more anatomical precision. Otters and other animals, with a glance at extinct races, are handled in the pages : a particular " forest" introduces a description of those antique woods, daily sinking before the
advance of civilization, with stories of adventures there, and what may pass as the explanation of a haunted grove. Dwarfs and other supersti- tions are not overlooked: the enormities of 1746 are again brought upon the scene, together with Highland traditions and clan histories. In short, a selection from the prose of the second volume would form an agreeable series of papers, at once instructive to the sportsman and at- tractive to the general reader. It is needless to say that the Stuarts are no friends to modern inno- vations, or to Lowland or Southron sportsmen. Nfr. Scrope is taken to task for having said that " the forester is often in the way," when it is the poor Southron, who has " to be taken up to the deer," that is always in the way, with his nervousness and his ignorance. Such men, and the spirit of the age which prompts sheep-breeding and like moneymaking arts, are the cause of infinite mischief. They have between them narrow- ed the forests ; they have dwarfed the size of the stags, and have all but rendered the true Highland greyhound an extinct race,—a consummation that now seems inevitable from the paucity of families from which to
breed.
The monied usurpers by themselves cause another eviL
"The decline in the breed of greyhounds has been gradually accelerated in the depraved corruptions introduced by the foreign tenants of deer forests; who, ignorant of deer and their dogs, under the vain expectation of producing a breed of track-dogs which should unite in a high degree the opposite excellencies of speed and scent, with an increase of courage, have induced their greyhounds into base mongrels, by crossing them with hounds, mastiffs, and bull-dogs. The courage of the deer greyhound is naturally of the highest order; and when it has degenerated with the preservation of the other noble qualifications of the breed, it can only be recovered by. a restoration of true blood in the same species. By the mixture of the Goodrich introductions, ferocious bull-baiting tigers may be raised; but as these fighting devils have neither scent nor speed, their alliance early neutralizes the principal qualification either for tracking or running."
People of this stamp, or " Highlanders " as degenerate as their grey- hounds, operate upon the noble stag by another process.
"Sheep are the greatest enemies to deer, by diminishing their already restricted haunts, disturbing their repose, and deteriorating their beet peeturea. For all these causes, the gallant natives of the bill detest the sordid and encroaching in- ' traders, and will not inhabit the same ground with large flecks. A remarkable instance of this antipathy was observed in the end of the last century by an old drover, familiarly called 'An drdbhair bin,' when crossing one of the great moors XS Sutherland, soon after the first 'head' of sheep had been introduced into Lord Ray's country. The narrator was surprised by the appearance of a large CO- ItUZU1 of nearly a thousand deer passing out of the country in a steady and deter- mined emigration. Disgusted by the invasion of sheep and dogs, they had col- lected from all parts, and, unable to find clean ground, continued their march to the West, dispersing into the most solitary glens, from whence they never re- tained. This determined abhorrence to sheep does not arise merely from the dis- taebance of their collies. The deer are very delicate in their food, and exceedingly fastidious in the purity of their pasture; independent, therefore of the severe diminution of their best provision caused by the close feeding of bre sheep, they cannot endure the oily rancour of their wool, and the additional abomination of its to and butter."
Notwithstanding the sporting chivalry of the authors, there seem to us one or two modes of pursumg game which smack too much of pot practice. We should have thought the following stratagem fitter to be adopted by a stag of 'Change Alley than to be recommended by a Stuart. "In large woods, undisturbed by general felling, but where woodmen's carts are in the habit of passing, the deer may be successfully stalked in their company. Familiarized to their appearance, and never harmed by these plodding visitants, they soon learn their inoffensive character, and become careless of their approach: thus, by taking an empty cart and its driver through the wood, the stalker will be tted to advance within rifle range under its cover, and may take his shot behind the cart at his leisure. 111 this instance, accustomed to the halts of the vehicle, the deer do not, as in ordinary stalking, regard the pausing of the peasenger; and the empty cart is a ready conveyance for his car ass. This method is an excellent means of approaching large solitary stags; for though with herds its frequent repetition would create jealousy in the survivors of the hots, with single individuals the death of the only object leaves no fugitive atemicicrn of the cart."
In the following little anecdote there is something of pleasing relief to the " blood, blood, blood, !ago" of much of the rest.
"In the middle of the thicket there was a group of young trees growing out of a carpet of deep moss, which yielded like a down pillow. The prints of the doe's slender forked -feet were thickly tracked about the hollow; and in the centre there was a bed of the velvet fog,' which seemed a little higher than the rem, but so natural that it would not have been noticed by any unaccustomed eye. I care- fully lifted the green cuehioa, and ander its veil, rolled close together, the bead of each resting on the flank of the other, nestled two beautiful little kids; their large velvet ears laid smooth on their dappled necks, their spotted sides sleek and shining as satin, and their little delicate legs as slender as heals wands, shod with tiny glossy shoes as smooth and black as ebony; while their large dark eyes looked at me out of the corners with a full, mild, quiet gaze, which bad not yet learned to fear the hand of man; still they had a nameless doubt which followed every motion of mine; their little limbs shrunk from my touch, and their velvet fur rose and fell quickly: but as I was about to replace the moss, one turned its head, lifted its sleek ears towards me, and licked my band as I laid their soft mantle over them. I often saw them afterwards when they grew strong and came abroad upon the brae; and frequently I called uff old Dreadnought when he crossed their warm track. Upon these occasions he would stand and look at me with wonder, turn his bead from side to side, snuff the ground again, to see if it was possible that he could be mistaken; and when he found that there was no disputing the scent, cock one ear at me with a keener inquiry, and -seeing that 1 was in earnest, trot heavily onward with a sigh."
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