furious forgetfulness of the realities belonging to the case, has it
been possible for writers in public journals to persist in arguing
national questions upon the assumption of a bisection in our
population--a double current, on the one side steeped to the lips in
town prejudices, on the other side traditionally sold to rustic views
and doctrines? Such double currents, like the Rhone flowing through the
Lake of Geneva, and yet refusing to intermingle, probably _did_
exist, and had an important significance in the Low Countries of the
fifteenth century, or between the privileged cities and the
unprivileged country of Germany down to the Thirty Years' War; but, for
us, they are in the last degree fabulous distinctions, pure fairy
tales; and the social economist or the historian who builds on such
phantoms as that of a rustic aristocracy still retaining any
substantial grounds of distinction from the town aristocracies,
proclaims the hollowness of any and all his doctrines that depend upon
such assumptions. Lord Carbery was a thorough fox-hunter. The fox-
hunting of the adjacent county of Leicestershire was not then what it
is now. The state of the land was radically different for the foot of
the horse, the nature and distribution of the fences was different; so
that a class of horses thoroughly different was then required. But
then, as now, it offered the finest exhibition of the fox-chase that is
known in Europe; and then, as now, this is the best adapted among all
known varieties of hunting to the exhibition of adventurous and skilful
riding, and generally, perhaps, to the development of manly and
athletic qualities. Lord Carbery, during the season, might be
immoderately addicted to this mode of sporting, having naturally a
pleasurable feeling connected with his own reputation as a skilful and
fearless horseman. But, though the chases were in those days longer
than they are at present, small was the amount of time really
abstracted from that which he had disposable for general purposes;