hem with the name of sports. They arm cocks with artificial
weapons, which nature had kindly denied to their malevolence, and with
shouts of applause and triumph see them plunge them into each other's
hearts; they view with delight the trembling deer and defenceless hare,
flying for hours in the utmost agonies of terror and despair, and, at
last, sinking under fatigue, devoured by their merciless pursuers; they
see with joy the beautiful pheasant and harmless partridge drop from
their flight, weltering in their blood, or, perhaps, perishing with
wounds and hunger, under the cover of some friendly thicket to which
they have in vain retreated for safety; they triumph over the
unsuspecting fish whom they have decoyed by an insidious pretence of
feeding, and drag him from his native element by a hook fixed to and
tearing out his entrails; and, to add to all this, they spare neither
labour nor expense to preserve and propagate these innocent animals, for
no other end but to multiply the objects of their persecution.

What name would we bestow on a superior being, whose whole endeavours
were employed, and whose whole pleasure consisted in terrifying,
ensnaring, tormenting, and destroying mankind? whose superior faculties
were exerted in fomenting animosities amongst them, in contriving
engines of destruction, and inciting them to use them in maiming and
murdering each other? whose power over them was employed in assisting
the rapacious, deceiving the simple, and oppressing the innocent? who,
without provocation or advantage, should continue from day to day, void
of all pity and remorse, thus to torment mankind for diversion, and at
the same time endeavour with his utmost care to preserve their lives and
to propagate their species, in order to increase the number of victims
devoted to his malevolence, and be delighted in proportion to the
miseries he occasioned. I say, what name detestable enough could we find
for such a being? yet, if we impartially consider the case, and our
intermediate situation, we must acknowledge that, with regard to
inferior animals, just such a being is a sportsman.

JENYNS.

* * * * *

PETER THE HERMIT, AND THE FIRST CRUSADE.

It was in Palestine itself that Peter the Hermit first conceived the
grand idea of rousing the powers of Christendom to rescue the Christians
of the East from the thraldom of the Mussulman, and the Sepulchre of
Jesus from the rude han