harmless physiognomy. It dwells in excavations, and supports itself as man does, by preying on creatures weaker than itself. Fish are its most congenial food; and in default of these it will invade the poultry-yard rather than starve. Of course, being a plunderer, men are justified in destroying it; and a merciful man will do so in the briefest manner; but it is not of mercy, alas! that we have now to write. We will not give the narrative in our own words, lest haply we might invest with a touch of pathos a plain description: we take it verbatim from a daily newspaper, as furnished by some privileged reporter, who seems to have entered heartily into the must we say royal SPORT?

'Lord ABERDEEN's otter hounds having been here for some days, and there being no chance of any otters being found in this part of the country, an otter was this morning brought over from Kelso. It had been sent for from Lord JOHN SCOTT, who arrived at the castle this morning. Orders had been given to accelerate all the usual movements of the household, in order that the sport might be seen as early as possible. At a few minutes after nine, however, a heavy rain began to fall, and it was feared that Her MAJESTY Would not be able to go out. Apparently, however, Her MAJESTY has learned to disregard all such inconveniences, and accordingly the orders were not countermanded. Sandy Macara was sent on to the outer gate with the pony, and Her MAJESTY and the PRINCE drove out a few minutes after to the spot from which the otter was to be started. Lord Charles WELLESLEY, Lord GLENLYON, and the Hon. Captain MURRAY attended Her MAJESTY on horseback; and the Earl of Aberdeen,

Lady CANNING, and Lady Caroline Cocks, also proceeded to the waterside in another carriage. Arrived at the spot, Her MAJESTY mounted her pony, although rain was pouring heavily at the time, and prepared to witness the sport along the banks of the stream. Lord GLENLYON held the pony, and the Hon. Captain MURRAY held an umbrella over Her MAJESTY. The otter was started at a point under the hill of Tulloch, in the Garray water, a few hundred yard above the village of Blair Athol. The PRINCE followed on foot close on the hounds, which hunted the otter a short distance up the river, affording pretty good sport, until at length, in about twenty minutes after the first start, he took to the land, and was seized by one of the hounds. The huntsmen took him off, and flung him back again into a deep pool. He darted to the other bank of the stream, where he earthed. Unearthed again by the huntsmen, and started afresh, he gave the hounds some trouble for about ten minutes longer, when they killed him, and he was speared in the usual way by the huntsmen. The otter, when fairly spent, crawled up the bank near where the QUEEN was, and the hounds of course were upon it. Her MAJESTY turned away her head while they were worrying the animal. The whole hunt was confined within a comparatively short distance, in order that Her MAJESTY might be better able to follow the sport throughout, and perhaps, on the whole, the hunt afforded a good specimen of the general characteristics of a scene so rarely seen by natives of the south. It is questionable, however, whether the otter, after so long a confinement in a close box, could have preserved the requisite spirit to afford a thoroughly fine hunt. The PRINCE and the

gentlemen of the suite, and the others who were present, followed the sport very keenly, and the scene was exciting in the extreme, from the deep baying of the hounds, the shouts of the huntsmen, the occasional yell of a dog that got a bite, and the anxious faces and rapid movements of the distinguished spectators.'

Ladies of England! would to GOD there were in you a heart to approach the throne of your Queen with a supplication that she would banish from her royal presence the pernicious advisers who led her into, who did not dissuade her from, an act like this. We have marked by the type two or three passages that it curdled our blood to read. The poor, terrified, tortured little creature, evidently a tame one, brought from its native retreat, long enclosed in a box, in dark, and debilitating confinement, was turned out into the dazzling light of day, in a perfectly strange place, amid the shouts of men, the baying of dogs, the wild clamour of its many cruel and most unprovoked foes. It was soon exhausted; it left the water, and yielded itself to the eager jaws of a dog that would have dispatched it, but SPORT enough had not yet been afforded to her Majesty, and a MAN wrested the bleeding little trembler from its fangs, and flung it back into the water. Again it sought refuge on the opposite bank : again it was torn out of the earth. Oh what a spectacle must it have presented then!-and pitched once more into the water; and then what did it? As though some pitying spirit had guided the creature, it crawled up the bank to the feet of its Queen! Did it know that a word from the Queen would have rescued it?

We do not, we cannot, we dare not pursue the

subject farther. Cruelty so unprovoked, cowardice so despicable, tyranny so heartless, should not have been permitted to defile the remote border of any precincts graced by the presence of a female sovereign. What then must we say to the nature and the power of that influence which could induce a young and delicate lady, who less than two months previously had again become a mother, to adventure her person and health under a heavy rain, in the midst of such a rout of dogs and men, for the sole purpose of witnessing the most torturing death that could be inflicted on one of the most humble, and in this case evidently the most inoffensive creatures of God over which she holds what ought to be a golden sceptre of mercy?

The otter might be supposed to appeal to the maternal feelings with some hope of commiseration. A naturalist, Professor Steller, who made no small waste of life in the pursuit of his study, says, "Often have I spared the lives of the female otters whose young ones I took away. They expressed their sorrow by crying like human beings, and followed me as I was carrying off their young, while they called to them for aid, in a tone very much resembling the cry of children. When I sat down on the snow, they came quite close to me, and attempted to carry off their young. On one occasion, when I had deprived an Otter of her progeny, I returned to the place eight days after, and found the female sitting by the river, listless and desponding; she suffered me to kill her on the spot, without making any attempt to escape. On skinning her, I found she had quite wasted away from sorrow for the loss of her young." Many other instances of devoted

attachment to their little ones might be adduced, but to what purpose?

It is an awful thing to familiarize royal minds with blood-shed, though it be but the blood of a wretched, puny animal, spouting out under the fangs of a dog; and they are traitors to God, to their Queen and to their country, who teach that royal lady to number among her enjoyments the dying shriek of the meanest thing that breathes. She cannot close her ears to that, though her eyes may be averted while the living, throbbing, writhing limbs of the creature are torn from its bleeding body; and the Eyes of the King of kings are NOT averted, while the fearful and marvellous work of Hir creative hand is thus wantonly mangled, and His own glorious attribute of mercy set at nought. They are traitors, who dethrone the Queen from the hearts of her subjects by making Her Majesty a partaker in such deeds as the very court chroniclers have blazoned all through the land, and through every court in Europe, every country where the English name is known: while, so far as the public can ascertain, not a voice is raised to speak in duteous and loyal phrase the truth that must be told, and must be welcomed too, ere the gloomy forebodings of coming evil can be dispelled from the minds of those who believe that "Mercy and truth preserve the king, and his throne is upholden by mercy."

CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH.