hunting countries that have been but that will never be again; and I have heard it hinted that this is in part to be attributed to one influential person in ita man of yesterday. Should this be the case, it would be well that he were shown up, in terrorem, to others. It is a good-I might say an excellent-country for hounds, being low-land one, as level as a billiard table," as a writer under the signature of Dormin called it, and with the exception of here and there a deep drain, with soft banks, and its being tender and deep after much rain, not a difficult one to ride over. a rich In the year 1825, Mr. Hodgson's hounds did a day's work most creditable to their condition; they found a fox in Arnold's gorse, when just as they were running into him, at the end of an hour and ten minutes, over a fine country, chiefly grass, and without having had a single check, a fresh one jumped up in view, and he was killed in the sea, at the end of an hour and twenty minutes, best pace, with only one short check. Then, as a set-off against this nearly unprecedented day's sport, I have to record one of extraordinary ill luck. But then there was something ominous, as well as singular, in the start, inasmuch as the fox was found in one church-yard, and killed in anther. Little, however, did one of the best riders in the field-a gentleman farmerthink that a third was to contain his mortal remains, in the course of a few hours. On his road home, his horse dropped down dead, with his rider under him, and being unable to extricate himself from the pressure, he was found a corpse. It is conjectured that the animal might have broken a blood-vessel, in the run, which occasioned his death; and when it occurs from this cause, it often happens, that a horse makes violent but fruitless exertions to rise again, which might account for the catastrophe in this case. But In Mr. Hodgson's first season in Leicestershire, he laboured under the disadvantage of a huntsman not quick enough for his country, and -as was particularly the case, in one or two splitters-his fox was lost for want of the huntsman being up to give the hounds a cast. it was evident, that when a scent served, his hounds had pace enough for the quickest of his quick field-for example, the burst from Shankton Holt to Staunton Wood, when all the horses were stopped in the first twenty minutes; and the Coplow day, the season before the last, when the hounds beat the whole field. In the last season, however, the evil of a slow huntsman was remedied in the exchange of Webb, who is now with Colonel Cater's hounds, in Surrey, for Tom Day, late huntsman to the Warwickshire, who is fast enough for any of his field, and as I hear, now and then makes some of the best of them look about them, in a quick thing over a strong country. And he made a very good start in the season, having killed his fifteen brace of foxes in cub hunting; although he was, afterwards, as regards himself, unfortunate in fracturing his collar bone, by a fall in a fast thing from one of the Widmerpool covers. Could Mr. Hodgson be cut down, as the ship masters say in the dock yards, and shortened, and his nerves be well braced, to continue the dock yard phraseology, there need be no better huntsman in the field; but it is in the kennel that, in my opinion, he is pre-eminent. Indeed, he himself goes so far as to say, that with management, that curse on hounds, kennel lameness, may be avoided in all kennels, although he admits that in some it may be a difficult task. The principal features in his management are, no washing after hunting, and frequent turning them off their benches, to the extent of every second hour during the days they do not hunt, and in the winter months when the evenings are very long, now and then by moonlight. I know he practised this last proceeding when I was at Beverley, fourteen years ago, and his having continued it to the end of his career,-at least endeavoured to do it, for Webb was rather slack on such occasions,— proves that it is beneficial, as no man has suffered less from what is called kennel lameness than he has. In his Bishop Burton kennel, as well as that in Beverley, he had not one case, whereas at Quorn he had a few, which he attributed to Webb not following up his system of frequently turning hounds from off their benches. Some distemper attacked his hounds in the Quorn kennel last season, which carried off three or four couples of his dog hounds, the bitches escaping it at the time; but they were subsequently afflicted, the dog hounds escaping. This happened in the frost. I am quite of Mr. Hodgson's opinion as to the probability of lameness being produced by hounds being washed on the evening of hunting days. If washed at all, it should be on the following day; but I cannot go quite the length that this good sportsman does, and say that any management will entirely protect hounds from what is called kennel lameness, in all kennels. Still, his precautionary practice is well worthy of the notice of all brother masters; and there cannot be a doubt but the frequent turning hounds from off their benches, not suffering them to be left in the grass yard, in the winter, with not too large but warm lodging rooms, (not heated by stoves,) are great preventives of any complaints to which the muscular parts of hounds are liable. It grieves me to think of Mr. Hodgson being without hounds; the fish out of water is not more out of his element; but it equally grieves me to think that there was not enough of spirit-of the love of foxhunting I should rather say-in the first hunting country in the world, to retain a pack of hounds that had been found efficient, even at the price which an excellent judge gave for them, no bad criterion of their being worth it to others. This, however, I lament, strengthens my prediction, that should the days of fox-hunting not be numbered, it is evidently on the wane, supplanted, as I foretold it would be, by that barbarous and unsportsmanlike practice of steeple-races, and gallopping after turned-out stags. That England will rue the day when these predilections are confirmed, no dispassionate mind can doubt; and it is a severe reflection on the moral reputation of the age, that nothing in the way of amusement which has not money for its chief object has enough of excitement to be generally supported by those who were wont to be gratified in a way much more congenial with the character and feelings of English gentlemen. MASTERS OF HARRIERS. SIR JOHN DASHWOOD KING-THE REV. MR. YEATMAN-MR. HAY, OF LATHAM GRANGE—MR SIR JOHN DASHWOOD KING. THERE is nothing infra dig in this notice of masters of harriers; for although, having made my debut as a sportsman under the wings of the late Sir Richard Puleston, who was at that time a great contemner of hare-hunting, I was, as it were, taught to look down upon them when placed by the side of masters of fox-hounds. I have always given them credit where credit was their due. And as to hare hunting, no sportsman should despise it, because all the essential excellencies of hounds, as well as the skill of the huntsman, are called into play in the pursuit of the hare, and it is to be lamented that circumstances have arisen to cripple if not to destroy this favourite pastime of our forefathers, in several parts of Great Britain, by the unreasonable preservation of game. I have seen a great many masters of hare-hounds in my time, and have no hesitation in proclaiming the head man. Sir John Dashwood King is he, and I say this without the slightest notion that any one will dispute the fact. And moreover, I assert this not on hearsay, but on a good deal of experience of him during the many visits I used to pay to his hunting box at Bourton-on-the-hill, near Moreton-in-the-Marsh, where he kept harriers for nearly thirty years, and where his father kept them before him. I venture to say, no man bred and managed a pack of harriers equal to Sir John Dashwood. He bred at least seventy couples every year, and the pains he took in drafting them to size and pace, were worthy of a better cause. But let me hold hard here. Why depreciate his exertions? According with the well-known axiom that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well, if Sir John took as much pains with his harriers, as his neighbour did with his foxhounds, to make them perfect, all praise is due to him. That they were perfect, both to the eye and in their work, all persons who hunted with them will NO. XXIV.-VOL. IV.-NEW SERIES. 2 x admit, and I can adduce one testimony to their merit, which has been already recorded by my pen, having been given in my presence. After a beautiful run, I heard the Earl of Warwick, then Lord Brooke, and accustomed in those days to see the best fox-hounds in England, declare that he had never seen hunting until that day. This we must admit was a momentary ebullition of joyous feeling, produced by the beautiful burst; but certainly the way in which these hounds drove and turned with a scent, and the head they carried, could not fail of eliciting the highest admiration from any one who knew how hounds ought to do their work. And the manner in which they were hunted by Dick Adamson, was very different to any that I saw either before or since, being more after that of the fox-hunter than the hare-hunter! He never allowed them to dwell on the scent, but had them whipped to him in his casts, which he made with extraordinary judgment. Then the pace of these animals, (though not more than nineteen inches,) was extraordinary, and by the way in which they drove their hares out of their knowledge of the country, the extent of their runs was at times almost incredible. Not a season passed without one of nine or ten miles of ground, from point to point, being run over, and I appeal to Mr. Lindow and other hard riders and correct judges of pace, whether the best horses in England would not occasionally have enough to do to live with Sir John Dashwood's harriers. Again, few packs had such a chance to distinguish themselves by the advantages of the countries they hunted over,-one being a rich vale, renowned for scent, the other a stone wall plain, of great extent, well preserved by the sporting yeomanry who occupied it, and most favourable to the display of hounds. And how did Sir John requite the kindness of those sporting occupiers and preservers? Why, in a way worthy of imitation. No hunted hare was ever put on his spitnever, indeed, taken into his house. Dick had a list of the hare preservers and occupiers of the land hunted over, and each had a hare in his turn-often twice in the season. Sir John Dashwood's entire hunting establishment was in the best taste, and conducted on a most liberal scale. He kept ten hunters for himself, and his two men; and the manner in which the latter were turned out was excellent, with their clean leather breeches, white-topped boots, and best London saddles and bridles, which give an excellent finish to the horseman, be he gentle or simple. There was, exclusive of beautiful symmetry, a high strain of blood observable in Sir John Dashwood's harriers, which I have never seen in any other pack, unless they could be traced to his kennel; and the nearest to his sort were those of Mr. Yeatman, of Stock House, Dorsetshire. Sir John attributes the greater share of the excellence of his sort to a dwarf hound of the Duke of Grafton's, called Tyrant, from whom, and his descendants, he bred largely, and which no doubt gave them that true fox-hound appearance, although on a comparatively lilliputian scale as to form, which they displayed both to the eye and in their work. MR. YEATMAN, OF STOCK HOUSE. NEXT on the roll of fame in this department of hunting, stands the Rev. Mr. Yeatman, of Stock House, Dorsetshire, who was a master of harriers both before and after he was a master of fox-hounds. His style of harriers is first-rate, of rather a larger size than Sir John Dashwood's, from whose sort he bred, but showing a deal of high foxhunting blood in a symmetrical form, and only wanting the substance which the nobler animal possesses, and which he ought to possess from the nature of the game he pursues. Few men have understood the science of hare-hunting better than Mr. Yeatman does; and his Down country (the Dorsetshire Downs) being celebrated for the stoutness of its hares, the runs with his hounds have oftentimes resembled those with fox-hounds, both in the extent of country and in pace. MR. HAY, OF LATHAM GRANGE. THE mention of the two foregoing packs reminds me of that of Mr. Hay, of Latham Grange, which I considered very clever indeed when I saw them on my Northern Tour, and at once detected the Yeatman and Dashwood blood-accounted for by Mr. Hay by his having purchased them of a gentleman named Vibart, of Ambred House, near Taunton, which place is within easy reach of the Stock House kennel. These hounds had been showing great sport for several seasons previously to my seeing them, killing from sixty to seventy-four brace of hares in a season, and eating them all, by permission, excepting ten brace. I was shown on the map the extent of one run these hounds had-from point to point nine miles, with the extreme points right and left, at least four, which would give a total amounting nearly to fifteen miles, in the course of which the hare swam a strong stream, and passed straight through several covers! MR. HARRIES OF CRACKTON HALL, NEAR SHREWSBURY. WHEN on my second Tour in 1825, I saw a very clever pack of harriers in the field, the property of this gentleman, who had then been possessed of them for twenty-seven years. They were very well appointed, and Sir Bellingham Graham and myself saw a beautiful burst with them of forty minutes, with blood. Mr. Harries confined his pack to fifteen couples in the field, saying that in an enclosed country such as his, more were only in the way, and in danger of being ridden over by the spiry young gentlemen who hunted with them. He showed his judgment here; for if fourteen couples do not kill a hare, forty cannot. |