difficult, and the small gentry had not yet begun to make annual visits to London or fashionable watering-places. There were scattered over the country great numbers of small country squires, who lived upon their estates and whose income did not exceed 300l. a year. They belonged to a class which has now almost disappeared. The improvements in agriculture, the taxation occasioned by the American and the French wars were their ruin; for they had not enough capital to survive. Although they ranked with the gentry their manners were those of farmers. Their only amusements were field sports. To these people fox-hunting proved a most attractive diversion. They had no books; their knowledge of the world was limited to journeys to the county town for assizes or quarter sessions. Their only occupations were the management of their small properties and some attention to county business. The field sports which occupied their abundant leisure were not very numerous. Hawking, which was still popular after the Restoration, had gone out of fashion. Shooting had hardly come in, and game was not abundant enough to provide much sport. There remained hare-hunting. Stag-hunting, of course, was always confined to great nobles, to owners of large estates who could pursue the sport in the style and with the pomp which befit it. Moreover the cultivation of wastes and the enclosure of commons, which went on so industriously during the century, placed impossibilities in the way; and that grotesque, but harmless, parody of sport, the chase of the carted deer, has never been popular, except among dwellers in towns who want an excuse for galloping across country or along the roads.

To the eighteenth-century hare-hunter, fox-hunting came as a revelation which opened his eyes to a form of sport he had never imagined. The boldness of the fox, the endurance he could show when scent was good, the craftiness when hard pressed, the straight line he took when forced to face the open, offered a very pleasing contrast to the chase of the timid hare. But hare-hunting was such an attractive pastime to sportsmen of the old school, who cared only to watch their hounds work and puzzle out the line, that for a time it rivalled fox-hunting in popularity. In Somerville's classic poem The Chase,' which appeared in 1735, harehunting holds a place before fox-hunting. William Somerville was a Gloucestershire country gentleman, a Whig in politics, by instinct a lover of field sports, by nature a tolerable poet. He kept a pack of beagles, bred between the small harrier

and the southern hound. His fox hounds consisted of six couples, rather rough and wire-haired. But he also kept otter hounds, which in the winter season made an addition 'to the fox hounds.' Sir Robert Walpole, a statesman who opened before all other despatches the letters from his huntsman, was always a hare-hunter. At Houghton he kept a pack of harriers. At Richmond, at his house in the New Park, he kept beagles, with which he hunted every Saturday, and, when he could, another day besides. Hence, it is said, the reason why the House of Commons does not sit on Saturday. Many of the less famous packs did not give up the hare for the fox till a very late date. The original Vine hounds did so in 1791. But they were under the management of a very old-fashioned sportsman, Mr. Chute, who was only persuaded, long afterwards, to cut off his pigtail when the barber assured him that not more than six hairs connected the ribbon with his head.

There is an old and trite saying about fox-hunting bringing all classes together, which in earlier times may have had much truth in it; for in the days immediately before the fox became a recognised object of sport the aristocracy amused themselves with stag-hunting, while the country squires were content to pursue the hare. Such was the state of affairs when the first packs of fox hounds were established. The superior attraction of fox-hunting then brought many together in the field who before had followed different sports.

It is likely to remain matter of discussion when, and by whom, the first real pack of fox hounds was established. The earliest claim is set up on behalf of Lord Arundel of Wardour. A letter from his descendant is printed by Mr. Apperley in a note to his essay on The Chase,' which appeared in the Quarterly Review in 1832, and was afterwards reprinted. A pack of fox hounds,' wrote Lord Arundel to Mr. Apperley, were kept by my ancestor Lord 'Arundel between the years 1690 and 1700, as I have 'memoranda to prove.' These hounds, we know, hunted in Wiltshire and Hampshire, and the pack remained in the family till they were sold to the famous Mr. Hugo Meynell, who was the real father of modern fox-hunting. There is no evidence to show that Lord Arundel's hounds were only employed in the pursuit of the fox. The next claimant is Mr. Thomas Boothby, who certainly hunted foxes in Leicestershire about 1700. Nothing is known about his hounds or the nature of the sport he enjoyed. He lived at Tooley

Park, near Leicester. His horn is still in existence, and bears the inscription, With this horn he hunted the first 'pack of fox hounds then in England fifty-five years.' The 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1752 records the death of Thomas Boothby, one of the greatest sportsmen in England.' He is reported to have given to his parish church a peal of bells so tuned as to resemble the cry of a pack of hounds. Fielding, the novelist, was connected with this family of Boothby, and it has been suggested that Mrs. Boothby was the original of Sophia Western. Mr. Boothby left a granddaughter and grandson. The granddaughter married Mr. Meynell. The grandson was known as 'Prince' Boothby, who became celebrated for his hats which he declined to change with the fashion. He was a friend of Lord Carlisle, Mr. Fox, and others of that period. His end was tragic. After a breakfast of cold tea at his lodgings in Clarges Street and a ride in Hyde Park he blew out his brains because he was tired of the bore of dressing and undressing.' But 'Prince' Boothby was more celebrated as a dandy than as a fox-hunter. His father's claim to be the first to keep fox hounds is at least doubtful if we are to believe the story of the Wardour Castle hounds. There is also a belief that the Charlton hunt (which afterwards became the Goodwood pack) hunted foxes about the same date, and they may have done so before. The Brocklesby are also an ancient pack, and are spoken of as 'fox hounds' in a document of the year 1713. In this also appears the name of Pelham, with which family they are still connected.

6

Before the end of Queen Anne's reign fox-hunting had become a recognised sport in the country; and Addison, in the Spectator,' makes merry over it at the expense of Sir Roger de Coverley. His stable doors are patched with noses 'that belonged to foxes of the knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them, that for distinction's 'sake has a brass nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours' riding, carried him through half a 'dozen counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and lost ' above half his dogs. This the knight looks upon as one of 'the greatest exploits of his life.' At the end of George I.'s reign a certain William Draper got together a pack of fox hounds in Yorkshire. He is thus described in the Sporting 'Register,' and must have been a delightful character:

In the old but now ruinous mansion of Beswick Hall, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, once lived the well-known William Draper, Esq., who bred, fed, and hunted the staunchest pack of fox hounds in

Europe. Upon an income of only 7001. he brought up creditably eleven sons and daughters; kept a stable of excellent fox hounds, besides a carriage with horses suitable for the convenience of my lady and her daughters. He lived in the old, honest style of his country, killing every month a good ox of his own feeding and priding himself on maintaining a substantial table, but with no foreign kickshaws. His general apparel was a long dark drab hunting coat, a belt round his waist, and a strong velvet cap on his head. In his humour he was very facetious, always having some pleasant story, both in the field and in the hall, so that his company was much sought after by persons of good condition, and which was of great use to him in the advancement of his children. His stables and kennels were kept in such order that sportsmen observed them as schools for huntsmen and grooms, who were glad to come there without wages merely to learn their business. When they had obtained proper instruction he then recommended them to other gentlemen, who wished for no better character than Squire Draper's recommendation. He was always up during the hunting season at four in the morning, mounted on one of his nags at five, himself bringing forth his hounds, who knew every note of their old master's voice. In the field he rode with judgement, avoiding what was unnecessary, and helping his hounds when they were at fault. After the fatigues of the day, which were generally crowned with the brushes of a brace of foxes, he entertained those who would return with him, and which was sometimes thirty miles' distance, with old English hospitality. Good old October was the liquor drunk; and his first fox-hunting toast was All the brushes in Christendom. At the age of eighty years this gentleman died as he chiefly lived, for he died on horseback.'

Squire Draper had a daughter, appropriately christened Diana, who acted as his whipper-in, and is said to have been invaluable in the hunting-field. She died, unmarried, at a great age, and is buried near her father at Market Weighton. Another early master, who appears to have kept a pack of fox hounds in Dorsetshire about 1730, was Mr. Thomas Fownes. He lived at Stepleton, which was afterwards the home of Peter Beckford. His pack was later sold to a Mr. Bowes in Yorkshire, and all traces of them are lost. No doubt many modern packs owe something to them. Thus by the end of the first quarter of the century there were certainly a number of scattered packs entered to the fox; and, as we have said, fox-hunting appears by chance gradually to spring up among stag-hunting and hare-hunting. Mr. J. Otho Paget, in a very charming volume upon Hunting' which he has contributed to The Haddon Hall Library,' offers some observations on the origin of the modern fox hound.

'Though no hound had been devoted solely to the fox, and no regular packs were in existence, as they are now, nearly every noble

man and landed proprietor kept what were called buck hounds, with which they hunted deer, hare, fox, marten-cat, and anything that would show sport. Each owner of hounds went hunting whenever it pleased himself and guests. At Belvoir, Badminton, and other large houses these buck hounds had probably been bred with care for a great many years, and were handed down to successive generations as family heirlooms; but, as they were not confined to hunting one particular animal, the object for which they were to be bred was not very clearly defined. The consequence of this was that the individual who had charge of the kennel bred the hounds in the direction to which his own tastes pointed: thus one preferred the deer, another the fox, and a third the timid hare.'

When the modern style of fox-hunting grew up at the beginning of the eighteenth century there existed four distinct types of hound-the buck hound, the southern hound, the fox beagle, and the smaller blue-mottled beagle. Of these the buck hound most nearly resembled the fox hound of these days.

The southern hound had been bred for nose, and nose alone, so that in time he became an animal of very keen scenting powers, but of hideous proportion, and is now practically extinct. The bloodhound is undoubtedly a very near relation. . . . The old southerner had his good points, amongst which were voice and nose, but he lacked dash and drive; still his was the blood that helped to make the fox hound, and he therefore deserves honourable mention. The southern hound was chiefly used for hunting deer and hare, but I doubt his capacity for catching a deer unless he had a mixture of buck-hound blood in his veins. Long ears that swept the ground and a deep, belllike note were his chief features. With five or six couple of these hounds our ancestors were wont to hunt the hare in early morning. In spite of being slow for fox or deer they were too fast for the hare, and were therefore crossed with the little fox beagle to decrease the size. . . . The fox beagle, or northern beagle, was a small edition of the fox hound in disposition, full of fire and dash, but lacking substance. . . . The foot beagle of the present day also owes many of his good qualities to this ancestor, and it is the dash that he has transmitted to his descendants that now enables a pack of twelve-inch hounds to pursue a hare to death. Amidst Yorkshire dales and Cumberland fells the fox beagle was used for tracking the fox to his earth by shepherds and farmers, who followed the chase on foot, and who rejoiced in a kill, as much for the sport as for the safety of lamb-fold or hen-roost.'

Although it has now become impossible to trace the very early beginning of fox-hunting, a vast deal of literature has been published on the later history of the sport. Biographies of fox-hunters, pedigrees of hounds, systems of hunting, and histories of celebrated hunts have received the attention of authors. We have before us the histories of the Quorn, the