POINTS OF CHARACTER.
A Prime Minister.
The late sir Robert Walpole was from his youth fond of field sports, and retained his attachment to them until prevented by the infirmities of age from their further enjoyment. He was accustomed to hunt in Richmond Park with a pack of beagles. Upon receiving a packet of letters, he usually opened that from his gamekeeper first; and in the pictures taken of him, he preferred being drawn in his sporting dress.
A Prelate.
Bishop Juxon, who attended Charles I. on the scaffold, retired after the king’s death to his own manor of Little Compton, in Gloucestershire, where, as Whitlocke tells us in his Memorials, “he much delighted in hunting, and kept a pack of good hounds, and had them so well ordered and hunted, chiefly by his own skill and direction, that they exceeded all other hounds in England for the pleasure and orderly hunting of them.”
A Huntsman.
Mr. Woolford, a sporting gentleman, as remarkable for politeness in the field as for the goodness of his fox-hounds, was one evening thus addressed by his huntsman: “An’ please your honour, sir,” twirling his cap and quid at the same time, “I should be glad to be excused going to-morrow to Woolford-wood, as I should like to go to see my poor wife buried.” “I am sorry for thee, Tom,” said his master, “we can do one day without thee: she was an excellent wife.” On the following morning, however, Tom was the first in the field. “Heyday!” quoth Mr. W., “did not I give you leave to see the remains of your poor wife interred?” “Yes, your honour, but I thought as how we should have good sport, as it is a fine morning; so I desired our Dick, the dog-feeder, to see her earth’d.”