In pulpit Parson Hogg was strong,
He preached without a book, Sir!
And to the point, but never long,
And this the text he took, Sir!
O tally-ho! O tally-ho!
Dearly Beloved—Zounds, Sir!
I mounts my mare to hunt the hare!
Sing tally-ho! the hounds, Sir!
There is but one patch of false colour in this song, that which represents the hunting parson as strong in the pulpit.
Society—hunting society especially—in North Devon was coarse to an exceptional degree. One who knew it intimately wrote to me: “It was a strange ungodly company, parsons included, and that not so very long ago. North Devon society in Jack Russell’s day was peculiar—so peculiar that no one now would believe readily that half a century ago such life could be—but I was in the thick of it. It was not creditable to any one, but it was so general that the rascality of it was mitigated by consent.”