Of this world’s pleasure I have had my share,
A few of the sorrows I was doomed to bear.
How oft have I enjoy’d the noble chase
Of hounds and foxes striving for the race!
But hark! the knell of death calls me away,
So sportsmen, all, farewell! I must obey.

Our next is written on Mills, the huntsman:—

Here lies John Mills, who over the hills
Pursued the hounds with hallo:
The leap though high, from earth to sky,
The huntsman we must follow.

A short, rough, but pregnant epitaph is placed over the remains of Robert Hackett, a keeper of Hardwick Park, who died in 1703, and was buried in Ault Hucknall churchyard:—

Long had he chased
The Red and Fallow Deer,
But Death’s cold dart
At last has fix’d him here.

George Dixon, a noted fox-hunter, is buried in Luton churchyard, and on his gravestone the following appears:—

Stop, passenger, and thy attention fix on,
That true-born, honest, fox-hunter, George Dixon,
Who, after eighty years’ unwearied chase,
Now rests his bones within this hallow’d place.
A gentle tribute of applause bestow,
And give him, as you pass, one tally-ho!
Early to cover, brisk he rode each morn,
In hopes the brush his temple might adorn;
The view is now no more, the chase is past,
And to an earth, poor George is run at last.

On a stone in the graveyard of Mottram the following inscription appears:—

In the memory of George Newton,
of Stalybridge,
who died August 7th, 1871,
in the 94th year of his age.
Though he liv’d long, the old man has gone at last,
No more he’ll hear the huntsman’s stirring blast;
Though fleet as Reynard in his youthful prime,
At last he’s yielded to the hand of Time.

Blithe as a lark, dress’d in his coat of green,
With hounds and horn the old man was seen.
But ah! Death came, worn out and full of years,
He died in peace, mourn’d by his offsprings’ tears.
“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

In the churchyard of Ecclesfield, may be read the following epitaph:—