We cannot help being struck with the number of packs that come under the letter B in this volume, no less than twenty-three of them, including the Duke of Buccleuch’s, in Scotland; and the letter C comes next with over twenty.
The Earl of Yarborough has the proud distinction of being the owner of a pack that through eight generations has been handed down lineally as a private pack to the present day, and from 1714 its kennel book has been maintained carefully. It is, indeed, hard to say how much foxhunting owes to such splendid sportsmen as the Pelhams have been in their care and breeding of hounds. The Yarborough pages in this book are a revelation to sportsmen who appreciate what a landowner can do with 60,000 acres within a ring fence, and able to indulge to the full in hereditary tastes.
Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s pack, the Wynnstay, is another instance of the success of a territorial magnate successfully forming an historic pack and country.
The Quorn, the head and front of fashion, that has led the way among the daring hard-riding spirits of Great Britain for more than 200 years, is most ably dealt with in this volume. From the days of John Boothby in 1700, and of old Hugo Meynell, who succeeded him in 1753 up to 1800, there have been twenty-five masters of the Quorn who have one and all handed down their names to posterity as worthy of note, and have earned the gratitude of many thousands of men who have in their time satiated their ambitions over those Leicestershire pastures, where the oxer still holds its own, and wire is treated as a noxious weed. The picture of old Hugo Meynell and his old huntsman, Jack Raven, is inimitable; you can see there the characters of those two aged sportsmen discussing the pros and cons of the day, and can fancy how fully they are entering into it. Let us leave that Meltonian chapter with all its particulars and prints to the full appreciation of its readers.
The Cottesmore is scarcely a less interesting chapter. Founded by the Noel family at Exton Park in 1753, that adjoins the village of Cottesmore, from which it takes its name, it soon came into the Lowther family, and was hunted for a long series of years by the first Earl of Lonsdale. Then we find Sir Richard Sutton at the head of affairs, followed by Sir John Trollope, afterwards Lord Kesteven, and Mr. Henry Greaves—always in high feather—with its glorious sweet-scenting country, its grand woodlands, strong foxes, and expansive acreage of upland pastures. Surely, if any country in the world is made for the sport of kings, that country is the Cottesmore, which now enjoys the acme of sport, and worthily so.
We long to dwell on the Atherstone, the Meynell, the Oakley, the Grafton, Lord Harrington’s, Lord Galway’s, and the Rufford, did our space permit, but are not their stories all faithfully and succinctly told there?
Cheshire stands out well, and the old Tarporley Hunt Club is a lasting tribute to the hunting instincts of that famed shire, where every other sport stands aside to make way for it. Shropshire also is its goodly neighbour, hunted as it is from end to end, right up into its Welsh border, in a style worthy of its best traditions; and viewed from its grand old Hawkstone on the north to gaunt Clee Hill on the south, is a fair domain of sport.
Yorkshire, of course, is another leading feature in the book, as well it must be, and so are our southern, eastern, and western counties; none, indeed, escape all the notice that is their due; and as it is not given to all sportsmen to revel in the realms of pasture, unalloyed by the drawbacks of small enclosures, hills and dales, crags and boulders, mud and marshes, or impenetrable woodlands, so we all accommodate ourselves to locality, and are happy in our less ambitious surroundings and histories. To these this book will not the less be a treasure. Whether we happen to be east or west, north or south countrymen, we recognise a friendly word, a well-known and honoured portrait on every page.
Neither Ireland nor Scotland has been forgotten, as it is well they should not be, for as far as hunting is concerned, are we not united in a bond of love and friendship, which it will indeed be hard to sever? For is it not to those Irish horses that we owe our mainstay over here, that so soon learn to jump our flying fences as easily as their native banks? And do not we welcome some of our finest riders from across the Irish Channel?
In dealing, however, with the historical side of our foxhunting book, we must not overlook its value as regards the foxhound himself. Great pains have been taken by the compiler of this work to define the combination of blood which has been diffused into each individual kennel and has contributed to its success. To hound-lovers this book must prove of especial value, and we can picture the delight of our old friend, Mr. Cecil Legard,—whose portrait is to be found in the introduction—when he scans its pages, and the satisfaction he feels at having spent many years in perfecting the Foxhound Stud Book. It would ill become me to enter into much foxhound lore in this short review, further than to say that, from the days of the old Corbet Trojan down to those of Brocklesby Rallywood, and so on through the Belvoir celebrities and the Craven and Warwickshire favourites, as well as others in profuse plenty, not only are they made mention of, but the portraits of many of them adorn the pages and speak for themselves as to the symmetrical beauty of the modern foxhound—a fact that the success of the Peterborough Hound Shows bears ample evidence to. When I look at these splendid specimens of hound culture I cannot ever refrain from picturing what natural perfection there must be in the grand attributes of that little animal the fox, which for centuries right up to to-day has been enabled to withstand the onslaught of his foes, and defy all their artifices.