274 MEMOIR OF 



also brought to a close at the end of six years, 

 when, in 1825, to Russell's great regret, the 

 old-fashioned staghounds — a grand pack, that 

 stood nearly twenty-seven inches high, and for 

 more than a century had been bred expressly 

 for that sport — were sold at Tattersall's, and 

 for ever lost to the country. " They went to 

 Germany," writes Russell ; '' but I kept three 

 bitches for twelve months, hoping some one 

 w^ould begin again ; then, having only £80 a 

 year to live upon, I gave them to ' Smash 

 Lewis ' for a Welsh friend of his — a Mr. John 

 Dillwyn Llewelyn, of Penllergare, near Swansea ; 

 and thirty years afterwards I picked out their 

 descendants in his kennel." 



With all Russell's love for the dash of a 

 foxhound, he regarded those magnificent hounds 

 with the most unbounded admiration ; declaring 

 them to have been, as they certainly w^ere, 

 peculiarly adapted for the chase of the wild red 

 deer ; so perfect were they in water, so driving 

 on scent, and so sonorous in tongue, the latter, 

 indeed, reminding him of a tenor bell, 



" Over some wide-water'd shore, 

 Swinging- slow with sullen roar." 



Mr. CoUyns, too, was in despair at their loss, 

 and speaks of it with almost tearful regret : "A 

 nobler pack of hounds," he says, "no man ever 

 saw — alas 1 that they should now be consigned 

 to the kennel of a German baron ! For 



