4 MEMORIES OF THE SHIRES 



you cannot fail to picture him a living character. 

 His weak points, his occasional lapses from sobriety, 

 and his little acts of meanness, are the frailties of a 

 human being, and serve as a background to his 

 many good qualities. The sturdy British merchant 

 of that period stands before you when culture and 

 polish were not considered necessary in a com- 

 mercial education, but he acts the part exactly as 

 we should expect him to do it, and never does any- 

 thing inconsistent with our conception of his char- 

 acter. We love him for his keenness and his 

 hunting proclivities, we sympathize with him in his 

 troubles, and feel for him when he funks the fence. 

 Fat and ungainly in figure, weak in his aspirates, 

 and occasionally falHng into vulgarity, he is yet the 

 hero of the piece, and that is surely a triumph for the 

 man who created him. His language may not be 

 quite the right model for school or nursery, but the 

 same may be said of Sam Weller, and no one has 

 banished Dickens for that reason. 



Surtees still stands at the head of sporting 

 writers, and the caustic humour of his books retains 

 its flavour to this day. He was perhaps a trifle 

 too cynical, exposing the follies and foibles of 

 mankind without laying to its credit those good 

 points which always accompany the bad. Hundley 

 Cross is far away the best of his works, as Jorrocks 

 is his best character, but his other books are all 

 worth reading. It is, however, his women that 

 have made him unpopular with the general public. 

 They are sawdust dolls without life or meaning, 

 and the stuffing of the sawdust does not command 

 our admiration. 



Most packs nowadays of any note have correspon- 



