MEMOIR 



Though the prowess of others in the hunting-field 

 is liberally celebrated and humorously criticised in 

 Warburton's lays, upon his own quality as a horse- 

 man he is modestly silent. Almost alone among 

 field-sports, fox-hunting is free from the detestable 

 taint of record-breaking, and owing to its very nature, 

 must remain so while it endures. How long that 

 may be defies computation. Its approaching end 

 has been confidently predicted ever since railways 

 began to shake the dominion of the road coaches. 

 Warburton met that invasion with defiance — 



" Let the steam pot hiss till it's hot ; 

 Give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot ! " 



The sport has undergone many changes since then, 

 but hitherto it has suffered no diminution of vigour. 

 Still, as one canters to cover, his hack's feet seem to 

 beat the turf in rhythm to the chime of — 



"Stags in the forest h'e, hares in the valley-o ; 

 VVeb-footed otters are speared in the lochs ; 

 Beasts of the chace that are not worth a Tally-ho I 

 All are surpassed by the gorse-cover fox." 



The wealth of the country has shifted its centre ; 

 few squires can now afford the supreme luxury of 

 hunting from home ; but the blanks have been filled 

 — far more than filled — by recruits from the great 

 industrial centres, many of whom have no cause to 

 fear comparison in performance and sportsman-like 

 feeling with the most famous pursuers in the past. 

 If and when the time does come, soon or late, when 

 the physical and social conditions of this country 

 have become incompatible with the Sport of Kings, 

 xxii 



