Hunting Lore 287 



and go more into detail than formerly. Thus, on 

 December I2th, 1785, he writes that after an early 

 breakfast he went on a hunt and found a fox at 

 half after ten, "being first plagued with the dogs 

 running hogs," followed on his drag for some time, 

 then ran him hard for an hour, when there came a 

 fault; but when four dogs which had been thrown 

 out rejoined the pack they put the fox up afresh, and 

 after fifty minutes' run killed him in an open field, 

 "every Rider & every Dog being present at the 

 Death." With his usual alternations between days 

 like this, and days of ill-luck, he hunted steadily 

 every season until his term of private life again 

 drew to a close and he was called to the headship of 

 the nation he had so largely helped to found. 



In a certain kind of fox-hunting lore there is 

 much reference to a Warwickshire squire who, when 

 the Parliamentary and Royalist armies were forming 

 for the battle at Edgehill, was discovered between the 

 hostile lines, unmovedly drawing the covers for a 

 fox. Now, this placid sportsman should by rights 

 have been slain offhand by the first trooper who 

 reached him, whether Cavalier or Roundhead. He 

 had mistaken means for ends, he had confounded 

 the healthful play which should fit a man for needful 

 work with the work itself ; and mistakes of this kind 

 are sometimes criminal. Hardy sports of the field 

 offer the best possible training for war; but they 



