118 A Real Finish. 



despite of all, deeply interesting to those who know 

 the country-side and have a feeling knowledge of its 

 hunting history. 



For the horses are from life, and the men portraits ; 

 the very hedges and brooks faithful in ground-plan, 

 at least. The costume is true to a thread, and all the 

 names of the riders and some of the hounds are written 

 underneath. So that a hunter sees not the crude 

 color or faulty drawing, but what it is intended to 

 represent. Under its harshness there is the poetry 

 of life. But looking at these pictures the reflection 

 will still arise how few really truthful hunting scenes 

 we have on canvas in this the country of hunting. 

 The best are so conventional, and have too much 

 color. All nature in the season is toned down and 

 subdued the gleaming red and bright yellows of 

 the early autumn leaves soaked and soddened to a 

 dull brown ; the sky dark and lowering if it is bright 

 there is frost ; the glossy coat of the horses, and the 

 scarlet, or what colored cloth it may be, of the riders 

 deadened by rain and the dewdrops shaken from the 

 bushes. Think for a moment of a finish as it is 

 in reality, and not in these gaudy, brilliant color- 

 studies. 



A thick mist clings in the hollow there by the 

 osier-bed where the pack have overtaken the fox, so 

 that you cannot see the dogs. Beyond, the contour 

 of the hill is lost in the cloud trailing over it ; the fore- 

 ground towards us shows a sloping ploughed field, a 

 damp brown, with a thin mist creeping along the 

 cold furrows. Yonder, three vague and shadowy 

 figures are pushing laboriously forward beside the 

 leafless hedge ; while the dirt-spattered bays hardly 



