THE " INVINCIBLES. 33 



the county of Essex. Chops and changes were numerous 

 in the early days ; packs had no continued existence, and 

 it was not till the dawning of the present century that 

 foxhunting was established in Essex upon a permanent 

 basis. 



To come, however, to one or two packs about which 

 something is known, we may first refer to a couple of 

 primitive establishments whose hounds, if slow, were sure, 

 and generally managed to walk their fox to death. The 

 merits of these packs are vouched for on the trustworthy 

 authority of Colonel John Cook. They were known as 

 the " Invincibles " and "The Talents Hunt." The " In- 

 vincibles," or Hempstead Hounds, were kept by some 

 farmers, and numbered about sixteen couples, including — 



" Invincible Tom and invincible Tovvler, 

 Invincible Jack and invincible Jowler," 



who seldom missed their fox. Colonel Cook vouches for the 

 story that these hounds ran a fox from a covert of Lord 

 Braybrooke's, near .Saffron Walden, to within four or five 

 miles of Bury St. Edmunds -a distance of twenty-five miles 

 at least. The Invincibles were no respecters of bound- 

 aries, and they caused much annoyance to Colonel Cook 

 by disturbing the cream of the Thurlow country when he 

 hunted it early in the present century. l)Ut he tolerantly 

 3 



