36 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. 



In the coach went the upper servants, in the chariot the 

 eccentric master's wife, Lady Mary Archer, n^e FitzwilHam, 

 or, if she preferred a less confined view of the country, 

 she accompanied Mr. Archer in the phaeton, he travehing 

 in all weathers in that vehicle, wrapped up in a swan's-down 

 lined coat. 



What extent of country Mr. Archer hunted ; when he 

 first began to keep hounds, and where his hounds came from 

 when they formed part of the Coopersale pageant, are 

 matters concerning which nothing is known ; nor do we 

 hear anything about the sport they showed in Essex. It is 

 certainly a most extraordinary fact that a hunting establish- 

 ment apparently so complete should lack an historian ; but 

 inasmuch as, at any rate during the last forty years of the 

 last century, Essex was pretty well hunted, we are tolerably 

 safe in concluding that the reporter in question greatly 

 magnified the operations of Mr. Archer's pack. That 

 gentleman may have insisted upon drawing his own coverts, 

 though they were in some other well defined hunt, but a 

 migratory affair like this cannot be seriously regarded as one 

 of England's hunting establishments, for we nowhere learn 

 that Mr. Archer, like the Duke of Grafton, hunted two 

 countries. Moreover, we are not told for what portion of 

 the season Mr. Archer — yreat-orandfather of the late 



