preface ix 



selected to embellish my sketch of his career in the 

 hunting-field ? 



I have to express my grateful acknowledgments to the 

 Earl of Coventry, Earl Spencer, the Earl of 

 Lonsdale, and Mr G. W. Fitzwilliam, for the 

 courteous promptitude with which they acceded to my 

 request for their latest photographs. 



And my thanks are also due to Messrs SAMPSON 

 Low & Co. for their kind permission to use the portrait 

 of Thomas Assheton Smith, attached to the Remini- 

 scences by the late Sir J. E. E. Wilmot, which I have 

 had occasion to mention in various chapters of this book. 



The portrait of JOHN Warde, which forms the 

 frontispiece, is taken from a fine mezzotint engraving 

 of the oil-painting by James Green, which hangs in 

 the dining-room of Squerryes Court, now the property 

 of Lieutenant-Colonel C. A. Madan Warde. The 

 famous old fox-hunter had two favourite hounds, Glory 

 and Beauty, the latter of which had just died when the 

 portrait was painted, and the Master is represented as 

 exclaiming : ' My Beauty hath departed but my Glory 

 remains.' 



John Peel's portrait is copied from a daguerreotype 

 taken at the request of Mr JENNINGS of Meadowbank, 

 Curthwaite, in whose house I have seen the original. I 

 learned from Mr JENNINGS that at the time the sun- 

 picture was done, John, who had mislaid his own head- 

 gear, was wearing Mr JENNINGS' hat, which was evidently 

 too big for him. 



So much for the portraits. 



For the rest, I have not confined myself to the hunting 

 side of the characters I have sketched, but have gone 

 far afield in search of every kind of detail and anecdote 



