Jobn peel 51 



excellent, but the execution is faulty and betrays the 

 hand of the crude amateur. But what John Woodcock 

 Graves could not do with his pencil he has done with 

 his pen. He has immortalised the mighty hunter of 

 Cumberland in the famous song which one may safely 

 prophesy will live as long as the English language. 



The author of ' D'ye ken John Peel,' gives the follow- 

 ing account of its composition : — 



' Nearly forty years have passed since John Peel and 

 I sat in a snug parlour at Caldbeck among the Cum- 

 brian mountains. We were then both in the heyday of 

 manhood, and hunters of the older fashion, meeting the 

 night before to arrange the earth-stopping, and in the 

 morning to take the best part of the hunt, the drag over 

 the mountains in the mist, while fashionable hunters lay 

 still in their blankets. Large flakes of snow fell that 

 evening. We sat by the fireside, hunting over again 

 many a good run, and recalling the feats of each par- 

 ticular hound, or narrow, break-neck escapes, when a 

 flaxen-haired daughter of mine came in, saying, " Father, 

 what do you say to what Grannie sings ? " Grannie was 

 singing to sleep my eldest son — now a leading barrister 

 in Hobart town — with an old rant called ' Bonnie i\nnie.' 

 The pen and ink for hunting appointments being on 

 the table, the idea of writing a song to the old air forced 

 itself upon me, and thus was produced, impromptu, 

 ' D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so grey ?' Immediately 

 after, I sang it to poor Peel, who smiled through a 

 stream of tears that fell down his manly cheeks : and I 

 well remember saying to him in a joking style, " By 

 Jove, Peel, you'll be sung when we're both run to 

 earth ! " ' 



Seldom' has a prophecy been more remarkably ful- 



