256 Ikincjs of tbe 1buntina*S'iel& 



As an all-round sportsman he had few equals. From 

 the day when at Eton he caught the leviathan trout off 

 the Cobler, whereof the tradition still lingers, he was an 

 enthusiastic and skilful fisherman. As a game and 

 pigeon shot I have already said that he was in the 

 front rank. In respect to his shooting, the following 

 anecdote is told. When out with a shooting party on his 

 own estate, he got somewhat out of the line, and conse- 

 quently received the contents of one of his guest's guns in 

 the head and face. He fell senseless, and for a moment 

 it was thought that he was killed. But in a few minutes 

 he recovered consciousness, and, as soon as he did so, ex- 

 claimed earnestly : ' I call you all to witness it was 

 my own fault.' The sight of his right eye was com- 

 pletely destroyed, but his other injuries were not serious. 

 Even after the loss of his eye, Joe Manton, the well- 

 known gunmaker, said he would not advise any one to 

 offer Mr Delme-Radcliffe many dead birds in a pigeon 

 match. 



As a yachtsman, too, he cinld hold his own against 

 the best sailors of the Royal Squadron, and in his fine 

 schooner, the Fair Rosamond, he made many long and 

 adventurous cruises. 



Moreover, he patronised the Turf, but was more suc- 

 cessful as a gentleman-rider than as an owner, for 

 he never owned anything better than a decent plater. 

 The best of them was Vesper, whom he purchased for 

 350 guineas, and with whom, under her changed name 

 of Lady Emily, he won in the course of three seasons 

 twenty-two out of twenty-nine races, twenty of these 

 ridden by himself 



But his heart was in the hunting-field, and there were 

 few better judges of hounds and everything pertaining to 



