412 MnQB of tbe 1buntina^jfiel^ 



which, coupled with his versatility, lifts him above the 

 level of all other literary sportsmen. And his name is 

 so inseparably associated with hunting that he has a 

 peculiar claim to appear in any collection of biographies 

 like the present. 



George John Whyte-Melville was born in 1821, 

 and came of good sporting Scottish stock. His 

 father, a noted golfer and reel dancer, was for seven- 

 teen years Master of the Fife, and George was early 

 entered to hounds by that renowned huntsman John 

 Walker (the hunting sponsor of Colonel Anstruther 

 Thomson), who afterwards went to Sir Watkin Wynn. 

 From Eton, under the stern discipline of Keate, he 

 parsed into the 93rd Highlanders, out of which regiment 

 he exchanged into the Coldstream Guards, and, after 

 nine years' service in the army, retired in 1848 with the 

 rank of Major. When the Russian war broke out, 

 however, he rejoined the service, and was appointed 

 a Lieutenant-colonel of Irregular Turkish Cavalr}-. His 

 experiences in that capacity he embodied in ' The In- 

 terpreter,' to my thinking, one of the most interesting of 

 his novels. On the declaration of peace he retired once 

 more into private life and devoted himself entirely to 

 hunting and literature. 



Having married the second daughter of Lord Bateman, 

 of Kelmarsh Hall, Major Whyte-Melville settled at 

 Boughton, about three miles from the Pytchley kennels, 

 and for many seasons hunted regularly with that famous 

 pack. Boughton, it will be remembered, figures largely 

 in ' Holmby House,' the most popular, perhaps, of all his 

 novels. ' Tilbury Nogo' was his first venture in authorship, 

 but it is from the appearance of ' Digby Grand ' that his 

 reputation dates. Here he had scope for displa\-ing his 



