/IDajor Mb\ne>»/lDelviUe 415 



His fierce ode ' 'Ware Wire ! a Protest,' breathes a hatred 

 which finds vent in such lines as these, — 



' And bitter the curses you launch in your ire, 

 At the villain who fenced his enclosure with wire.' 



Doubtless many such curses came from the lips of 

 the gentle Whyte-Melville, and who shall blame him ? 



' Whilst penning that ode,' says Mr Nethercote, ' his 

 feelings probably were of much the same sort as those 

 of the woman who, having brought a male neighbour 

 before the magistrates on a charge of assault, on failing 

 in her case addressed her enemy thus : "I'm a Christian 

 woman, and so bear no malice ; but if any one were to 

 tell me that you had got a wasp's nest inside your 

 breeches, I should be very glad to hear it." If only the 

 lex taliojiis could be in force for one year, that is just 

 the punishment which I would willingly assist in meting 

 out to the unfeeling dastardly brutes who use wire, and 

 especially barbed wire, for fences in a hunting country. 

 Wasps' nests would be at a premium for tJiat year. 



When his private means were largely increased by a 

 fortune bequeathed to him. Major Whyte-Melville left 

 the little Northamptonshire village in which he had 

 sojourned so long, and exchanged the modest vimage of 

 Melville House for a more imposing establishment at 

 Wootton Hall, but he still hunted with the Pytchley till 

 he finally took a house in London, and the Shires knew 

 him no more. Thenceforward his hunting was confined 

 to two or three days a week w^ith Mr Selby Lowndes' or 

 the Baron's. His chief friend and companion on these 

 sporting excursions was the Hon. Bob Grimston, of 

 whom my old friend Frederick Gale has written so 

 admirable a biography, and whom Ruskin, who was his 



