4^16 Ikinos ot tbe Ibunting^f telD 



contemporary at Christ Church, Oxford, described as 

 ' a man of gentle birth and amiable manners, and of 

 herculean strength, whose love of dogs and horses, and 

 especially of boxing, was stupendous.' 



On the marriage of his daughter and only child he 

 again moved into the country and took a place near 

 Tetbury in Gloucestershire. His last appearance in the 

 hunting-field was with the Vale of White House on the 

 5th of December 1878. Whilst riding across a ploughed 

 field, not far from Malmesbury, his horse stumbled and 

 fell. Whyte-Melville was thrown with great violence on his 

 head, and dislocated his neck. Death was almost instan- 

 taneous. The consternation and grief which the accident 

 produced were indescribable. The hounds were at once 

 stopped and taken home, and the next meet was 

 cancelled. There was not a hunting country in the 

 three kingdoms in which the melancholy news did not 

 create profound sensation. Indeed, wherever there were 

 English-speaking sportsmen all over the world, the 

 tidings of Whyte-Melville's sudden and tragic death 

 came with a shock of mingled surprise and sorrow. 

 Pytchley men, in particular, recalled with tender regret 

 the days which the soldier, sportsman, poet and novelist 

 had spent amongst them. Was there ever, they asked 

 one another, a cheerier companion to or from covert? 

 Was there ever a more delightful raconteur, a more stirring 

 reciter of thrilling songs of the Chase ? Was there ever 

 one of whom it could be more justly said that 



' He bore without abuse 

 The grand old name of gentleman ?' 



