/IDajov Mb^te«»/Il>elville 4.19 



as there is a pack of hounds in England.' The best 

 hunting-songs, Hke the best hymns, are not remarkable for 

 literary merit. In fact, if they lapse into poetr}' the}' 

 lose half their charm and force. There is not much 

 poetry in Whyte-Melville's ' The Galloping Squire,' 

 ' A Rum one to follow, a Bad one to beat,' ' The Clipper 

 that stands in the stall at the top,' but they have a 

 swing and rush which makes them capital hunting-songs, 

 and the most brilliant of poets could not have better 

 hit off to a hunting man's taste the picture of a perfect 

 hunter than the author of these lines : 



' A head like a snake, and a skin like a mouse, 



An eye like a woman, bright, gentle and brown. 

 With loins and a back that would carry a house, 



And quarters to lift him smack over a town ! 

 What's a leap to the rest, is to him but a hop. 

 The clipper that stands in the stall at the top.' 



But Campbell of Saddell, Egerton Warburton, and 

 Charles Buxton have all written songs which are not 

 unworthy of comparison with Whyte-Melville's best, 

 and there are two of Kingsley's which have never been 

 surpassed for spirit and melody. 



Both the prose and verse of Why te- Melville are 

 marked by that scholarly style which was the outcome 

 of the old-fashioned classical education of the great 

 public schools of England and which you can trace with 

 equal distinctness in the novels of his contemporary, 

 George Alfred Lawrence whose ' Sans Merci,' ' Sword 

 and Gown,' and ' Brakespeare,' whatever their faults may 

 be, are admirably written. It was a style that was apt 

 at times to slip into ponderosity, but there is a fluency 

 and rhythm about it which one misses in the work of 

 the latter dav novelist. 



