440 Initios Of tbc 1[5untin0««3fiel& 



bold, and were in at the death of the stag. They set 

 out for Bradfield to-morrow evening, and as Sir Thomas 

 has given master one haunch which weights thirty-six 

 pounds and a quarter, he desires you will dine with him 

 on Thursday at Bradfield. I must now conclude, Sir 

 Thomas having given notice of another stag equally good 

 as this I have described, in Brockeridge Wood, for which 

 place the gentlemen are now setting out, and I am, sir, 

 your most obedient humble servant, 



' J. Rich, 



' Park-Keeper to Courtenay Walrond, Esq.' 



' F.S. — You are desired to bring with you Mr Brutton, 

 the hatter, and Mr Drake, a doctor of Exeter. You 

 may invite likewise, if you please, any other friend of 

 y6urs. 



' There were at the Chase more than 500 horse and 

 1000 foot.' 



They knew how to combine conviviality and sport, those 

 fine old Devonshire gentlemen, and yet they kept their 

 merriment apparently 'within the limit of becoming mirth,' 

 if we may take the words ' went in good order to their 

 respective beds ' literally and not as a mere euphemism 

 of Mr J. Rich's. The addition ' at two o'clock ' sounds 

 suspicious, T admit, for they must in that case have been 

 hard at it for some eight or ten hours, and he must have 

 been a strong-headed toper who could go to bed ' in 

 good order' after such a bout. If one may judge from the 

 graphic pictures of the orgies of fox-hunters, given <by 

 James Thomson in Tke Seasons, most of the convivialists 

 on such occasions subsided on the floor. But perhaps 



