/IDasters ot tbe 2>evon anC) Somerset 451 



Under Mr Basset's management the popularity of the 

 Devon and Somerset among ' fashionable visitors ' rose to 

 such a height that old stagers said the sport was being ut- 

 terly ruined by the huge fields. But Mr Basset combined 

 most happily the suaviter in modo with \he. foriiter in re, 

 and the way he kept the field in order was a thing to 

 admire and wonder at. At the time when the Speaker- 

 ship of the House of Commons was vacant, on the retire- 

 ment of Mr Peel, I remember hearing a Q.C. and M.P. 

 who had been hunting with the Devon and Somerset, 

 say, that after seeing the discipline preserved among the 

 field down there, he believed Charley Basset was the 

 best man he knew in England to fill the post of Speaker. 

 But Mr Basset had had six years' experience of Parlia- 

 ment (he was M.P. for Barnstaple from 1868 to 1874), 

 and would probably have any day rather read the Riot 

 Act to the biggest mob of thrusters that ever gathered 

 at Cloutsham on an opening day than have attempted to 

 keep order in the House of Commons when an Irish 

 debate was on. 



After a most successful tenure of office, Mr Basset, 

 in 1894, resigned the Mastership, and was succeeded 

 by Mr R. A. Sanders, under whom the noble sport 

 of hunting the wild red deer enjoys undiminished 

 popularity. 



I cannot take my leave of the Devon and Somerset 

 without mentioning one fact which will be of peculiar 

 interest to literary men, and particularly to lovers of 

 Shakespeare. It was while hunting the wild stag on 

 Exmoor that the Right Honourable D. H. Madden, 

 Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin, and one 

 of the Judges of the Queen's Bench in Ireland, conceived 

 the idea of his delightful book, The Diary of Master 



