KEFLECTIONS ON SPORT WITH THE PACK. 141 



an ordinary "run" with this, or with any other pack of 

 hounds, would be worth the trouble to record or describe. 

 Such common-place occurrences were enjoyed day by day 

 " in the season of the year," perhaps talked of at the moment, 

 and then emphatically forgotten. But, if happily some unto- 

 ward incident occurred, and if some kind gossip happened to 

 be writing, on the occasion, to some friend afar, in lieu of more 

 important news, the untoward incident, in that emergency, 

 might serve as a stopgap, and be unearthed in after ages, if not 

 to point a moral and adorn a tale, it would prove to future 

 generations that in hunting, at any rate, there is nothing new 

 under the sun. Thus we find Mr. Chamberlain writing to Sir 

 Dudley Carleton, September 4, 1624, that there was " great 

 sport at Windsor at the hunting of Cropear, a noted and 

 notorious stag, whose death was solemnised with so much 

 joy and triumph as if it had been some great conquest, there 

 wanting nothing but bells and bonfires." In this accidental 

 bit of gossip we ascertain the fact that in those days, as in 

 these, a quarry which had given rare runs, perhaps for many 

 successive seasons, became popular with the followers of the 

 hunt and identified by a specific patronymic. And, when 

 " the King had a dangerous fall when hunting," or when 

 His Majesty was thrown " into the river and nearly drowned " 

 whilst enjoying the chase, these royal "spills" were occasionally 

 noticed by the chroniclers of the times. But we seek in vain 

 for further particulars. All the rural annals of the era, so far as 

 a descriptive run with the Royal Buckhounds in those days, 

 will, we fear, be drawn blank. 



In the absence of actual contemporary information giving 

 the vicissitudes of a run with the Royal pack, during the 

 period now under review, there is, nevertheless, ample evi- 

 dence from which we may deduce that the riding was not 

 only fast and furious, but that at the same time it was con- 

 ducted under the rules and customs of the art of venery then 

 in vogue. Then, as now, the horse was the primary element in 

 the chase. Speed and endurance were the essential qualifica- 

 tions of the hunter. He had to be proficient in all his paces 



