1750 : llECORDS OF THE RUNS. 341 



field during this year. When the hunting season opened 

 Windsor was en fete on the occasion of the installation of 

 Prince George, K.G. ("who shall be King hereafter"). In 

 September, 'two bucks and a stag having been killed by 

 poachers within the parish of Bray " in the Forest of Wind- 

 sor," the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, " desirous 

 to declare their abhorance of such practices," offered a reward 

 of 10^. for the discovery and conviction of any one concerned 

 in the same. Dennis Gainer, saddler, in Long Lane, near West 

 Smithfield, London, " and no where else," announced to all 

 gentlemen and sportsmen that he had lately invented a new 

 method of making velvet hunting and jockey caps, and also 

 a neat light sort for ladies, without any seam or button, in 

 one entire piece of velvet, which would not rip or wear bare, 

 and the skull was so stout as to defend the head from any 

 blow or fall. As appears by the official certificate of the 

 Master only 40 stags and 4 hinds had been killed and hunted . 

 by the pack this year. 



1751. — Horace Walpole, writing under date of June 25, 

 1751, in his "Memoirs of the E,eign of George II.," says: 

 " The Duke [of Cumberland] had a fall as he was hunting at 

 Windsor, and was taken up speechless, and refusing to be 

 blooded, grew dangerously ill with a pain in his side, and 

 was given over by his physicians, but recovered. The King 

 was inexpressibly alarmed, wept over him, and told everybody 

 that was in his confidence that the nation would be undone, 

 left to nothing but a woman and children ! He said to Mr. 

 Fox of the Duke, ' He has a head to guide, to rule, and to 

 direct.' "... If Walpole is correct in his date the hunting 

 season with the Royal Buckhounds must have opened rather 

 early in this year. The accident to the Duke must not have 

 been so serious as it was represented to have been, for His 

 Royal Highness was out with the pack on July 18, on which 

 occasion he was accompanied " by several persons of distinc- 

 tion." In the ensuing week there was consternation in London 

 on receipt of the news that the Duke had died at Windsor. 

 It was quite true the Duke was dead ; his defunct grace was 



