AMATEUR AND PROFESSIONAL 55 



been brought up to the business as thoroughly and 

 completely as a young man can be prepared for any 

 position he is to fill. Small wonder that the son of 

 such a man should turn out also a celebrity ; for no 

 amateur ranked higher in the present day than the 

 late Master of the Meath, Mr. John Watson. 



The mention of Colonel Anstruther-Thomson, who 

 first kept the Fife Hounds in 1849, reminds me that 

 his father also was Master of the same Hounds. Two 

 other famous amateurs in Ireland — Sir John Power, 

 of Kilkenny, and Mr. Burton Persse, of the Galway 

 " Blazers " — were both sons of Masters of Hounds. 



Instances might be multiplied all over the kingdom, 

 but the names of Willoughby de Broke, Chaworth- 

 Musters, Galway, Corbet, Drake, spring quickly to 

 the memory. To these men everything connected 

 with the chase, hounds, horses, their management, 

 the habits of the animal they hunted, and every 

 minute detail came easily, for all their boyhood was 

 spent among such surroundings that they could 

 scarcely help attaining without effort knowledge 

 that other men could only acquire after considerable 

 time and experience. 



But if the aspirant be really keen about fox-hunting, 

 and have opportunities for observation, also if he has 

 been able to study under different masters, there 

 is no reason — given health and temperate habits — 

 that the amateur should not equal the average pro- 

 fessional. There will always, of course, be some 

 bright particular stars in both spheres whose excep- 

 tional powers amount almost to genius, and I really 

 believe that such men are born with a sort of instinct 



