64 SHORT MASTERSHIPS 



breeches and the squaring of their horses' tails as 

 matters of the deepest import, and worthy subjects 

 for the exercise of their talent. 



Shades of the mighty dead ! It was not thus that 

 Meynell, Warde, Osbaldeston, Foljambe, Chaworth- 

 Musters, Assheton Smith, and Lord Henry Bentinck 

 made their great names ! 



Although much interested in old hunting history, I 

 cannot, as I write, call to mind whether in the 

 golden age of fox-hunting such men as these at once 

 leapt into pre-eminence, and in their very first season 

 attained the success that placed them in the ranks 

 of the great. They certainly were lucky if they did 

 so, when one remembers the truth of the words of 

 Mr. Richard Bragg, the " swell " huntsman in Soapey 

 Sponge. " Have a little regard for a huntsman's 

 reputation," said he. " Remember that it rises and 

 falls with the sport it shows." 



One of the cleverest amateur huntsmen I have 

 ever seen was, in his first season, considered to be 

 so laughable a failure that folk would hardly come 

 out and hunt with him, and some who should have 

 supported him went to hunt elsewhere. But, seriously, 

 it is not by his first or his second season that any 

 one can judge of the capabilities of a Master or hunts- 

 man ; and, indeed, it appears to me most unlikely 

 that good sport will be shown in the first season 

 when both Master and huntsman have been changed, 

 these duties nowadays being very often combined by 

 an amateur. The new-comer has everything to learn, 

 and sets to work with zeal. There is no trouble about 

 the hounds, perhaps, though likely as not he may have 



