94 HORNS, HOLLOAS, DOG LANGUAGE 



up behind. ' I'll lose a shoe,' said he. ' No notion of lippin' of a 

 navigable river — a downright arm of the sea,' added he, getting off. 



'■'■'■ Forward, forward.'' screeched Mr. Sponge, capping the hounds 

 on, when away they went, head up and sterns down, as before." 



In this inimitable description Mr. Sponge certainly 

 appears in the light of a huntsman possessed of judg- 

 ment, experience, and style, so that I think my friend's 

 criticism was justifiable. The dog-language is correct 

 according to what has been traditionally handed down 

 and written, and without stopping to inquire as to the 

 antiquity or probable origin of this qviaint language 

 which huntsmen use, it is, I think, important that it 

 should be preserved unaltered, and, like the sounding 

 of the horn, which I have been discussing, its different 

 phrases should be used by all huntsmen, instead of 

 inventing, as some do, a phraseology of their own 

 when speaking to or cheering their hounds. 



It was in the middle of the last century that Mr. 

 Tom Smith, Master at the time of the Pytchley 

 Hounds, published in his Diary of a Huntsman a short 

 vocabulary of language used by huntsmen, and though 

 even Peter Beckford found it " as difficult to Avrite a 

 halloo as to pen a whisper," yet the terms as printed 

 by Mr. Smith remain sufficiently intelligible when 

 sounded, and have been so very often reprinted that 

 they stand familiar to the ear as household words. 



There is no doubt that Beckford is right though, 

 and that the phonetic spelling of dog-language is 

 difficult. I wrote on an earlier page of the conjugation 

 of Greek verbs in connection with Mr. Robert Watson's 

 encouragement to his hounds to find their fox ; but, 

 of course, that sound was simply a rendering of Mr. 



