202 VARIETY IN HUNTING COUNTRIES 



often been conceded by good sportsmen from the 

 Shires when they retire to the provinces. 



No doubt great speed and much leaping of high 

 fences and wide water appeals to the imagination, 

 and the Midlands of England have frequently been 

 selected as the scene of many a doughty deed per- 

 formed to please a lady in the pages of a novel ; 

 while the writings of " Nimrod," describing "the law- 

 less burst, the wicked riding, the cracking of rails, the 

 Siberian waste of grass, and the submersion of new 

 coats and gallant souls in the Whissendine," drew 

 great attention to the district wherein these heroic 

 incidents took place. Whyte-Melville, too, has put 

 before us unequalled descriptions of sport in the 

 same country ; but true sportsmen will follow that 

 author with greater delight when he takes us into 

 the provinces with charming Kate Coventry or Uncle 

 John, or down into the West with Tilbury Nogo. 

 Surtees and Charles Kingsley also were able, years 

 ago, to please the genuine fox-hunter, though the 

 authors never wandered into the " Cut-me-downs " 

 with their heroes ; but brave old Peter Beckford, by 

 the wonderful earnestness and fervour of his well- 

 chosen language, has been able to eclipse all others 

 in his absolutely truthful description of a fox-hunt. 



A wonderful performance, in truth, is Beckford's 

 famous picture of a fox-hunt. Doubtless he drew 

 from memory, and I suppose that Dorsetshire, and 

 probably Lord Portman's country, was the scene of 

 action. A wonderful performance indeed. Not a 

 word about the horses, the dresses, the dreadful 

 leaps, the broad brook, and the horrible fall, and yet 



