VARIETY IN HUNTING COUNTRIES 203 



sustained and thrilling interest to the sportsman from 

 the find. " Hounds and hunting," these are the theme, 

 and, with skilfully interpolated little gems of Somer- 

 ville's poetry, Beckford has given us a classic whose 

 merits have received justice from authors who were 

 no sportsmen. It is inimitable ; it could not possibly 

 be improved upon ; and yet when we read it over 

 very carefully we shall see that our author could 

 hardly have appealed to us so well had he been 

 describing a run over Leicestershire, for many 

 passages we most admire would have lost their 

 truth. 



The writings of Beckford and Somerville may have 

 lost some of their popularity in the present age, and 

 if this is the case it is much to be deplored, for they 

 are more attractively instructive than any others, 

 and we hear yearly increasing complaints as to the 

 necessity of instructing many of the folk who come 

 out with hounds in what has been perhaps some- 

 what fantastically termed the " Noble Science of Fox- 

 hunting." 



From the writings of Surtees we can learn nearly 

 everything about the actual pursuit of a fox that can 

 be gathered from a book ; but there is so much to 

 amuse in his novels, and a sense of the ludicrous is 

 so quickly aroused, that many minute descriptions 

 and details connected with the chase are, I fancy, 

 often overlooked by the reader, who does not expect 

 to find pearls of wisdom dropping from the jolly 

 rnouth of Mr. Jorrocks, even when he " lecters " from 

 the platform or soliloquises when pounding along on 

 the back of " Arterxerxes " : nor does he look for con- 



