2 NOTES FOR HUNTING-MEN 



If a man's house is in a provincial country, he 

 will do well, I should say, to hunt from there, 

 having, if his purse will allow it, an occasional 

 dart from Melton or some Midland centre. With 

 him associations and friends will weigh in the 

 scale against grass and more brilliant (I do not say 

 better) sport. And there are other advantages in 

 a less f^^shionable country. In the first place it is 

 cheaper. *Brooksby,' in one of his charming 

 letters, says not ; but I cannot understand how he 

 can really maintain this to be the case. In the 

 first place you want better, that is to say, faster 

 and stronger, horses, and unquestionably more of 

 them. Doubtless in all countries you find a few 

 men well enough mounted to go to the front any- 

 where ; and, no doubt also, the better cattle a man 

 has the better he will be carried, throughout the 

 season, in any country ; but still I maintain the 

 truth of Warburton's saying, that ' What's a good 

 country hunter may here prove a brute,' and that 

 a horse on which you might see hounds all day in 

 a cramped plough country, would be an almost 

 useless conveyance when they really run over 

 Leicestershire. 



However, I do not think it is necessary to lay 

 any stress on this point, which is pretty generally 

 accepted, although the second (the question of 

 numbers) is perhaps not so universally appreciated. 



