PREFACE 



in our own land, and fears have been expressed, lest the noblest of all 

 our country sports — fox-hunting — may yield to this chilling, if not 

 demoralising influence. For my own part, I do not think it will. 

 I entertain that opinion of the force of the almost natural passion for 

 hunting, and other manly diversions which has ever distinguished 

 Englishmen from all other nations under the sun, that induces me to 

 believe that it will continue to uphold fox-hunting as the pride and 

 boast of all our national pastimes. We, however, do occasionally hear 

 unpleasant forebodings to the contrary. ' Railroads,' says one 

 croaker on the subject, 'spoil all hunting countries through which 

 they pass, and one is about to traverse the cream of the Leicestershire 

 hunts.' 'In a few years,' cries another, 'Paris and Brussels will be 

 accessible in a few hours, as our fashionable watering-places already 

 are.' ' Melton Mowbray falls oft",' exclaims a third, ' no new settlers 

 in the town, and the old ones will soon be giving up.' ' Young men 

 leave off hunting after about their third season,' says a fourth. 

 ' When many of the present masters of foxhounds shall be taken from 

 us, none will be found masters in their stead, beyond a third or fourth 

 season,' cries a fifth. ' Game preserves, and the accursed system of 

 steeple-racing, is destructive of the sportsmanlike manner of riding to 

 hounds, to the great discomfort of their owners,' says a sixth. 



I am aware there is truth in some of these remarks, consequently 

 cause for alarm ; and it is on this account that I have, in these pages, 

 striven to the utmost to give a high colour to a country life, and to 

 represent the real modern sportsman, such as I find him to be — a 

 character not excelled in ingenuous feelings, in liberal conduct, in 

 extreme hospitality, in sincerity of friendship and all other social 

 virtues, by any class in which it has been my lot to move. Where, 

 indeed, was there a fairer or better specimen to be found than in the 

 late Mr. Warde, fifty-seven years a master of foxhounds, and, there- 

 fore, called — 'The Father of the Field'? Who ever heard him utter 

 an ill-natured word respecting any one, either living or dead ? Where 

 was there a kinder friend, or a better neighbour ? and, above all things, 

 where was his equal as a companion ? Neither can I stop here in my 

 panegyric on this fine specimen of the old English country gentleman 

 and sportsman. Rough as was his exterior, Mr. Warde was accom- 

 plished and well informed, and capable of adapting his conversation to 

 any society into which he might be thrown. In short, it is a matter 

 of doubt whether there has existed a man, whose name has not been 

 long before the public, either in the capacity of a senator, a soldier, a 

 sailor, or an author, so universally known as Mr. Warde of Squerries, 

 in Kent, Avas to Englishmen, in all quarters of the globe. Let me, 

 however, not be understood to exhibit him as a pattern, in all respects, 



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