Old Stories. 2 1 



this effect. * That is all very well, Sharpe, but that is 

 not the point. You do not want to go, and I do not 

 want to lose you ; but neither you nor I must say no 

 to a Prince ; you must take the offer, and if you con- 

 tinue steady and respectable, it may be the making 

 of your fortune.* What makes this story interesting 

 is, that it gives the origin of a dynasty which has con- 

 tinued to this day, more than seventy years since the 

 conversation must have taken place. Sharpe became 

 huntsman to the Prince, and on the breaking-up of 

 his hunting establishment retired for awhile from the 

 royal service on a pension. During this time he was 

 huntsman to Mr. Hanbury in the Puckeridge Country, 

 and I believe to some other master of hounds : but in 

 18 1 3 the Duke of Richmond, leaving England to take 

 the government of Canada, presented his celebrated 

 pack of foxhounds to the Prince of Wales, then Prince 

 Regent. This was a great era in the history of the 

 Royal hunt. The old heavy staghounds, with which 

 King George III. had delighted to gallop leisurely 

 over the yet uninclosed country between Sandhurst 

 and Bray, were discarded ; the old fashioned yeomen 

 prickers shared their fate. All the foreign accessories 

 of hunting, which had prevailed, I suppose, since the 

 days of WiUiam III., were swept away; and Sharpe, 

 recalled to the Royal service, came out as huntsman to 

 a pack of light, quick foxhounds, attended with his 

 whippers-in, a style as nearly resembling English 

 foxhunting as staghunting can possibly assume. The 

 well-known Mr. Davis married his daughter, and still 

 holds the office of huntsman to the Royal staghounds, 

 which he may be considered as having inherited from 

 his father-in-law. All who have seen a print of Mr. 



