The Origin of the Vine Hunt. 



from the latter. Soon after Mr. Chute commenced 

 foxhunting, the Prince of Wales took the fancy which 

 I mentioned in my last letter of hunting foxes instead 

 of stags ; and Mr. Chute was required to give up to 

 his Royal Highness the country which he had so 

 lately acquired. With much reluctance he complied, 

 and again condescended to hare-hunting, not changing 

 his pack, but making a reduced number of the same 

 hounds hunt hare. But this state of things did not 

 last long; scarcely, I believe, through an entire season. 

 The Prince never fully occupied the country which he 

 had induced Mr. Chute to resign; and though professing 

 to hunt foxes, never entirely left off stag-hunting. Nor 

 was he very likely to go much into the Vale. The 

 rough Hampshire woodlands would have little at- 

 traction to one whose chief object in hunting was an 

 appetising gallop before dinner. There is no royal- 

 road through Bramley Frith, or Newlands, any more 

 than there is through Euclid. Accordingly, Mr. Chute 

 soon found Pamber forest full of foxes, which had been 

 driven from the hills. He and his pack were very 

 willing to return to their old game. He procured 

 fresh drafts of foxhounds, and declared, with a strong 

 asseveration, that he would never again give up his 

 country to prince, or peer, or peasant. 



I obtained these particulars from Will. Biggs, who 

 had been Mr. Chute's huntsman through all these 

 changes, and had afterwards passed into the service 

 of Mr. Villebois, master of the H.H., as feeder, and 

 was then living on a pension from his latter master 

 near my house, in Berkshire. I got this information 

 from him about twenty years ago, at the request of 

 Mr. Fellowes, then master of the Vine hounds, who 



