LETTER IX. 



TRUMAN VILLEBOIS, ESQ., AND THE H. H. 



DOUBT whether four better men in their 

 several capacities were ever engaged together 

 in the management of a pack of foxhounds 

 than were to be seen with the H. H. when 

 Mr. Villebois was master, Forster, huntsman, and 

 Sawyer and John Jennings,* the two whippers-in. 

 The three first-mentioned were of rare excellence in 

 their several departments ; and Jennings, who after- 

 wards hunted the Old Berkeley under Mr. Harvey 

 Combe, was very good in the field; and moreover 

 rode with so fine a hand and such good judgment, that 



* Nimrod, in one of his letters, quotes Forster saying of Jen- 

 nings, ' He is the first of the family that was ever in our line.' 

 This is true. I was well acquainted with the family. His sister 

 was my nurse: his first situation was that of servant of all work at 

 Steventon Manor Farm, and his first office as a sportsman was 

 shooting partridges, with a gamekeeper's certificate, for his own 

 master and for my father. He considered it a rise in life when he 

 became groom in Mr. Villebois' stables ; but he was a good- 

 looking, intelligent, well-mannered, as well as steady youth ; 

 and these qualifications, together with his very good horseman- 

 ship, gradually raised him, till he married Forster's daughter, 

 and at last attained to a rank similar to that of his father-in-law, 

 as huntsman to a pack of foxhounds. 



