LETTER X. 



SIR JOHN COPE'S HOUNDS.— MR. AS SHE TON 

 SMITH— MR. THOMAS SMITH. 



HE little that I have to say of Sir John 

 Cope's hounds would furnish materials for 

 only a short letter. I never hunted with 

 them regularly, though I saw something of 

 them almost every season from 1 821 to 1832. I was 

 very slightly acquainted with Sir John himself, and 

 have no personal recollections of him to record. He 

 took to Mr. St. John's hounds and country in 1817, 

 and retained them, I think, till 1850. The hounds 

 were kept all this time at his own place, Bramshill, 

 but they had a kennel at the World's End, near Read- 

 ing, for the convenience of hunting that part of their 

 country. They hunted over a great extent of country 

 in Berks, Hants, and Oxfordshire, with a little of 

 Surrey, comprehending nearly all that Mr. Garth and 

 the South Berks now occupy between them. Sir 

 John was, I believe, deservedly popular with the 

 members of his hunt. It used to strike me that his 

 men rode higher bred horses than those of the neigh- 

 bouring hunts. I have only two objects in my 

 observations on this pack. First, to describe the very 



