114 Recollections of the Vme Hunt. 



country, they killed in this manner, in one day, three 

 of his foxes, who had not been accustomed to this 

 guerilla kind of warfare. Indeed, if the only object 

 were to make the fox break or die, this mode of pro- 

 ceeding w^ould be perfect ; but, unfortunately, the 

 same system was apt to make the run across a country 

 too much of a scramble: the hounds seldom came 

 away together from a large wood. Tocock, the 

 huntsman, was quite satisfied if he could get off with 

 five or six couples of hounds racing pretty close to 

 their fox ; he would gallop along, horn in hand, 

 blowing it whenever he could, as a rallying point to 

 the rest of the pack, who would come streaming in 

 from right and left ; some before, some behind, and 

 some in the midst of the horsemen ; so that it became 

 a common observation amongst sportsmen, that Cope's 

 hounds in a run were all over the country. I suspect, 

 however, that these hounds, with all their irregularities, 

 kept closer to their fox, and more frequently gave a 

 good account of him at the end, than has since been 

 done under a more regular system. I desire to say 

 distinctly that this description has no reference to any 

 period later than 1828, and that the character of the 

 pack had begun to change for some years earlier. It 

 was probably a dissatisfaction with the state of things 

 which I have described that led Sir John Cope, about 

 the year 1822, to begin breeding largely from Mr. 

 Warde's kennel, and thus to lay the foundation of the 

 powerful kind of hound now so well maintained by 

 Mr. Garth. There is no painter whose earlier style is 

 more distinguishable from his later, than were the 

 appearance and the work of Sir John's earlier and later 

 packs ; but it may, perhaps, be doubted whether, in 



