1 1 6 Recolledioiis of the Vine Hunt. 



soon after it occurred, by Mr. Fred. Villebois, who 

 was that day out with his brother's hounds. He said, 

 ' Of course, we were not best pleased at being so 

 beaten, and could only account for it by supposing 

 that this hound had been skirting about (as the fact 

 of his joining us rather implies), and so had taken less 

 out of himself early in the day than our hounds had 

 done. However,' he candidly added, * that might or 

 might not have been the case ; the fact is, that he 

 fairly ran away from us, and killed the fox by himself.' 



I have seen Sampson : he was a yellow pied hound, 

 compact, strong, and handsome, but not large. I do 

 not recollect the year in which this occurred, but it 

 was some time previous to 1828. 



I have now noticed all the packs of foxhounds, 

 bordering on the Vine country, with which I hunted 

 in my youth ; but there were two masters of hounds 

 soon afterwards connected with those countries of 

 such eminence, that I cannot omit some mention of 

 them : — Mr. Thomas Assheton Smith, of Tedworth ; 

 and Mr. Thomas Smith, of Hambledon. 



With the former I was scarcely acquainted, nor did 

 I see enough of him with his hounds to enable me to 

 express any opinion of his mode of hunting them ; 

 while his fame, both as a rider and a sportsman, 

 stands on too high a pedestal to be either raised or 

 lowered by any observations of mine ; but I can add 

 my humble testimony to his wonderful quickness in 

 riding to hounds, even at an advanced age. Almost 

 the only time I ever hunted with him, we had a very 

 fine ring of about twelve miles from Southgrove, over 

 the Downs, into the Pewsey Vale and back, so fast 

 throughout that I heard Mr. Smith observe, towards 



