178 NIMROD'S HUNTING TOUR 



last was the fortieth month of April in succession that he had spent 

 in the Forest ; but gave it as his opinion, that should he live to see 

 forty years more, fox-hunting in the Forest would only be talked of 

 as having once been. 



The colour of his coat being different, trumpets and swords would 

 not be in keeping with Mr. Butler, but he also has been honoured 

 with the notice of his Sovereign. When George IV. — then Prince 

 of Wales — hunted in Dorsetshire, where Mr. Butler resides, he was 

 extremely pleased with his society, and bestowed upon him several 

 slight marks of his attention. Every one, indeed, must be pleased 

 with Mr. Butler. There is about him a simplicity of manner, added 

 to a quaintness of expression, very rarely met with in these sophisti- 

 cated days ; to which an additional zest is given by a powerful 

 Dorsetshire dialect. As a sportsman, a companion, and a worthy 

 and excellent man, however, Mr. Butler ranks with any one ; and 

 his name is as well known in the Western hemisphere of the 

 Sporting World as Eussell's wagons are on the Western road. 



I own I am partial to English customs and manners in their 

 native garb, and only fear that in another century, among the higher 

 orders at least, the remembrance of them only will be left. That 

 they remain at present in full force and virtue among Dorsetshire 

 yeomen, the following anecdote told by Mr. Butler will amply 

 prove ; and I wish I could relate it to my readers as well as he 

 related it to me. Mr. Butler informed me, he was lately invited to 

 the house of a person of this description, who gave a dinner to 

 about a dozen friends. " My host," said Mr. B., " weighed upwards 

 of twenty stone, and sate behind a rump of beef weighing fifty-two 

 pounds. Being a bachelor, a friend of his weighing nearly as much 

 sate at the bottom of the table behind a loin of veal weighing thirty 

 pounds, and there was a ham in the middle weighing twenty-seven 

 pounds. When these were I'emoved, the maid in waiting placed 

 six plum imcldincjs, in six different dishes, on the table, when her 

 master called out to her — ' tJiat will do, Sally : don't imt any more 

 puddings down till I tell you ! ' " 



When speaking of Dorsetshire, and lest another opportunity 

 should not present itself, permit n\e to mention a circumstance that 

 occurred there in the course of last season, which, in the eyes of 



