WARWICKSHIRE 187 



Where is the m<an who has not pressed upon hounds in his time ; 

 and where is the man who, in the ecstasy of the sport, may not do it 

 again ? 



" He broke, 'tis true, some statutes of the laws 

 Of hunting-^for the sagest youth is frail ; 

 Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then, 

 And once o'er sev'ral country gentlemen." 



Byron's Don Juan. 



But it is ahnost ahvays to his own cost. Wliere is there a more 

 pleasing sight than to see a huntsman go forth with his pack, and 

 make his cast unmolested by the crowd? It is here that hunting is 

 displayed ! On the other hand, what can be less pleasing to a true 

 sportsman, than to see hounds working — and working perhaps in 

 vain — in the midst of the horses, with their huntsmen dissatisfied 

 and grumbling, with a good fox, and a fine country before them ? 



Mr. Hay's kennel is divided into two packs — a large and a small 

 one. The former is chiefly composed of the hounds handed over to 

 him, with the country, by Mr. Shirley ; and the latter comprises 

 those which he brought with him from Staffordshire. The large one 

 comes under the denomination of a line slapping lot of hounds, 

 which ought to kill their fox in any country and upon any day ; 

 whilst the small pack goes one point beyond this. These hounds 

 give one the idea, that, with a good scent and in a fine country, they 

 could burst, and run in to, the best fox that ever wore a brush in less 

 than half an hour — so smart and quick are they in their nature. On 

 the morning on which they brought their fox from Itchington Heath 

 to Chesterton Wood (where they killed), I thought I never saw 

 hounds get more quickly out of covert and settle better to the scent 

 — running it as true and as close as if they had all been in couples ; 

 or, in borrowed but better language than my own, 



"like the horses of the sun, all abreast." 



Puggy would have told us this, if he could have spoken on the 

 occasion ; for in these few fields he was so blown that he lay down 

 in the covert, and would not face the country again. This is as it 

 shoiild be. All hounds wall hunt ; but, as Mr. Beckford so justly 

 observes, " 'tis the dash of the fox-hound that distingnislies him.'" 



Unhappy must that man be who is not satisfied with the manner 

 in which Warwickshire is now liunted ! There is a good pack of 



