:]6R RTDING TO HOUNDS 



s<ay, that if any man on any horse could have done it, it was to have 

 been accomplished by Lord Forester on Bernardo. He was 

 followed by a hard-riding farmer by the name of Wing ; but it 

 appears that he had not quite so strong a feather in his pinion, as 

 he barely cleared the brook, which was twenty-three feet from bank 

 to bank. 



As there are few, if any, instances in the records of sporting of 

 so conspicuous and eminent a character as Lord Forester, and as 

 anything relating to such a character must be entertaining and 

 interesting, I shall devote a few hues on. the subject. 



Lord Forester was educated at Westminster, and went thence to 

 Christ Church, Oxford ; but having been brought up under the eye 

 of his uncle, so well known as "Old Forester of Willy," and who 

 kept fox-hounds for many years of his life, he may be said to have 

 been well entered to the sport. He shewed, early in life, a 

 remarkably fine eye to the essential points of a hunter ; and so 

 much was his judgment looked up to, and so great was his reputa- 

 tion as a rider, that many a man has given him a hundred guineas 

 more for a liorse than he would have given to any one else, merely 

 because he could say, " I bought him of Forester." It is needless 

 to observe that this predilection was not lost upon so good a judge, 

 and that at one period of his life his hunting was by no means an 

 expensive amusement to him. 



Lord Forester — which can be said of few other men — was a hard 

 rider for nearly thirty years of his life ; and it was only in conse- 

 quence of repeated attacks of the gout that he was obliged to resign 

 his place in the field to men younger than himself ; but such are 

 the effects of that terrible disease, that few persons are enabled to 

 stand the bangs and bruises that are met with in riding over a 

 country after one or two severe fits of it. Having, however, 

 married the Duke of Eutland's sister, he goes every season to 

 Belvoir, appearing at covert when his health will permit him, but 

 giving place to an excellent representative in his eldest son, who 

 bids fair to equal his father in the field, and whom I mentioned 

 in one of my letters on Oxfordshire, as " a very promising young 

 one." 



Lord Forester's seat on his horse at once denotes the workman, 



