:j9o hidinc; to hounds 



It is too true that without danger there is no glory. Nevertheless, 

 much as I may be an advocate for making every possible effort to get 

 to hounds, yet we should not altogether despise the old saving 

 clause — that, sometimes, discretion is the better part of valour; for, 

 to say nothing of the individual who loses his life, the heart-rending 

 bewailings of those who have to lament the loss of it, in a parent, 

 ]iusband,l)rother, or son, are much too great to be thus rashly haziarded 

 for the mere gratification of a passion, however noble it maj'^ bo, 

 when attended witli such (probable) fearful consequences. In one 

 case now alluded to, a father perishes in the presence of his son ; in 

 another, a hus])and leaves a widow with eight children, and preg- 

 nant witli the ninth ; and the third appears to have been an only 

 child, born to all the pleasures of life, and highly qualified for the 

 enjoyment of them. 



Much, I repeat, as I admire the man wlio rides gallantly across a 

 country, yet it is useless to attempt impossibilities ; and among 

 these I have no hesitation in generolli/ classing the getting across 

 deep and rapid streams, with a horse perhaps blown at the time, 

 unless the rider be not only an expert swimmer, but also unless he 

 be in the habit of swimming horses, and swimming with his clothes 

 on. Mr. Theakston, it is evident, was a swimmer ; but there is 

 every reason to believe that the weight of his clothes sank him at 

 last; and in the moment of alarm, he had not the presence of mind 

 to I'elieve himself by floating on his back, or by any of those 

 expedients which expert swimmers have I'ecourse to when they find 

 themselves exhausted. Perhaps, however, situated as he was, these 

 expedients would not have availed him ; for, taking into considera- 

 tion that the clothes a man wears when hunting cannot be estimated 

 at less than ten pounds when dry, it may be fairly concluded that 

 when wet, wdth the addition of water in the boots, pockets, &c., this 

 weight must be more than doubled. Conceive, then, a man swim- 

 ming, perhaps in dead water, with more than twenty-four pounds 

 dead weight hanging about him, all verging to the bottom, and 

 opposing his efforts to sustain himself on the surface ! 



On reading this calamitous account over again, I see much reason 

 to suppose that the free use of the horse's head when in difficulty, 

 and which I jiave already so much dwelt upon, was denied to ])im 



