138 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



orders to his tailor were, to " keep continually sending 

 leather breeches;" but I venture to recommend leather 

 in preference to all others, because they are almost 

 everlasting, and, therefore, though double the price at 

 first, are cheapest and best in the end. It is a common 

 error to suppose that they are attended with any 

 inconvenience in wet weather; this might have been 

 the case once, when they were made to fit like the 

 tightest pantaloons; but, as they are now made, they 

 will be found the best wear in the heaviest rain, and 

 they will resist trifling wet from boughs, &c., being 

 impregnable to a shower, which would saturate the 

 cords so generally adopted during the temporary disuse 

 of leather. The custom of wearing scarlet in fox- 

 hunting is supposed to have had its origin in the 

 circumstance of its being a royal sport, confirmed by 

 the mandate of one king Henry, who organized and 

 equipped, in the royal livery of scarlet, a corps for 

 the destruction of foxes, not after the manner which 

 we should recognise as legitimate in the present day. 

 This is, at least, a plausible and, at all events, right royal 

 way of accounting for a habit, rather of martial, than 

 of sylvan import, were it not otherwise sufificiently 

 recommended by the cheerfulness which it imparts to 

 the aspect of the field. The round hat has long been 

 preferred to the old cap, which now serves as a dis- 

 tinction of office. The only advantage in a cap to any 

 one who cannot endure weight on his head, is, that it 



