THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 23 



from Lambert ; but to come to tlie luck, the luck 

 coming at once (which might not, in a series of years, 

 if ever, have occurred, and to which I attribute all the 

 satisfaction that has since accrued to me) — this was a 

 draft of sixteen couples from Lord Segrave's kennel, at 

 Berkeley Castle, whither I despatched Boxall, on a 

 special embassy in quest of them. It was singular that 

 the next pack succeeding to that which I have just 

 mentioned, in the Oakley country, and to which I must 

 ever refer with reverential attachment, should have 

 consisted, at the time they left Bedfordshire, of a lot of 

 hounds approaching, in my humble opinion, as nearly 

 to perfection, in all requisites and capabilities for show- 

 ing sport in any country, as it is possible to arrive. 

 I need not add, that I allude to those which were the 

 property of the Hon. G. Berkeley. I am not about to 

 enter into the Bedfordshire politics of those days, or to 

 inquire what might have been the reasons inducing that 

 gentleman, on the one hand, to leave a country, and, on 

 the other, allowing a country to part with him and his 

 pack after a series of most brilliant sport : I am upon 

 the subject of hounds, and I write as I talk, with more 

 pronenesss to say what I think than to think what I 

 say ; as I would avoid all cause of offence, so would I 

 scorn to flatter any man breathing ; and when I say 

 that the establishment of such a pack as Mr. Berkeley's 

 was the more remarkable, as in immediate succession to 

 that which had been so fully tried and approved under 

 the fostering care of Lord Tavistock (confessedly one 



