THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 27 



I have, at the present time, a bitch called Baneful, 

 by Lord Segrave's Racer, out of his Barmaid, which I 

 hold quite invaluable, not only because she was pre- 

 sented to me by Mr. Berkeley, and that I regard such 

 a present in proportion to the acquisition she has 

 proved, but on account of the intrinsic worth which 

 constitutes, amongst all my pets, the best claim to a 

 favour, which is nothing less than affection. Of all I 

 ever saw, I should select her, had I a wager depending 

 upon killing a fox with one single hound. To see her 

 swimming a river at the head of the pack, throwing 

 her tongue at every stroke, is, indeed, to use a quaint 

 expression of Boxall's, enough to make the dead leap 

 from their graves to look at her. I shall never forget 

 her, with Ritual, by Mr. Osbaldeston's Sailor, out of 

 Mr. Berkeley's Relict, another of the sort, when cross- 

 ing the canal near Tring, in the middle of that glorious 

 run, with a three-o'clock fox, from Kensworth Gorse to 

 Wendover, having skirted Aylesbury. In an accurate 

 account which appeared from the pen of some friend in 

 " Bell's Life," the pack were well described, and truly, 

 when crossing the canal, as " clustering as though all 

 might have been included in a casting net ;" but I will 

 not here dwell even upon this glorious day, though 

 glorious it may well be called, considering that a space 

 of thirty miles over the map, by admeasurement, was 

 accomplished in two hours and twenty-eight minutes, 

 without one hound missing, with a fox found after a 

 severe morning's previous work, and that, taking it 



