130 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



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 tlie 

 cords so generally adopted during the teuiporary 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 recognize 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 sufficiently 

 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 

 can be made lighter than a hat, and either should be 

 substantial enough to resist a fall. One word upon a 

 whip must be superfluous ; the less I offer of the lash 

 the better, after the incontestible evidence adduced 

 by Mr. Smith in favour of such an appendage as 

 " the thong." Spurs have been pronounced by some 

 very " learned Thebans," to be far more devoted to orna- 

 ment than use, to be more important to the cavalier in 

 Hyde Park, who 



" With the left heel assiduously aside, 

 Provokes the caper he pretends to chide," 



