146 TUE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



was in liis prime, as a fox-hunter, long before the close 

 of the last century : who well knew the practice of 

 those days, and was well acquainted with the circum- 

 stances. One hundred couples were drawn for the 

 hunting pack (leaving, I should imagine, but a small 

 residue for the solace of the feeder, at home) ; and 

 when the fixture was at Segg's Hill, six miles from Mr. 

 Meynell's residence, it was thought necessary to despatch 

 them there over night, not only that they might be in 

 time for the rendezvous with the first rays of light, 

 but in order to avoid the fiitigue of the journey ! Well 

 may we expect to " live and learn," or learn while we 

 live, when we find that, within the memory of many now 

 being, and I trust, long to be, the science was thus still 

 in its infancy. That Mr. Meynell lived to discover, and 

 reform, the errors of this primitive state is well known ; 

 the order of things, in the present day, being chiefly the 

 result of his experience : but it is no less fact, that, for 

 several seasons, he never fairly killed one brace of foxes 

 above ground. Digging was then a common resource ; 

 the spade and pickaxe were powerful auxiliaries of those 

 days. The chase, which had comprehended unlimited 

 extent, generally terminated in the bowels of the earth ; 

 and whether the jaded object of many an hour's pursuit 

 had sought sanctuary in a rabbit-burrow, or in a more 

 legitimate refuge ; whether the process of extraction was 

 of brief or of indefinite duration, — that man was held a 

 recreant who would desert his post, or think about his 

 *' domus et plciccns uxor," till he could render a posthu- 



