THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 287 



patriarch of his tribe. I should have considered his 

 appellation as a sad misnomer, seeing that 



" A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet," 

 had I not remembered, that it is possible to be radically 

 excellent, as well as execrable. 



Some of the old dogs are tall, and they may gene- 

 rally be called large hounds; but none of them are 

 overgrown, and they are altogether a most splendid pack. 

 The bitches, and the whole of the entry for this year, 

 do not average above a moderate height. It is not 

 likely that such a sportsman as Mr. Assheton Smith 

 would have been long in any country, without disco- 

 vering exactly the kind of hound required for it. It is 

 evident that, during the last ten years' residence in 

 Hampshire, he has succeeded in hitting the mark. Be it 

 recorded, in honour of the provinces, that Mr. Assheton 

 Smith has been able to affirm, as an incontrovertible 

 fact, divested of prejudice or partiality, that his sport 

 has not only equalled, but far exceeded that which he 

 had enjoyed in Leicestershire. 



Concerning the stables, it will suffice to say, that 

 we found stalls and boxes occupied by that stamp of 

 hunters which might be expected to be found in the 

 possession of one who never knew any other place 

 than that of First in the first flight, and whose; means of 

 administering to his will had never been fettered by 

 considerations of the " res angusta domi." The ser- 

 vants' horses are also consistent with the general ap- 

 pointments. Were I to pursue the course common in 

 descriptions of this kind, I might have refreshed this 



