INTRODUCTION vii 



practised bruisers, on a weak, defenceless tradesman. Fraser 

 brought an action against Berkeley for assault, setting the 

 damages at the same figure claimed by Berkeley in the libel 

 action, viz. ^6000, but he had to content himself with a verdict 

 for c^lOO. Two days later, Berkeley fought a duel with Dr. 

 Maginn, editor of the magazine, who owned to having written 

 the article. The meeting took place in a field near the Harrow 

 Road, three shots being exchanged between the gentlemen, of 

 whom only one, Dr. Maginn, was slightly wounded. This was 

 only one out of many quarrels of which Berkeley's peculiar 

 training and temper were the cause. 



He is said to have been an ungraceful rider. " He prided 

 himself to the last," says Mr. Charles Kent in the Dictionary of 

 National Biography, upon having learnt pugilism from Byron's 

 instructor, Jackson, and retained until far on in middle life a 

 coarser kind of buckish coxcombry. He delighted in wearing at 

 the same time two or three different-coloured satin under-waist- 

 coats, and round his throat three or four gaudy silk neckerchiefs, 

 held together by passing the ends of them through a gold ring. 

 Even when he had come to be an old man, he piqued himself 

 upon having been the last to cling to the flat cocked hat of 

 polite life known early in the century as the chapeau bras" 



He contributed to the Field and other journals many letters 

 and papers on sport and natural history of a somewhat super- 

 ficial kind. His regularly published works were as follows : 



Berkeley Castle, a historical romance, 3 vols. . . 1836 

 A Pamphlet, etc. , in reply to a Prize Essay on the claims 



of the Animal Creation to the Humanity of Man . 1839 



Sandron Hall, or The Days of Queen Anne, a novel, 3 vols. 1840 



The Potato Disease, a pamphlet .... 1854 



Reminiscences of a Huntsman . . . ] 854 



A Month in the Forests of France . . . 1857 



Love and the Lion, a poem .... 1857 



The English Sportsman in the Western Prairies . . 1861 



b 



