154 ON HUNTING. 



" The progress of agriculture is indelibly associated 

 with fox-hunting ; for the three great landlords, who did 

 more to turn sand and heath into corn and wool, and 

 make popular the best breeds of stock and best course 

 of cultivation — Francis, Duke of Bedford ; Coke, Earl 

 of Leicester; and the first Lord Yarboroudi — were all 

 masters of hounds. 



"When indecency formed the staple of our plays, and 

 a drunken debauch formed the inevitable sequence of 

 every dinner-party, a fool and a fox-hunter were syno- 

 nymous. Squire Western w'as the rej^resentative of a 

 class, which, however, was not more ridiculous than 

 the patched, perfumed Sir Plumes, whom Hogarth 

 painted, and Pope satirised. Fox-hunters are not a class 

 now — roads, newspapers, and manufacturing emigration 

 have equalised the condition of the whole kingdom ; and 

 fox-hunters are just like any other people, who wear 

 clean shirts, and can afford to keep one or more horses, 



'' It is safe to assert that hunting-men, as a class, are 

 temperate. No man can ride well across a difficult 

 country who is not. We must, however, admit that the 

 birds who have most fouled their own nest have been 

 broken-down sportsmen, chiefly racing men, w-ho have 

 turned writers to turn a penny. These unfortunate 

 people, with the fatal example of ' Noctes Ambrosianse ' 

 before them, fill up a page, whenever their memory or 

 their industry fails them, in describing in detail a break- 

 fast, a luncheon, a dinner, and a supper. And this has 

 been repeated so often, that the uninitiated are led to 

 believe that every fox-hunter must, as a matter of course, 

 keep and consume an immense cellai' of port, sherry, 

 madeira, hock, champagne, and all manner of liqueurs, 

 as well as a French cook. 



