The Earijest Fox-hounds. 397 



as you dare trust tlieni. Let the hounds kill the fox themselves. Fox-hunting is very- 

 pleasant, for by reason of his strong scent he maketh an excellent cry." 



Messrs. Dickenson's " Exhibition of Pictures illustrative of Two Centuries of Hunting " 

 contained a hunting-horn, lent by Reginald Corbet, Esq., which bore the following inscription : — 

 "Thomas Boothby, Esq., Tooley Park, Leiccs. With this Horn he hunted the first 

 pack of Fox Hounds then in England, 55 years. Born 1677, died 1752. Now the property 

 of Thos. d'Avenant, Esq., county Salop, his grandson." 



On seeing this statement. Lord Arundel of Wardour wrote to the editor of the Field, 

 "that his ancestors kept a pack of fox-hounds hunting Wiltshire and Hampshire from the 

 year 1696 to 1782, as proved by documents in his possession." 



Pope, in a letter to Addison, November 19th, 17 12, referred to "Mr. Roper as having 

 the reputation of keeping the best pack of fox-hounds in the kingdom."* Further inquiries 

 showed that Mr. Roper was a Kentish gentleman who hunted a pack of hounds in Charlton 

 Forest for the amusement of his patron, the Duke of Monmouth. He fought for the Duke 

 at Sedgemoor, escaped after that terrible defeat to France, where his skill in venery made 

 him friends and gave him the privilege of hunting in the Royal Forest of Chantilly. He 

 returned to England, when that good horseman and keen sportsman, William of Orange, had 

 chased away the bigot James, and became, with the Duke of Bolton, the Master of the Charlton 

 Hounds — very famous in their day. Goodwood Park was formed out of a slice of Charlton 

 Forest. Mr. Roper died in 1715, and some time afterwards the hounds passed from the Duke 

 of Bolton to the Duke of Richmond, who built Goodwood House, and adorned it with 

 paintings commemorative of the Cliarlton Hunt. For this hunt the Earl of Burlington 

 designed a banqueting hall, where they feasted with their ladies (the Duchess of Bolton, 

 daughter of Monmouth, was one) after a day's sport. There is a tradition in the county 

 of the Marquis of Hartington's riding down Seven Down, and leaping a gate at the 

 bottom. On the fourth Duke of Richmond going to L'eland a Lord-Lieutenant, he presented 

 the hounds to the Prince Regent in 1813 ; and in 18 19, on symptoms of hydrophobia appearing, 

 they were all destroyed. t 



The oldest pack of fox-hounds by iiaine is the Old Berkeley, which in ancient days had 

 its kennels at Wormwood Scrubs, and hunted all the way through Hertfordshire to Glou- 

 cestershire ; but the continuity has long been broken, and, after having been re-established, 

 by the advice of his physician, by the second Earl of Lonsdale, is now cliiefly a sub- 

 scription pack, supported by residents of the West End of London. The Berkeley Hounds, 

 kept at the castle of that name by the Fitzhardinge family, are a comparatively modern 

 creation. The Old Berkeley Hunt has its kennels at Watford, in Herts, and dresses its 

 huntsman and whips in the orange-tawny plush livery of the Berkeley family. 



The Brocklesby pack has been maintained in the family of the Pelhams, Earls of Yar- 

 borough, more than 150 years, and a written pedigree of the pack has been kept for upwards 

 of 120 years; it is therefore the oldest pack in the kingdom. In 1S50, by the kindness of 

 the second Earl of Yarborough, I was permitted to examine all the papers connected with 

 his hounds. Among them is a memorandum, dated April 20, 17 13, by which "it is agreed 



* " Paper's of a Critii-," edited by .Sir Charles Dilke, Bart. 



t Somerville, who describes himself as "a well-born squire of Warwickshire, and six feet high," in his poem of "The 

 Chase," devotes separate cantos to stag-hunting, hare-hunting, and fox-hunting ; the first Lord Filzliardinge, ot Berkeley Castle, 

 used to declare that he learned all he kn^w of scent from that poem. This was a joke, for it tells nothing ! 



