The Litekatcre of Fox-iiuxters. 495 



Handing round glasses of cherry brandy is one of tlic superstitions of Britisli liunting 

 breakfasts, an excellent liquor for producing a headache in its ordinary home-made form. 

 If, in deference to old established custom, it is considered necessary to give it in addition to 

 dry sherry, old cognac, mulled claret, and sound bitter ale, the wiser plan is to purchase 

 cherry brandy of Copenhagen manufacture. 



The success of a breakfast meet is very much enhanced if the giver engages a large number of 

 countrymen to hold the horses of the guests. Fifty men at a shilling apiece will take charge 

 of a hundred horses, and then their riders will have no excuse for not availing themselves of 

 the hospitality of the giver of the feast. 



Some persons treat the Master of the hounds — especially if he be a peer — like royalty, 

 and entertain him and his set in an inner apartment on superior fare. But it is certainly not 

 " good form," and would not please such Masters of hounds as the Earl Spencer, the Earl of 

 Coventry, or of Portsmouth. 



Well-planned and well-executed, a hunt breakfast may be found a not unimportant step 

 towards county society. 



THE LITERATURE OF HUNTING. 



Young people of both sexes who have not been bred in a hunting county or surrounded 

 from their earliest years by fox-hunting society, yet in whom love of the chase has cropped up 

 strongly, as it often does in the most unexpected places and families, naturally desire to 

 know what to read in the days and in the evenings when they cannot be, whatever their 

 means or their leisure, hunting or on horseback. 



My answer when this question is put to me is : — " Invest in the railway-station novels ot 

 Whyte Melville and Anthony Trollope, and particularly, as to the latter, in ' Phineas Finn,' 

 the ' Eustace Diamonds,' and the ' American Senator.' " No one can describe a good run 

 with hounds like Whyte Melville ; but for an unlucky day with a refusing horse, for all the 

 drawbacks and commonplaces of hunting, including a blank day, commend me to Anthony 

 Trollope. His " Masters of Hounds " and his " Members of a Provincial Hunt " are like 

 perfect photographs from life. 



The author of " The Handley Cross Hounds " and the " Adventures of Mr. Soapy 

 Sponge" was thoroughly versed in the arts of the hunting-field and the ways of hunting 

 men. In one or two characters — for instance, Mr. Jorrocks's north country huntsman, James 

 Pigge — he fairly rivalled the immortal Sam Weller ; but he was a writer of a diseased mind, 

 and only delighted in describing what was mean, low, and disgusting ; all his prominent 

 characters — they cannot be called heroes — are coarse, vulgar ruffians, whether lords or tea- 

 dealers. There are too many sporting writers who follow this line without Mr. Surtees' talents. 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE DEAD FOX. 



A fox killed by hounds belongs to the master of those hounds, i. The head, or mask, is 

 carried home, tied to the coupling-buckle, on the saddle of the first whip, to be nailed on 

 the kennel door. 2. The brush, after a straight-away chase, is commonly claimed by " the 

 first man up ;" and this claim is always, by courtesy, acknowledged by the master. It is an 

 act. of courtesy on his part, and a general custom, but not an absolute right on the part 

 of the man " first up." 3. The pads are the perquisite of the huntsman and whips. The 

 second Earl of Lonsdale gave Hugo Meynell for his authority. 



