LETTER XXIV. 257 



new plan of making foxes break covert introduced into 

 this part of the world ; they smoke them out /" 



If I have at any time when writing of my visit to Mr. 

 Slowman's country appeared to bear heavily on my old 

 and reverend friend, nothing was really further from my 

 intention. He was, it is true, bigotted to his own pack 

 of hounds, and for this I applaud him. Every man who 

 has a good pack of hounds in his own country, with a 

 real sportsman at the head, should stick to them through 

 thick and thin, and be cautious of changing them for new 

 faces and new systems, which often disappoint the hopes 

 of the most sanguine lovers of variety. His was a pack 

 of which any man ought to have been justly proud. 

 Peculiarities he had, it is true, and who has not ? but this 

 much I am bound to say of him, that he was the finest 

 preacher, the best rider, and the most staunch friend to 

 fox-hunting that ever lived in any country, and long, long 

 will it be e'er we shall look on his like again. 



The system now pursued with these large woodlands 

 is to hunt them generally once a week, and the foxes fly 

 without the assistance of powder or smoke. The conti- 

 nual changes which almost yearly take place in the ma- 

 nagement of fox-hunting countries are prejudicial both 

 to the hounds and to sport generally. Men of large 

 fortune are often attracted by the eclat of the thing to 

 take the direction of a fashionable country, which they 

 as hastily resign when they find the weight of the burden 

 they have imposed upon themselves. But there the 

 mischief does not rest ; other and perhaps real sportsmen, 

 and men of business habits (for the management of a pack 

 of foxhounds is a regular business, and requires men 

 brought up from boyhood to that calling, if I may so 



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