132 FOX-HUNTING 



This, I have no doubt, might correctly be 

 described as strong drink. 



But to hark back on the line for a moment. 

 I feel I must qualify my opening paragraph, 

 for I have suddenly remembered a passage 

 I lately read in one of the Reports of the 

 Historical MSS. Commission, which both 

 shows that royalty in the seventeenth century 

 countenanced fox-hunting, and that it is of 

 greater antiquity than some modern authors 

 generally suppose. Here is the extract 

 taken from a Newsletter, November 17, 

 1674: "iith, on Saturday or Sunday (!) 

 next His Royal Highness and the Duke 

 of Monmouth and divers persons of quality 

 go to Chichester, where they are to lodge 

 in the Bishop's (!) Palace, and expect all 

 the gentry of the neighbourhood to repair 



