23 HUNTING. 



practical knowledge.' Wliether this statement is more in 

 accordance with fact than the othei we cannot say, as we must 

 confess to have never met with a copy. Our only knowledge 

 of it is derived from tlie ' Druid,' who was more fortunate than 

 we. The author, as he tells us in ' Silk and Scarlet,' ' pre- 

 sumes on pardon from the loquacious world, if among so many 

 treatises, vindications, replies, journals, craftsmen, hyp-doctors, 

 and lay preachers, the press be borrowed a day or two for a plain 

 essay on the innocent recreation of us country squires.' The 

 hunting of the hare was clearly the recreation nearest the heart 

 of this particular squire. In the 'Druid's' words, 'a fox, it is 

 true, is curled up at the end of the essay ; but he runs hare 

 throughout.' Still more candid is the next writer, a Mr. 

 Gardiner, author of 'The Art and the Pleasures of Hare Hunting, 

 in six letters to a Person of Quality,' who evidently thinks the 

 ' triumph of the timid hare ' is the only triumph worthy of a true 

 sportsman. Three years later we get into a wider field with 

 ' The Country Gentleman's Companion,' compiled by 'a Country 

 Gentleman from his own Experiences ;' a sensible little book, 

 owing a great deal, of course, to its predecessors, despite the 

 author's prefatory disclaimer, nor always acknowledging its 

 debts, but yet with a good deal to say for itself, especially on the 

 breeding and management of hounds, and the general economy 

 of the kennel. Between the anonymous ' Essay on Hunting ' 

 and these two works comes Somerville's ' Chase,' which most 

 people interested in the subject have probably read once at 

 least in their lives ; if they have never studied the original, they 

 must at any rate have got a very fair idea of it from Beckford's 

 book, in which from first to last the most important part of the 

 poem is practically reprinted. Beckford himself of course marks 

 an era not only in the literature but in the history of hunting. 

 Whatever may have been the real value of the writers before 

 him, it is certain that to all who have come after him he has 

 been a * guide, philosopher, and friend.' It is scarcely too 

 much to say that since his ' Thoughts upon Hunting ' were first 

 printed in 1781 there has been no writer who has gone at all 



