14 HUNTING. 



in England by Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II., who was 

 the first to ride in the modern manner ; though in Portugal, if 

 Sir Nathaniel Wraxall may be trusted, the earlier style still pre- 

 vailed in the latter half of the last century. If this were so, we 

 must suppose that the ' Bury ladies ' aped the sterner sex only 

 in their garb and not in their seat ; that, in fact, they draped 

 themselves much as the Dianas of our own time, save that they 

 did not consult decorum to the extent of a skirt. From a 

 passage in Pope's correspondence we learn that in his time 

 hunting was high in fashion among the Court ladies, though in 

 one instance, at any rate, it seems to have been a fashion 

 followed, like so many other fashions, less from inclination 

 than etiquette. ' I met the Prince,' he writes to some anony- 

 mous fair, 'with all his ladies on horseback coming from 

 hunting. Mrs. B and Mrs. L took me into protec- 

 tion (contrary to the laws against harbouring Papists), and gave 

 me a dinner with something I liked better, an opportunity of 



conversation with Mrs. H . We all agreed that the life of 



a Maid of Honour was of all things the most miserable ; and 

 wished that every woman who envied it had a specimen of it. 

 To eat Westphalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges and 

 ditches on borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day 

 with a fever and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red 

 mark in the forehead from an uneasy hat ; all this may qualify 

 them to make excellent wives for fox- hunters, and bear abun- 

 dance of ruddy-complexioned children.' The most renowned 

 Diana of that century seems to have been Lady Salisbury, who 

 kept a pack of dwarf foxhounds at Hatfield, and went a-hunting 

 in great state, her servants magnificent in sky-blue uniforms, 

 black collars, lappels, and jockey-caps. In the ' Sporting 

 Magazine' for March 1795, there is an account of her triumphs 

 in a great run of two hours and a half : ' Out of a field of 

 fourscore,' says her enthusiastic chronicler, ' her ladyship soon 

 gave honest Daniel the go-by ; pressed Mr. Hale neck-and- 

 neck, soon blowed the whipper-in, and continued, indeed, 

 throughout the whole of the chase to be nearest the brush.' 



