THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 379 



" Without entering into the wide range of hunting, the 

 following maxims may be observed with advantage by a 

 huntsman : 



" In drawing for your fox don't be persuaded always to 

 draw up wind. In the first place, you are in danger of 

 chopping your fox ; secondly, he is almost sure then to go 

 down wind at starting ; and thirdly, you may drive him 

 into the worst part of your country, or from his point. (I 

 am, of course, supposing your pack to be quite steady, 

 otherwise drawing up wind is more desirable, as, should 

 any riot be going on down wind, the voice of the huntsman 

 will better reach the offenders.) When found, get after 

 him as quickly as possible, if you have a body of hounds 

 with you, if not, you will have a better chance of a run 

 if you wait a little until the body come up. This is easily 



vrith ready impulses for acting so necessary to each? That he 

 should be fond of his profession and indefatigable in the pursuit 

 of it ; sober and exact, sensible and good-tempered. It is not 

 necessary that either a huntsman or a soldier should be a man of 

 letters ; some of the former have been scarcely able to read, and 

 there have been but few Csesars who could both fight and write ; 

 but a good and sound understanding is put to the test both by the 

 one and the other ; and each requires, in addition to such an 

 undertaking, a manly exertion of talent. With respect to gentle- 

 men-huntsmen, there cannot be a doubt that no man enjoys hunting 

 to perfection equally with him who hunts his own hounds ; nor can 

 there be any reason assigned why an educated gentleman should 

 not excel in any ardent and highly scientific pursuit, which hunting 

 is allowed to be, an uneducated servant. Nevertheless it does admit 

 of a doubt whether, throughout the fox-hunting world in general, 

 gentlemen-huntsmen have been so popular as might have been 

 expected ; and in a few countries that have been hunted by sub- 

 scription an exception has been taken against the master of the 

 pack being the huntsman. That it is a laborious office when 

 efficiently performed, both in the kennel and the field, is well 

 known to those who have tilled it ; but, labor ipse voluptas, a pains- 

 taking zeal is often displayed by the master, which has been want- 

 ing in the servant ; and it was the remark of a certain nobleman 

 that, after the first fox, his huntsman was more disposed to find his 

 dinner than a second. In a well known ' diary ' lately published, 

 a perfect huntsman is thus described : ' He should possess the 

 following qualifications : health, memory, decision, temper, and 

 patience, voice and sight, courage and spirits, perseverance and 

 activity,' which requisites a still later writer on the 'noble science' 

 seems to think are oftener found in the gentleman than the 

 servant. The first-named writer pithily observes, that, with the 

 attributes he awards to him, a huntsman will soon make a bad 

 pack a good one. If quick, he will make a slow pack quick ; if 

 slow, he will make a quick pack slow." 



