230 , THE HORSE. 



had their bell courses and hunting matches, foreign, 

 English well bred, and thorough bred horses had 

 been ridden in the field, as we learn from the old 

 writers. To recur fifty or sixty years back, no emi- 

 nent hunt was at that period without its share of 

 thorough bred, seven eights and three part bred horses, 

 much indeed, as we find them at present, excepting 

 that they were not equally numerous. About that time 

 also commenced the definitive change in the breed of 

 foxhounds, then generally the southern heavy eared, 

 loud tongued, bony, slow hound. The ear of these 

 was reduced, the bone and bulk lightened, the waist 

 increased in length, and some addition made to the 

 stature ; in fine, an intire new foxhound was raised 

 through the medium and instrumentality of the 

 breeder's and improver's art, no doubt after an inde- 

 fatigable perseverance in experiment : the successful 

 result was much the same kind of hound, that we see 

 in the clipping packs of the present time. Thus the 

 incipient fashionable mania for speed in the field, was 

 enabled to gratify itself, and the new and improved 

 breed of foxhounds, through which the harriers were 

 also improved, spread itself by degrees, until in a 

 score or two of years, the old southern hound became 

 neglected in all the capital packs, and of late years, 

 that breed, in its purity at any rate, is to be found in 

 very few parts of the country, perhaps yet in Sussex 

 if any where. Some packs, however, are at present 

 seen with ears heavy beyond the usual standard, 

 which may have happened from a recross with the 

 old hound. 



It was not possible, in the nature of things, or 

 rather of men, that a canine revolution like this could 



