140 LOSS OF POWER IS A NATION'S LOSS. 



or even coats with thorns or gorse. Some almost in- 

 variably take the lead on a fox going away, and, if he is 

 run into in twenty minutes, go for that time like me- 

 teors : others, particularly some old hounds, let these 

 flash gentlemen make all the running, and when they 

 find their fox sinking, first make a quotation, "finis 

 coronat opus" then get to the head, and kill their fox. 

 I am not joking as to the hound making a quotation : 

 I only conclude he makes it inwardly ; whereas Ba- 

 laam's ass held forth loudly and in good set phrase. 

 If so, surely my hound may be allowed a little quiet 

 quotation to himself. 



Supposing a Huntsman to possess the requisites I 

 have mentioned, and to be a good horseman, I should 

 say he will do well enough ! but to do this he must 

 have no block head. 



Of the First Whip, I need say no more than that 

 he requires to the full as much, if not more, head in 

 the field than the Huntsman. There is one little ad- 

 dition to his general business that it would be a great 

 advantage to fox-hunting to delegate to him (if we 

 could) : he is expected to correct young hounds that 

 run riot either at covert or in chase why not some 

 young gentlemen who not unfrequently do the same ? 



We will now look in at the kennel, by the general 

 appearance of which and its inhabitants a practised 

 eye will at once detect what sort of head conducts the 

 establishment. Poor Power used to say, when acting 

 the part of a Prince in Teddy the Tiler, " You same to 

 think it's as aisy to make a Prince as a had of mortar." 

 Of the relative difficulty of making these two articles I 

 am not a judge, never having made a Prince. A hod 

 of mortar I really have manufactured, and therefore 

 can only humbly venture a surmise, that if I was for- 



