" SUAVITER IN MODO, FORTITER IN RE." 147 



arrive at the happy medium. We may have got 

 nearer to what we want ; but the produce may be too 

 high or too low, may still have too much of the glare 

 and dash of the one parent, or too much of the want 

 of it of the other. We must now cross again, and 

 persevere till we arrive at perfection, or near it. This, 

 it will be perceived, is not come at in one or two 

 seasons ; and, in a general way, I think I shall be 

 found somewhat near the mark when I said that in 

 about four seasons I should like to take a peep at a 

 newly organised pack ; and then I make the proviso, 

 that a head of the right sort has been at work for 

 them ; if not, commend me to two or three good 

 terriers in a barn full of rats : I should here at all 

 events see some description of sport carried on as it 

 ought to be. 



Let me add another thing ; I know of few situa- 

 tions a man can be placed in to call forth all the 

 attributes of a perfect gentleman so much as being 

 the master of fox-hounds : he has so many interests 

 to consult so many opinions (and many of them 

 ridiculous ones) to listen to often so much ill- 

 breeding in the field to bear so many tempers to 

 conciliate that nothing but the greatest urbanity of 

 manner, added to steady determination, can carry 

 him through ; and this even after he has brought his 

 pack to be all but faultless. I hope my readers will 

 now agree with me, that to manage a pack of fox- 

 hounds, requires more head than those who think it 

 does not probably possess. 



We now see weekly so many steeple-chases adver- 

 tised, that we may be led to the inference that either 

 it requires very little or no head to ride one, or that 

 the English have become all at once more than usually 



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