HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



striped blue and buff waistcoat, yellow buckskins, 

 in fact the dress of the Fox Club, with a large yellow 

 button in which was embossed a fox's pate, around 

 which in large legible characters * Bishopscourt 

 Hunt ' appeared quite as aristocratic as anyone 

 need wish. 



" Although the right honourable owner of these 

 hounds," continues the Irish Baronet, " seemed to 

 take as much satisfaction and delight in the way he 

 was surrounded, yet nothing I could plainly distin- 

 guish was at all to be compared to the marked joy, 

 mingled with love and respect which you saw in 

 every member's countenance when riding up to 

 greet their admitted leader in both the house and 

 the field for omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile 

 dulci was translated thus by his brother George, 

 ' The sure way of getting your Irish friends and 

 supporters, particularly those who cling to fox-hunt- 

 ing and live in distant counties, to be punctual in 

 their attendance on parliamentary duties, is to keep 

 a rattling pack of Foxhounds at Bishopscourt near 

 the capital,' in which translation, every one who 

 knew the man also knew this was ' one word for 

 the M.P.'s and two for himself.' " 



The baronet then gives us a portrait of Mr W. B. 

 Ponsonby, the Master. 



" Who of all the men I ever met in my younger 



days possessed more of the keen sportsman in his 



composition and understood par excellence as much 



of the hunting of a pack of foxhounds and crossing 



42 



