EARLY HISTORY OF FOXHUNTING 7 



thus described by Addison in The Spectator, 

 in a well-known passage : — 



" My friend Sir Roger (de Coverley) has 

 been an indefatigable man in business of this 

 kind, and has hung several parts of his house 

 with the trophies of his former labours. The 

 walls of his great hall are covered with the 

 horns of several kinds of deer he has killed 

 in the chase, which he thinks the most valuable 

 furniture of his house, as they afford him 

 frequent topics of discourse, and show that he 

 has not been idle. At the lower end of the 

 hall is a large otter's skin, stuffed with hay, 

 which his mother ordered to be hung up in that 

 manner, and the knight looks upon with great 

 satisfaction ; because it seems he was but nine 

 years old, when his dog killed him. A little 

 room adjoining the hall is a kind of arsenal, 

 filled with guns of several sizes and inventions ; 

 with which the knight has made great havock 

 in the woods, and destroyed many thousands 

 of pheasants, partridges, and woodcocks. His 

 stable doors are patched with * noses ' that 

 belonged to foxes of the knight's own hunt- 

 ing down. Sir Roger showed me one of them 

 that for distinction sake has a brass nail stuck 

 through it, which cost him about fifteen hours 

 riding, and carried him through half a dozen 

 counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and 



