HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 21 



seriously into the science and economy of the subject who has not 

 more or less made use of their amusing pages. For they are as 

 amusing as sensible. Even those who regard the subject itself 

 with indifference or dislike could not but allow on trial that 

 Beckford is at least never tedious or dull, for all his own modest 

 declaration that ' fox-hunting, however hvely and animating it 

 may be in the field, is but a dull dry subject to write upon.' 

 He has generally some witty story or shrewd saying at hand to 

 point his moral, and his style is quite a model for such a work. 

 No man ever so happily illustrated Johnson's saying of the 

 miportance of being able to write trifles with dignity. At the 

 same time he is never pompous or pedantic, any more than he 

 is slovenly or vulgar. Beckford was in fact a remarkably well- 

 read and cultivated man, one of the very best specimens of the 

 English country squire the last century affords us — a striking 

 antithesis, indeed, to that other fox-hunting squire whom 

 Fielding drew, more typical of the breed, perhaps, than Beckford. 

 Cousin to that famous Lord Mayor, John Wilkes's champion, 

 patron that was to have been of poor Chatterton, and father 

 to the great lord of Fonthill, our author inherited from his father 

 a comfortable estate in Dorsetshire which enabled him to in- 

 dulge his tastes both for letters and sport. His ' Familiar Letters 

 from Italy to a Friend in England,' the record of a continental 

 tour made just before the outbreak of the French Revolution, 

 are most agreeable reading, the work of a man well versed in 

 ancient and modern literature, and of good taste and perception. 

 A contemporary writer has thus pithily summed him up : 'Never 

 had fox or hare the honour of being chased to death by so 

 accomplished a huntsman \ never was huntsman's dinner graced 

 by such urbanity and wit. He would bag a fox in Greek, find 

 a hare in Latin, inspect his kennels in Italian, and direct the 

 economy of his stables in exquisite French.' ^ 



With Beckford's book our retrospect of the literature of 

 hunting may fitly close. He clearly marks the end of the old 



1 We are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Robert Harrison, Librarian of 

 tlie London Library, for these particulars of Beckford's accomphshments. 



