The Essex and the Essex Union. 341 



St. Pancras to join a fashionable pack at a greater 

 distance. Living in town, lie may take train to the 

 Essex or Essex Union at 9 a.m._, reach any of their 

 meets_, and make a full day^s hunting before returning 

 to dinner. Or he may reverse the system; and, 

 taking a snug box in a district that is undulating, 

 well wooded, and picturesque, use the train to London 

 on working days, while giving to his household all the 

 advantage of fresh country air in summer, to himself 

 all the luxury of being in a hunting quarter in the 

 winter. For it is the Benedict and the busy man who 

 will chiefly affect Essex. Ambitious youth, with time 

 and energy to spare, may probably elect to go farther 

 afield, and join the rush on greener fields and pastures 

 that to him are still new. Mayhap he will return 

 unrewarded, possibly shaken — personally or pecuniarily 

 — and content in future to take his pleasure amid 

 scenes less trying and more easily accessible. It will 

 not always happen so ; and of this he may be sure — 

 that, if disappointed in his pictured Elysium, much of 

 the shortcoming will be due to himself rather than to 

 the scenes he visits. But this by the way. 



Essex, it is true, is purely a county of plough — but 

 good plough — plough that holds a scent, and yet does 

 not hold a horse with half the tenacity of grip 

 belonging to some grass. Over most of Essex you 

 may gallop to hounds, and hounds will often go fast 

 enough to furnish the chance. Under certain condi- 

 tions of weather, part of it — the Ruthins — becomes a 

 flying country ; and all of it is rideable in one fashion 

 or another. Of the two representative packs nearest 

 to London, the Essex takes the northern side of the 



