THE HUNTING-FIELD, 



CHAPTER I. 



The Chase : its Pleasures. — The Fox-hunter and the Farmer. — 

 A Case in Point. — Plain Facts. — Sportsmen Personified. — 

 Masters of Fox-hounds. — Their Distinctive Features.— How- 

 to form a Sportsman. — Difference of Packs. — Illustrative 

 Anecdotes. 



The Field! Not, reader, the far-famed one of 

 •Waterloo, nor the more remote in history but 

 equally memorable one of Bosworth. Mj humble 

 pen shall not can'y my ideas to either plain, 

 though my horse has carried me over both. It 

 was with the enthusiasm of a mere boy I was 

 first carried across either, but with enthusiasm of 

 a different sort, and, sooth to say, the one by far 

 the most agreeable. For, hail, thou field of 

 Bosworth ! if Mars has claimed thee as the tem- 

 porary arena of his belligerent sons, fair Diana 

 has " smoothed the rugged front of war " by 

 making thee a part and parcel of her sylvan ter- 

 ritory. Unheroic may be the choice, but in 

 honesty I must avow I hold it pleasanter to put 



B 



