MASTERSHIP OF STAGHOUNDS 217 



mort, " Success to Stag-hunting " was solemnly drunk 

 by the assembled company in port-wine. Then Tout 

 retired to his own place. " Nimrod," in the Sporting 

 Magazine, October and November 1824, gives a coarse 

 description of this habit of drinking stag-hunting, 

 which, I am sorry to say, has been quoted in various 

 books on hunting. "Nimrod" only paid one visit to 

 the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, namely, in 1824, 

 when he appears to have sought information in the 

 tap-rooms of the village ale-houses. In the November 

 number of the Spoiiing Magazine, 1824, he writes at the 

 conclusion of one of his usual egoistical letters to that 

 journal : " In my Western excursion I was absent from 

 home just twenty days." He also states, " Devonshire 

 is certainly the worst hunting country I ever was in ; 

 yet, strange to say, there are more hounds kept in 

 it than in any other three counties in England." 

 Apparently the chaos of hill, vale, wood, water, tors, 

 precipices, and cataracts, all promiscuously hurled 

 together, as it were, in Nature's wildest mood, did not 

 appeal to the journalist. 



But, except to the students of ancient hunting history, 

 the writings of Nimrod are of no interest. Nor do they 

 concern our present subject, namely, the Mastership of 

 Staghounds. They constitute, however, a grave libel 

 on the sporting geography of Devon and Somerset, 

 which it is necessary to contradict. How can a man, 

 with the experience of twenty days, give reliable 

 evidence of a sport of which he had no previous 

 knowledge ? However, the statement of the late Duke 

 of Beaufort, to which I have already alluded, is one 



