40 NOTITIA VENATICA. 



tlie sportsmen ; for in tliosc days it was the fashion for all the privileged 

 attendants on the chase to carry a horn, and blow it as occasion might 

 require. The foxes of the last century being far stouter in their natures 

 than many of the mongrel-bred vermin of the present age, stained as 

 they are by the introduction of French blootl, Avere not only enabled to 

 stand longer before hounds, but, from there being so few game preserves, 

 and from the necessity of foxes travelling great distances for their food, 

 they became much wilder and shyer in their habits than they otherwise 

 would have been if they had been enabled constantly to procure their 

 prey close at home, from the remains of the Avoundcd game so abun- 

 dantly left by sportsmen in some covers, which are so perpetually shot in, 

 in all parts of the country, especially where they are contiguous to large 

 preserves. Moreover, the country was not enclosed as it is now ; not 

 one tithe of the fir plantations to stop hounds, nor canals and railroads 

 to form impediments to the progress of the horseman : it Avas all fair 

 sailing ; and as hounds were not bred to go such a Hying pace as they 

 do in these days, the horsemen could with great ease keep to the higher 

 parts of the ground, as the hounds hunted their fox along the hues of 

 the valleys, the sides of which were, in most places, clothed v,-ith brush- 

 wood, and in the same wild and uncultivated state that nature had 

 formed them. The hunting parties of the last century chiefly consisted 

 of the neighbouring country gentlemen, most of v/hom were in the con- 

 stant habit of taking a part in the operations of the field, being acquainted 

 with the merits of every hound in the pack, and could stop or cheer thorn 

 in as scientific a manner as the huntsman himself. The county of York 

 has, from time immemorial, been productive of more genuine sportsmen 

 than any other part of England ; and amongst those who flourished in 

 the days of which I have been speaking, no man was more celebrated 

 as a fine specimen of the original stamp of fox-hunter and country gen- 

 tleman than William Draper, Esq., of Bcswick, in the East Riding. I 

 know the old mansion well where this fine old sportsman lived, passing 

 by it, as I frequently did, on my road to cover, when I hunted the IIol- 

 derness country myself, which consists of what is called Ilolderness and 

 part of the wolds, reaching as far as the town of Driflield ; between 

 which and Beverley, at the village of Beswick, stands the once celebrated 

 manor-house, now much dilapidated, and converted, by degrees, into a 

 regular farm-house. The only feature which would arrest the S])ort- 

 man's eye is the small public-house which is opposite, ornamented by 

 the sign of The Death of the Fox, or the " Fox and Hounds," as it is 

 there called. The exploits of this once celebrated man have been handed 

 down from father to son amongst the farmers of that neighbourhootl ; 

 but as the account which I could glean of him would be very imperfect, 

 1 will avail myself of a short biographical memoir^ written by Major 

 'i^opham, the substance of which he received from the relations of ilr. 

 Draper himself. 



" In the old, but now ruinous mansion of Beswick Hall, in the East 

 Riding of Yorkshire, lived the once well known William Draper, Esq., 

 who bred, fed, and hunted the staunchest pack of foxhounds in Europe. 

 On an income of £700 a year, and no more, ho brought up frugally and 



