NOTITIA VENATICA. 109 



siglit of the liouiuls, citlier as they were passing from one cover to draw 

 another, or where they might he even seen for a few minntes on their 

 return home from hunting ; and as five of my boyish years were spent 

 with a private tutor in the cream of the Pytchley country, it is not 

 much to he wondered at that the innate love of hunting shoukl have been 

 cherished till it became " the ruhng passion," and that the remembrance 

 of those early and dearly-loved scenes round Hemplow Hills and Win- 

 Avick Warren should be amongst the fondest of my by-gone days. 



" Ml) first brush,'' that trophy so sought for and valued by the old 

 school, now become by far too dirty and odoriferous for the Avhite gloves 

 of the modern fox-hunter, Avas gained in that Paradise of chase, Nor- 

 thamptonshire. It was late in the month of March, during the season 

 of 1816 and 1817, when the quiet village of Guilsborough Avas aroused 

 from its accustomed tranquillity by the cry of the Pytchley hounds, at 

 that time the property of Lord Althorp : they had run their fox, after a 

 most brilUant burst of fifty minutes, from Nethercote's Gorse up to the 

 gardens which surrovmd the village, and amongst a most heterogeneous 

 mass of cobblers, tailors, and snobs of every grade, and curs of Ioav 

 degree, they killed him. Not having far to run from the house of my 

 tutor, I Avas lucky enough to be " m« my place" at " the finish," and 

 by the joint assistance of a large stick and a icvr kicks from the hobnails 

 of a yokel, the fox Avas saved ; and I bore hjpi aAvay in triumph into the 

 middle of the next field. But Avhere are the horsemen ? Where is 

 Chas. King ? AVhere is Jack Wood ? Where is Mr. Bouverie ? 

 Where is Vere Isham ? Where is Davy, cum multis aliis ? In the 

 middle of Naseby Field, lost in a fog, and floundering their Avay through 

 those far-famed receptacles for beaten horses, the Naseby Bogs. Why, 

 the fox has been killed these ten minutes ! But here conies one in a 

 cap; 'tis Jack Wood first ; and five minutes more come "the field." 

 It was a good run, and a good finish — all Avere delighted, and none more 

 so than he Avho on that day gained his " first brush." 



It Avas under the keen eye and by the quick discerning judgment of 

 Jack Wood, that the far-famed WarAvickshire pack, then the property 

 of Mr. Shirley, was first formed, in a great measure from hounds es- 

 teemed, by good judges, of the very best blood in England, besides the 

 progeny of several stud-hounds from Northamptonshire, amongst them 

 the renoAvned Laundress, Darling, and Ottoman, bred by the late Lord 

 Sondes ; they had several stallions and brood bitches from the kennel 

 of the late Duke of Beaufort, of the Dorimont and Nectar blood; and 

 with such materials in the hands of so skilful and experienced a person, 

 it was no wonder that in a icav years a pack Avas produced Avhich might 

 compete in steadiness, speed, and the qualities of enduring, Avith any 

 other in the Avorld. Of their extreme steadiness in chase I think the 

 folloAving anecdote Avill bear ample testimony. It Avas in the December 

 of the year 1829, Avlien the pack Avere under the management of that 

 well-known and excellent sportsman, Mr. Robert FelloAves, of Shotesham, 

 in Norfolk (but Av^ho then resided at Talton, near Shipston-on-Stour), 

 that the circumstance to Avhich I allude occurred. An afternoon-fox 

 Avas found at Witnash-gorso, and it being a good scent, and the hounds 



