NOTITIA VENATICA. 139 



a run : to be sure, he mops up a good many weak, stupid brutes, that 

 have no knowledge of hounds, and, in fact, have not been introduced to 

 the pack since their arrival in a perforated box from the " Foret de 

 Guincs," or "the large woods in the vicinity of Amiens," whence, 

 poor things ! they were cruelly forced from the tender embraces of 

 their anxious mothers. The old huntsman, although a shade slow, 

 " knew hunting and hounds well ;" he was not only a huntsman in the 

 modern acceptation of the word, but a sort of maitre de chasse. When 

 he did not hunt, he shot for his master ; and when he did not shoot, he 

 cither fished or was vermin-catching, not by trap, but by hunting them 

 with terriers, and digging them. In reading a very old French book on 

 hunting, some few months since, I was much struck with the following 

 passages, which I shall quote, and which shows that the Frenchman's 

 ideas of what a good sportsman should be were not very far from the 

 mark. In describing a good sportsman, he says — " Un bon cognois- 

 seur ; c'est un veneur qui a toutes les cognoissances des bestes dont il 

 traitte. Un bon piqueur, c'est quand un veneur, et un bon cognoisseur, 

 homme de jugement, et experimente, a faire chasser les chiens courans." 



And again, in describing the qualifications of a good huntsman, or, 

 as he terms it, " un bon piqueur :" 



" II est done a-propos qu'il soit homme de jugement, vigoureux et 

 hardi, afin qu'il n'appreheudc pas de franchir, et sauter un fosse, on les 

 brances et les epines le pourront egratigner, et s'il le rencontre bon 

 sonneur, il s'en fera mieux entendre, et en donnera plus d 'emotion aux 

 chiens, "t 



Before hard riding was considered — as it is, I fear, at the present 

 day — the only qualification necessary for a huntsman, these men almost 

 finished their earthly careers in the performance of the duties of their 

 profession. A good sample of the old huntsman of days gone by 

 might be found in old Thomas Johnson, Avho died in the service of 

 Charles, Duke of Richmond, and was buried at Singleton, near Chi- 

 chester, December 20, 1744. His epitaph says — "His knowledge in 

 his profession, wherein he had no superior, and hardly an equal, joined 

 to his honesty in every other particular, recommended him to the ser- 

 vice and gained him the approbation of several of the nobility and 

 gentry : amongst them Avere — the Lord Conway, the Earl of Cardigan, 

 the Lord Gower, the Duke of Marlborough, and the Honourable Mr. 

 Spencer. The last master whom he served, and in whose service he 

 died, was Charles, Duke of Richmond, Lenox, and Aubigny, who 

 erected this monument to the memory of a good and faithful servant, 

 as a reward to the deceased and an incitement to the living : — 



" ' Go and do thou likewise. ' 



" Luke X. 37. 

 " Here Johnson lies. What huntsman can deny 

 Old honest Tom the tribute of a sigh ? 

 Deaf is that ear which caught the opening sound ; 

 Dumb is that tongue whicli cheered the hills around ! 

 Unpleasant truth ! Death hunts us from our birth 

 In view ; and men, like foxes, take to earth." 



t Venerie Royale, 16C5, • 



