MASTER OF BUCK-HOUNDS. 



42i 



hunting was in high repute amongst the nobiUty 

 and gentry forming the court, as well as of others 

 residing in its neighbourhood, and of his Majesty 

 himself especially. Mr. Beckford said little about 

 it, because he knew little : the reason he himself 

 gives ; but the following expression in his book 

 relating to it made a deep impression on fox-hun- 

 ters, who reluctantly acknowledge its truth. " Could 

 a fox-hound," says Mr. Beckford, " distinguish a 

 hunted fox, as the deer-hound does the deer that is 

 blown, fox-hunting would be complete." 



There does not appear to be an authentic ac- 

 count of the origin of our royal stag-hunt. In 

 Davis's Hunter's Annual — a splendid work, pub- 

 lished a few years back by Mr. Davis, animal 

 painter to her Majesty, and brother to the present 

 accomplished huntsman to the Koyal Buck-hounds 

 — we read as follows : — 



" The office of Master of the Buck-hounds ap- 

 pears to have been always considered a dignity of 

 a very high order, and established at a very early 

 period. We find, in the reign of Edward II., that 

 William Twici was grand huntsman ; he was the 

 author of a treatise on hunting, which is probably 

 the oldest MS. that treats of the chase in England. 

 The office seems to have been hereditary, for in the 

 reisfn of Richard II. Sir Bernard Brocas, Bart, of 

 Beaurepaire,* Hants, became Master of the Buck- 

 hounds in right of his wife Mary, daughter and 



* The writer of these pages resided nine years at Beaurepaire, 

 previously to his retiring to France. He rented it from the present 

 Bernard Brocas, Esq., who now occupies the house. 



