BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



point. Of a field of nearly a hundred ' eager amateurs of fox- 

 hunting,' fifteen were up or in view at the kill. 



Nimrod's classic, best known as his ' Quarterl)^,' essay, by 

 reason of its publication in that Review in 1832, gives us as 

 vivid and spirited a picture of fox-hunting as we could wish : — 



' . . . Let us suppose ourselves to have been at Ashby 

 Pasture, in the Quorn country, with Mr. Osbaldeston's hounds, 

 in the year 1826, when that pack was at the height of its well- 

 merited celebrity. Let us also indulge ourselves with a fine 

 morning in the first week of February, and at least two hundred 

 well-mounted men by the cover's side. Time being called — 

 say a quarter past eleven, nearly our great-grandfathers' 

 dinner hour — the hounds approach the furze-brake, or the 

 gorse, as it is called in that region. " Hark in, hark ! " with a 

 slight cheer, and perhaps one wave of his cap, says Mr. 

 Osbaldeston,^ who long hunted his own pack, and in an instant 

 he has not a hound at his horse's heels. In a very short time 

 the gorse appears shaken in various parts of the cover — 

 apparently from an unknown cause, not a single hound being 

 for some minutes visible. Presently one or two appear, leap- 

 ing over some old furze which they cannot push through, and 

 exhibit to the field their glossy skins and spotted sides. " Oh, 

 you beauties ! " exclaims some old Meltonian, rapturously 

 fond of the sport. Two minutes more elapse ; another hound 

 slips out of cover, and takes a short turn outside, with his nose 

 to the ground and his stern lashing his side — thinking, no doubt, 

 he might touch on a drag, should Reynard have been abroad 

 in the night. Hounds have no business to think, thinks the 

 second whipper-in, who observes him ; but one crack of his 

 whip, with " Rasselas, Rasselas, where are you going, Rasselas ? 

 Get to cover, Rasselas " ; and Rasselas immediately disappears. 

 Five minutes more pass away. " No fox here," says one. 

 "Don't be in a hurry," cries Mr. Cradock,- "they are drawing 



1 Master from 1817 to 1821, and again from 1823 to 1827. 



- This gentleman resided within the limits of the Quorn hunt, and kindly super- 

 intended the management of the covers. He has lately paid the debt of nature 

 (Author's note). 



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