CHAPTER LXI 



THE HUNT DINNER 

 A dinner of friends. — Timon of Athens. 



"The old order changeth for the new," sang the 

 late Poet Laureate, but there are old things which 

 pass away which are much to be regretted, and the 

 old-fashioned hunt dinner is one of them. How 

 such a good old custom as the hunt dinner came 

 to fall into desuetude is one of those things which 

 it is difficult to understand, and the more especially 

 as we are, as a people, prone to the multiplying of 

 public dinners. But that the old hunt dinner is 

 a thing of the past is certain, as much a thing of 

 the past as the old-fashioned hunt ball, which it 

 would be now impossible to revive. For in the 

 earlier half of the century, when landowners and 

 the leading farmers and tradesmen, and the men 

 who came to stay in the country for the season's 

 hunting, if any such there were in those days (with 

 the exception, of course, of those who went to the 

 Shires for their sport), joined their forces and 

 patronised the hunt ball, which was got up by the 

 enthusiastic secretary of the hunt, every one knew 

 every one else, there was no trouble or heart- 

 burning about invitations, and pleasant functions 

 were enjoyed which would be scarcely possible 



