^r. Bromley-Davenport 



There is no humbug about * The Dream of the Old 

 Meltonian.' It connotes the attitude of the country gentle- 

 men to the House of Commons when it was * the best club 

 in London.' There was, no doubt, a hereditary obligation 

 to represent the county in Parliament, but of course the 

 whole thing was a bore, and every one who knew what 

 was good was naturally thinking about Fox-hunting. So 

 the prosiness of the Member for Boreham sends the Fox- 

 hunter to sleep, and his dream brings him the ecstasy of 

 the hunting-field, which he sets before us with the pen and 

 the imagination of the artist and the enthusiast. 



* Lowesby Hall ' is different from ' The Dream of the 

 Old Meltonian.' Into this fine parody, always with the 

 tongue in the cheek, he introduces one after another of 

 his pet aversions — money - lenders, pacifists, Cobdenites, 

 plough countries, and plain women — and chastises them 

 publicly. It is a political satire from the point of 

 view of a Tory. Lord Tennyson seems to have written 

 ' Locksley Hall ' in serious vein from the point of view of 

 the International. Not so Mr. Bromley-Davenport. One 

 feels pretty sure that if he and his friends were here to- 

 day they would not have approved of the fusion of either 

 the nations of Europe or the political parties of England. 

 And then he finds the point in Fox-hunting where the 

 ridiculous meets the sublime, and discovers that it is 



* Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! I 'm an idiot for my 

 pains ; 

 Nature made for every sportsman an inferior set of brains.' 



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