208 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



to hounds that were entered in 1760, got by 

 Raytor, son of Merryman and grandson of 

 Lord Granby's Ranter. Another pedigree 

 was that of Ruby, who is credited with a 

 numerous progeny, as she was by Raytor out 

 of Mr. Stapleton's Cruel by Sailor, a son of 

 Lord Granby's Sailor by Mr. Noel's Victor. 

 This shows well how seriously Foxhound 

 breeding was gone into before the middle 

 of the eighteenth century. Portraits prove 



MR. CHAS. RADCLIFFE'S GAINER (1872). 

 FROM A DRAWING ON WOOD BY GEORGE EARL. 



also that a hound approaching very 

 closely to those of modern times had been 

 produced at this early period. By such 

 evidence the Foxhound had outstripped the 

 Harrier in size by nearly five inches, as 

 the latter does not appear to have been 

 more than eighteen inches, and the early 

 Foxhound would have been twenty-three 

 inches. Then the heavy shoulder, the dew- 

 lap, and jowl of the Southern Hound had 

 been got rid of, and the coat had been 

 somewhat altered. The old school of 

 breeders had evidently determined upon 

 great speed and the ability to stay, through 

 the medium of deep ribs, heart room, wide 

 loins, length of quarter, quality of bone, 

 straightness of foreleg, and round strong 

 feet ; the slack Joined, loosely built, and 

 splayfooted hound of former generations 

 had been left behind. To such perfection, 



indeed, had the Foxhound attained, that 

 long before the close of the eighteenth 

 century sportsmen were clamouring as to 

 what a Foxhound could do. It had been 

 proved over and over again that he could 

 run a fox for four hours at such a pace as 

 to bring horses to a complete standstill ; 

 and so far as people could judge, nothing 

 could tire him. The deeds of the Fox- 

 hound became the talk of the sporting 

 world ; and so followed the 

 matches, the great one in par- 

 ticular being between Mr. Barry, 

 the first Master of the Cheshire, 

 and Mr. Hugo Meynell, the real 

 founder of the Quorn. The 

 former gentleman wagered five 

 hundred guineas on his couple 

 Blue Cap and Wanton against 

 Mr. Meynell's Richmond and a 

 bitch, whose name has never 

 transpired, to run a drag over 

 the four-mile Beacon course at 

 Newmarket. Sixty horsemen 

 rode in the trial, but only 

 twelve completed the course, 

 and the Cheshire hounds won 

 by a hundred yards in the won- 

 derful time of eight minutes 

 and twenty seconds. There was 

 after this loud talk of match- 

 ing hounds. Colonel Thornton offered to 

 match his bitch Merkin to beat any other 

 over five miles, and to give two hundred 

 yards start, for ten thousand guineas a side, 

 but fortunately for the good of fox-hunting 

 and the Foxhound, such matches ended in 

 talk, or there might have been Foxhound 

 race meetings. 



With so much prominence given to the 

 Foxhound in the comparatively short period 

 of forty or fifty years, it is no wonder that 

 individual hounds became very celebrated 

 in almost every part of the country. Mr. 

 Pelham's Rockwood Tickler and Bumper 

 were names well known in Yorkshire, and 

 Lord Ludlow's Powerful and Growler were 

 talked of both in Lincolnshire and Warwick- 

 shire. From the first, indeed, it appeared 

 that certain hounds were very much better 

 than others, and old huntsmen have gener- 



