GOODWOOD. 123 



two with Kent afterwards, but even these are gone, and the 

 stables as empty as the kennels long have been. The 

 elder Kent still lives at the latter, but he has two or three 

 farms in hand, and has taken prizes for his Sonthdowns. 



The Duke himself was equally famous as an agricidtu- 

 rist as a sportsman. He was far away the most popular 

 man in England with the farmers, and deservedly so, too. 

 The same unaffected manner distinguished him amono-st 

 them ; and it was quite a treat to see him preside at the 

 annual Smithfield Club dinner, of which he was the life 

 President. His great opponent here was his neighbour, 

 Mr. Rigden, of Hove, and continual were the challenges 

 they were throwing out to each other, as the award had 

 been for or against them. But the Duke's Downs are by 

 far the most tJiorougJi-hred looking of their kind. They 

 have beauty with substance, but without that evident 

 alloy with which the Southdown has been improved into 

 something big-ger and coarser. ^' Old Charley," the 

 shepherd, is still full of pride for his flock, as the present 

 duchess has always taken a great interest in them. Her 

 noble husband has long put aside the cap and jacket in 

 which, as Lord March, he at one time was wont to per- 

 form so well j but the world looked anxiously to him for 

 the Goodwood week, a hope which has not been disap- 

 pointed. 



The late Duke began life as an active sportsman, in 

 the more direct interpretation of the time. He was a 

 cricketer, an excellent shot, and a good man over a coun- 

 try. His wound, however, interfered with these pursuits, 

 and he never kept hounds himself. It is now nearly fifty 

 years since the cheery note of one has disturbed the echoes 

 of the Goodwood kennel. There was then a very clever 

 pack of hounds at Goodwood, but their fate, according to 



