HOUNDS OF ENGLAND. 



43 



Also hunt part of Gloucestersliire, The Heythrop country 

 was hunted for many years by his Grace the late Duke of 

 Beaufort^ with Phillip Payne and Will. Long successively as 

 huntsmen. ^' Jem Hills/^ the present huntsman^ can kill a 

 fox with any man in England^ but in a peculiar style ; he 

 lifts hounds with wonderful rapidity, and, if it can be called 

 a fault, might be considered as even too quick at his work ; 

 his system, however, is certainly a very brilliant and, at the 

 same time, a very successful one. Beckford says, that " the 

 first and invariable principle of fox-hunting is to keep always 

 as near to the fox as you cau.^^ Jem Hills undeniably 

 observes this principle to its fullest extent. 



Mr. John S. Phillips is entitled to the best thanks of all the 

 fox-hunters in his country : when Lord Parker gave up the 

 hounds last year, he came forward most handsomely to retain 

 them in an indifferent country and at a great sacrifice of per- 

 sonal convenience, as his house is situated at the extreme end 

 of his country; and had it not been for him, Lord Parker would 

 have had no successor. The vale is bad, and the hill part of 

 it presents no features charming to the eye of a sportsman, 

 being fiintj^, mountainous, and clothed with interminable 

 beech woods, which, from being nearly void of underwood, 

 are most uncertain to draw, and difficult to follow hounds in. 

 He has a fixture or two in Buckinghamshire. 



