INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS IX 



Address by Harry Worcester Smith 



President of the Frank Forester Society of America 



At the Unveiling of the Tablet Given by the 



Sportsmen of America in Memory of Frank 



Forester, in the Town of Warwick, 



Orange County, New York, 



October 23, 1920 



Speaking as I do for the Sportsmen of America, I wish to say 

 that from Maine on the east, to California on the west and from 

 Canada on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, all red- 

 blooded men who love the open air, the quiet of the woodland, 

 the crash of a pack of hounds, the moan of the sea, and the sting 

 of the rain, have responded nobly by subscribing generously for 

 this memorial to Henry William Herbert. 



When Forester visited Warwick in 1831 there was not the great 

 distinction which is now drawn between a Sportsman and a Sport, 

 and neither was there the time given up to recreation and field 

 sports, and lucky our country was to have a cultured gentlemen 

 who could shoot his partridge in Latin, kill his deer in Greek, 

 glorify the scenery in Italian, and describe the beauties of the 

 chase in French, to act as our mentor through his writings of 

 Field Sports in the United States and British Provinces of 

 North America. 



It is idle for me to endeavor to immortalize Forester as two 

 generations of sportsmen have already bowed at his feet, but we 

 can, by gathering here today (now, almost a century from the 

 day when his "yet youthful foot first pressed the greensward of 

 Warwick" "loveliest village of the vale"), and giving this 

 beautiful memorial in honor of the great poet, writer, and hunter, 

 show by our gift, made possible by the generous co-operation of 

 the Historical Society of the town of Warwick, our respect, 

 regard and love for the man and his writings. 



Warwick and the country around about. Forester loved and 

 brought to the view of every sportsman, as Colonel Thornton and 

 Sir Walter Scott did Scotland, and as I have shown, writing in 

 the present day, in my introductory chapters to the Warwick 

 Valley edition of The Warwick Woodlands, Warwick is as lovely as 

 in the days of yore and still interprets the words of Forester, 

 "May you be as nature only can, of all the works of God forever 

 beautiful, unchanged and young. " 



The Historical Society with its oflBcers and friends, all gentle 

 folk, have made this labor of love a pleasure, which all goes to 



