INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS XXI 



A few years after my first acquaintance with Forester's 

 work I picked up Fugitive Sporting Sketches by the same 

 authority, edited with a Memorial, in 1877, by Fred E. 

 Pond, who, then at the age of eighteen (under the noni de 

 plume of "Will Wildwood'') was the author of Memoirs of 

 Eminent Sportsmen, in which he at that early age showed 

 an enthusiastic regard for Frank Forester which forty 

 years have not lessened. Mr. Pond's collection of Fores- 

 ter's writings under the title of Fugitive Sporting 

 Sketches, published in 1879, with an Introduction and 

 Memoir of H. W. Herbert from his own pen is the most 

 vnluahle addition to Foresteriana yet made. An extended 

 memoir of Herbert also appears in a revised edition of 

 Foresters Sporting Scenes and Characters in the preface 

 to which Mr. Pond expresses his obligation to that keen 

 sportsman and delightful writer "Toxophilus" and to W. 

 Story Sargent of Boston. 



Sunday, April 7, 1907, was the centenary anniversary 

 of the birth of Henry William Herbert. The anniversary 

 was duly noted by Mr. Pond in the Spoiismen's Review 

 and he pronounced "Frank Forester" "the most prominent 

 name in our American literature pertaining to the gun 

 and rod." To fittingly celebrate the event a Forester 

 Dinner was given at my country seat, Lordvale, where 

 eight or ten sportsmen paid tribute to the departed 

 scholar, artist, author and sportsman. 



Truly, being dead, he yet speaketh to sportsmen in our 

 own time, and all over the land. Never have I taken a 

 sporting trip to Vernon, Vermont, to shoot the woodcock 

 in early September; to have a try during the flight of the 

 long-bills at Blandford in the Berkshires; to follow the 

 wide-ranging pointers quail shooting at Cooleemee, 

 North Carolina, in the winter; or spend three or four days 

 at Petersham or Barre, Massachusetts, in hunting the 

 partridge of the North, — the ruffed grouse — that I did 

 not include with my guns and cartridges some of the works 

 of Herbert. 



Nor can I forget The Quorndon Hounds published in 

 1852, in which Forester so wonderfully depicts the "Sport 

 of Kings," fox-hunting in Leicestershire, England. No 

 true sportsman can read it without looking forward to a 

 run from Ranksboro gorse or a gallop over Ashby pastures. 

 Quorndon Hounds was my companion when I went to 



