THE LONG MINORITY 



points out in his essay on Somervile's " Chase," when he 

 says : — 



" The poem concludes with an imitation of Virgil's well- 

 known praise of a rural life, in the second Georgic. The 

 application, however, is less happy than in the original ; for 

 the poem of Somervile being professedly addressed to the 

 heirs of great families, as those best qualified to enjoy the 

 pleasures of the chace, there exists no real opposition between 

 them and the possessors of opulence and splendour. It is 

 true he has, as much as possible, given it the turn of a 

 contrast between town and country — between the ambitious 

 courtier and the sportsman ; but since, in fact, the fox-hunter 

 in the country is often a politician in town, and hunting 

 matches are usually associated with party, the distinction is 

 rather apparent than real. Further, the sports of the hunter 

 are noisy, tumultuous, attended with parade, and generally 

 ending in conviviality ; they ill accord, therefore, with the 

 calm, retired, reflective disposition of the lover of nature and 

 votary of philosophy." ^ 



It is true, as the good doctor points out, that fox-hunts did 

 often end in conviviality ; but most business or pleasure used 

 to lead up to that in those days, and a man did not then, or 

 for long after, require the excuse of the chase to drink his two 

 or three bottles of port or claret after dinner. Of those who 

 kept hounds at this time several were men of distinction, and 

 Mr. Meynell, the great typical fox-hunter of the eighteenth 

 century, was, as we have seen, a man of fashion and of culti- 

 vated tastes. The squires, and yeomen, and parsons of the 

 time, the lesser gentry, who were enthusiastic sportsmen, were 

 indeed rougher in life and manners than their descendants at 

 the present day, but they were as good, as manly, and as 

 simple as any who have come after them. Mr. Draper, of 

 Beswick Hall, Yorkshire, who kept his hounds and hunters 

 and brought up eleven sons and three daughters on ;^700 a 

 year, would scarcely have fared so well now. 



" Squire Draper, of Beswick, and king's huntsman for the 

 East Riding, has still a strong traditional fame in Yorkshire. 

 ^ Sporting Magazine^ 1797, p. 368. 

 75 



