271 



CHAPTER XXV. 



HER majesty's STAG-HOUNDS. 



Thus stand the pack. 

 Mute and unmoved, and crouching low to earth, 

 While pass the glitt'ring Court and Royal pair ; 

 So disciplined those hounds, and so reserved. 

 Whose honour 'tis to glad the hearts of kings. 

 But soon the winding horn and huntsman's voice 

 Let loose the gen'ral chorus ; far around 

 Joy spreads its wings, and the gay morning smiles. 



In giving a description of hounds for tlie purpose of hunting 

 the carted deer, I could do no less than take those of her Majesty, 

 even had they not been the most ancient, as they undoubtedly 

 are. Very probably the Kings and Queens of England have 

 never been without such an appendage to the Crown since 

 Egbert united the country under one ruler. 



I am not, however, aware that anything authentic is to be 

 learnt concerning them earlier than the days of Farmer George, 

 when the Earl of Sandwich lived at Swinley and wore the 

 golden couples, and a man named Johnson carried the horn, 

 with ten yeomen prickers, in all the gay panoply of scarlet and 

 gold, to assist either himself, their royal master, or the stag, as 

 the case may be ; and they commenced hunting on Holyrood 

 Day, as the Druid tells us, at Charity Earm or Billingbear. After 

 that he met regularly twice a week ; and, as his horse carried 

 nineteen stone of royalty, dressed in a light blue coat, and top- 

 boots buckled up behind, I fear the gentleman who wrote the 

 account of the royal stag-hunt, given a few pages back, must 



