IIEU majesty's STAG-noUXDS. 279 



presented to him in 1859, when all the principal hunting men of 

 England were present at the dinner at Willis's Eooms, to do 

 honour to the faithful old servant of the Crown, as well as one 

 of the finest sportsmen of the day. This testimonial Davis left 

 to her Majesty the Queen, and I venture to think that it must 

 hold a very high place in the estimation of a sovereign who has 

 always displayed so much solicitude and regard for the comfort 

 and welfare of those who are in her service. 



Harry King now stepped into the office which he had virtually 

 filled so long, almost as a matter of course, and a very efficient 

 huntsman he proved ; but I fancy, had his life been spared (he 

 held office for comparatively a short period), he was not the 

 man to have taken the place or position which Charles Davis 

 had done. True, he never had the chance, for railways had 

 terribly altered the character of the field, and, in his day, " hunt- 

 ing with the Queen's " was a very different affair to what it had 

 been when he first migrated from Atherstone to don the royal 

 livery. 



Let me again refer to the same eminent authority I have 

 already quoted on this subject, and who had a double advan- 

 tage beyond what I possess, of living as a man in the age in 

 Avhich I Avas only a boy, and being acquainted with most of the 

 principal actors in the scenes he describes : — " From 1836 to 

 1851 many changes took place, and the facilities of moving 

 both men and horses made a vast difference in the class which 

 habitually met the hounds. D'Orsay was replaced by his own 

 tailor, Lord Chesterfield was no longer there, and the drags 

 which brought down the late Sir George Wombwell and Lord 

 Adolphus FitzClarence, Harvey Aston, the Foresters — always 

 amongst the hardest — Lord Cardigan, the late Duke of Beaufort, 

 Colonel Anson, Lords Alvanley, Pembroke, Gardner, and the 

 two Johnnies, Bushe and Best, and that most uncompromising 

 customer, Lord Clanricarde, were no more." Would I had space 

 to quote more from the same pen, and teU how D'Orsay, having 

 nearly come to the end of Blackbird in a run after Eob Eoy 



