CONCLUSION 191 



many persons that the hounds must have changed 

 here : but the only foundation upon which they could 

 rest this opinion, was the impossibility of a run so 

 severe and extensive, being the exertion of a single 

 fox. At Muston Plantation he was viewed thrice, 

 and by most of the company ; and it was easy to be 

 seen that we had not then changed : and as there 

 never was at any time the most trifling division of 

 scent, and we never entered any cover whatever, with 

 the exception of the above mentioned plantation, it is 

 certainly equally fair to presume that we never did 

 change. It remains only to add, that during the 

 three hours that the hounds were running, they were 

 supposed, on a moderate calculation, to have run from 

 thirty-five to thirty-eight miles ; — and that they crossed, 

 during that period, through twenty lordships. Of 

 the extraordinary fox which they pursued, we can 

 only say: — " Semper honos, nomenque suum, laudesque 

 manebiint.'' 



There is something to me always particularly melan- 

 choly in the spring ; as the close of the hunting season 

 approaches, it invariably brings with it a train of 

 gloomy ideas and reminiscences; of by-gone happy 

 days ; of the absence of friends, who have taken their 

 departure, until the revolving year brings winter round 

 again, and perhaps never more to return. Whether 

 it is the consciousness of the departure of life, or 

 feelings imbibed from the soft Favonian breath of 

 spring, I know not, which makes this period appear so 

 depressing to the spirits, and so productive of a 

 desire to reflect and moralize, but there is undoubtedly 

 something in the atmosphere of this season, which is 



