xvi INTRODUCTION 



They are intended merely to trace the growth of 

 hunting in each famous country. If the reader wishes 

 for history, he wiU find it in the fuller and longer 

 stories of the hunt, and in a most delightful form, 

 in the " Druid " series, now accessible to all in a cheap 

 and excellent reprint. Indeed, the Shires are fortunate 

 in their literature, for in the whole range of books on 

 sport there is nothing more delightful than the Druid's 

 works. I recollect being somewhat disappointed with 

 Mr. Dixon's life as written by an excellent sportsman, 

 the late Mr. Francis Lawley. But this author's life 

 was in his books. He makes himself the mouthpiece 

 of others, and yet, with something that is not very far 

 removed from genius, he gives to the opinions and 

 conversations he recorded a character and a dis- 

 tinction that we can find in no similar writings. 

 Hastily penned as were his books, in the midst of a 

 life of continual pecuniary pressure and of hardship 

 and self-denial, far different from the luxurious sur- 

 roundings of modem sport, it is the Druid who shows 

 us the most admirable aspects of hunting and racing. 

 The whole story, though it deals with men of no 

 education and sometimes, if other records may be 

 believed, of rough and doubtful character, is never 

 coarse. All the seamy side of the racecourse and 

 covertside disappears. The characters sketched are 

 natural and lifelike. The Druid shows these men as 

 they were at their best, with all the dross of their 

 talk purged by passing through the mind of the man 

 who, alone among sporting writers perhaps, brought 

 genius to his task. His books breathe, as I have 

 said, the very best spirit of our national open-air 

 sport, and may be read with interest and profit by 

 any one whether he is a sportsman or not. I have 

 tried at least to write this book in the same spirit, 



