CHAPTER VI 



SIR HENRY PAUL SEALE, BART.: FIRST 

 MASTERSHIP, 1849-51 



Reputation as M.F.H. — A bitch pack — Hunts his own hounds — His wonderful 

 voice — Inconvenient situation of kennels — His idea of Devon as a hunting 

 country — Manages Sir W. Carew's hoiinds for a season — Extracts from 

 unpublished letters — Purchase of hounds from Mr. Blundell Fortescue — 

 Country hunted : part loaned from Charles Trelawny ; Curtisknowle and 

 Woodleigh Woods — Claim still upheld — Extension of country — Favourite 

 fixtures — Full list of fixtures — Outlj-ing country : kennels overnight at 

 Dorsely, Totnes — Mr. R. H. Watson's recollections — Memories of Sir 

 H. Seale — Sir Henry withdraws to his old country — Hound list. 



" Stout were his hounds and fleet his steed, 

 He valued them for bone and breed ; 

 And rarely failed the day to crown 

 By hunting till the sun went down." 



{Dartmoor Days.) 



SIR HENRY PAUL SEALE was one of the 

 most celebrated sportsmen South Devon has 

 produced. His father kept a pack of harriers, but 

 Sir Henry's enthusiasm for liunting led him to 

 establish a pack of foxhounds, with which he hunted 

 for many a year, shewing remarkable sport." 



So rims the notice that appeared in the Western 

 Morning News at the time of Sir Henry Scale's death 

 in 1897. Perhaps the expression " best sportsman " 

 would have been more fitting than " most celebrated 

 sportsman " ; for Sir Henry was not given to ostenta- 

 tion or self-advertisement. His enthusiasm and 

 success as a master of hounds are, however, well 

 known, even to a generation that is apt to neglect 



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