INTRODUCTION 



LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE 



The work that is now placed in our hands is but little known 

 to the present generation, though a modern Master of Fox- 

 hounds would do well to follow every word of adviee it contains. 

 The author himself was M.F.H. and carried the horn at the 

 beginning of the last century. A study of his remarkably 

 sound treatise on Foxhunting leaves us with the reflection 

 that the essentials of the sport have changed but slightly 

 since the Battle of Waterloo. He speaks of the excessive 

 preservation of game, of the difficulties of earthstopping, of 

 the jealousy of the riders, in a tone which makes it difficult 

 to believe that a hundred years have glided by since he gained 

 his experience, while his advice on the management of hounds 

 and country at once proclaim him master of a system approved 

 by all recent authorities. 



Colonel John Cook was born at Christ Church, in Hampshire, 

 in 1773, a date in the history of England when the patricians 

 were at the very zenith of their power, and in addition to 

 directing the politics, had also placed themselves at the head 

 of the field sports of the country. The era of Squire Western 

 and Tony Lumpkin was passing away ; a Foxhunter was 

 no longer a synonym for a sot, a clown and dunce, and had 

 ceased to be the butt of a satirist and the fine gentleman. 

 Lord Chesterfield had died in the same year that our author 

 was born, and his proposition that " Foxhunting was only 

 fit for bumpkins and boobies " had by that time been deprived 

 of most of its meaning. We cannot discover that Colonel 



