172 SPORTING REMINISCENCES [1S25 to 



" On the second day of my hunting with 

 Mr. Nicoll, I had the pleasure of seeing the 

 Biiiy Butler, well-known Mr. Butler. Although 

 we had never met, we had heard and read of 

 each other, and a slight introduction put us 

 completely at our ease. 



" Mr. Butler informed me that the last was 

 the fortieth month of April in succession that he 

 had spent in the Forest, but gave it as his 

 opinion that, should he live to see forty years 

 more, fox-hunting in the Forest would only be 

 talked of as having once been. 



" When his Majesty — then Prince of Wales 

 — hunted in Dorsetshire, where Mr. Butler re- 

 sides, he was extremely pleased with his society, 

 and bestowed upon him several slight marks of 

 his attention, and which I understand he con- 

 tinues to do to this day. 



" Every one, indeed, must be pleased with 

 Mr. Butler. There is about him a simplicity 

 of manner, added to a quaintness of expression, 

 very rarely met with in these sophisticated 

 days, to which an additional zest is given by a 

 powerful Dorsetshire dialect. As a sportsman, 

 a companion, and a worthy, excellent man, 

 however, Mr. Butler ranks with any one, and 

 his name is as well known in the Western 

 hemisphere of the sporting world as Russell's 



