Chapter IX 



Dean Hole — Church Reformer — Horticulturist — Raconteur — Youthful Artist- 

 Love of Games — "Wrote Plays at the Age of Ten — Dramatic Scenes — First Ac- 

 cepted Poem — Experiences of the Wicked World — Owes £300 — Talk of Duels 

 — Early Hunting Days — A Lethargic Mount — Overcome with Grief — Some 

 Rufford Meets — Lord Manners' Impressive Arrival — Sarcasm — Wellington 

 with the Belvoir — John Leech Fawned on — Famous Archers — A Forgotten 

 Custom — Dean Hole to the Rescue — Thackeray and Sir John Tenniel — The 

 Dean Organises Rose-Shows — Breaks the Law — His Views on Temperance. 



NOT SO very many years ago no big rose-show would have 

 been complete without the burly figure of Dean Hole 

 towering above the crowd with his six feet three inches 

 of height and careless mass of silvered hair, from under which 

 his kindly eyes smiled on everybody. Author, horticulturist, 

 Church reformer, sportsman, and brilliant raconteur, Dean Hole 

 was one of the best-known and most striking Church of England 

 clerics throughout the best part of the nineteenth century. He 

 was a surprisingly versatile man, and among his other accom- 

 plishments might, by his own account, have also been an artist 

 if his mother had not discouraged him from painting his baby 

 sister with his first sixpenny box of paints ! 



What art lost the Church gained on this occasion, for Hole 

 was destined to bring the influence of a commanding personality 

 into the ecclesiastical field at a time when the Church had fallen 

 on evil days and needed just such men as Hole and Kingsley, 

 who both did incalculable good, each after his own fashion ; 

 but I touch on Dean Hole's clerical activities more fully 

 later. 



As a sportsman his experience was a wide one, including the 

 now more or less defunct archery. Cricket he loved, and 

 remained a member of several cricket clubs till late in life ; he 

 believed in the game as a first-class amusement for the working- 

 man, and therefore to be supported with all the means at his 

 disposal. He was often the guest of both cricket and football 

 clubs. Fishing he was fond of, but was a better shot than 



