IBeaitation* 



Dear Lord Spencer, 



To whom could a history of the Pytchley Hunt be more 

 fittingly dedicated than to a member of that illustrious family 

 which has, not only from tlie earliest days of its institution 

 been its main pillar and support_, but which has furnished four 

 of its most efficient and notable Masters ? 



Not aiming at writing a work that is likely to reach the 

 dignity of ''Criticism," I ask you to accept, for what it is worth, 

 this effort of a "'prentice hand;" which is to give a record of 

 hunting scenes and of hunting friends — many of the latter no 

 longer to be found amongst us — many, happily, still remaining, 

 to think of the past and hope for future joys. Though it would 

 please me to think that within the pages of this work something 

 will be found to interest those who live outside the " Pytchley 

 Hunt," — ^and not them otAj, but even the " Sporting World " 

 generally, — it iS; nevertheless, written by a "Pytchley man" for 

 "Pytchley men;" and its biographical notices refer mainly, if 

 not entirely, to certain of those who have, from time to time, 

 during the last hundred years, been Masters or followers of this 

 famous Hunt. 



A fifty years' experience in the latter category enables me 

 to speak with some authority of the persons and events alluded 

 to in these pages; and I would fain hope that as "Naught has 

 been set down in malice," so from "Neither fear, favour, nor 

 afiection " has anything been portrayed in any other light than 

 that of 



TRUTH. 



