40 The Pytchley Hinit, Past and Present, [chap. n. 



gone since Lord Althorp resigned its management; but 

 fondly as some of these are remembered, not one more 

 completely realized the idea of what a master of hounds 

 should be than John Charles, Viscount Althorp. 



Sir Denis Le Marchant's "Life of Earl Spencer '^ has 

 suffered the usual fate of biographies, and been pro- 

 nounced "dull, feeble, and unsatisfactory.'' Criticism, 

 always more ready to find faults than merits, has set its 

 imyrimatiir on Boswell's " Life of Johnson — '^ " Yitarum 

 facile Princeps " — Southey's " Nelson," Lockhart's 

 '' Scott,'' Stanley's " Arnold," Trevelyan's '' Macaulay," 

 Miss Marsh's " Hedley Vicars; " few, very few more. But, 

 however tempting the subject, the intending biographer 

 will do well to remember the commandment, " Thou 

 shalt not scribble thy neighbour's life." The fate await- 

 ing the neglect of this injunction may be that which 

 overtook Copleston's " Life of Lord Dudley," of which 

 the kindly critic says : — 



"Than the first martyr's, Dudley's fate 

 Was harder must be owned ; 

 Stephen was only stoned to death, 

 Dudley was Coplestoned ! " 



The Hon. Frederick Spencer, E.N.^ succeeded his 

 brother in the title and estates, but not in the desire to 

 become a master of hounds. 



Having passed the early years of his life at sea, he 

 had little opportunity for developing the sporting 

 instincts which he shared with the other members of his 

 family, but there was nothing connected with out-door life 

 which had not all his sympathy. Without ever becoming 

 a regular *^ hunting-man," he usually appeared at the 



