Lord Spencer s Mastership. 22 



3 



' Marvel ^ for tlie last time, and I am sorry to say that I 

 lost my fox near Overstone. I love to hear of a good 

 run ; but as I ought to be curbing my hunting propensi- 

 ties, a slight pang will come across me when I feel that I 

 ought not again to carry the horn or hunt as much as I 

 have hitherto done. On reading an account like yours, 

 I become conscious of the difficulty I shall have in break- 

 ing myself of the passion. If I could be satisfied with a 

 moderate enjoyment of it, I might allow myself some 

 rein ; but I so easily become greedy for more, when once 

 in the swing of it, that I scarcely know when to pull up.^^ 

 Acting upon these feelings, and conscious that there 

 was that within him which might be of more service to 

 his country than the management of a pack of fox- 

 hounds, ever so distinguished. Lord Spencer now laid 

 down the horn of the huntsman, and took up the port- 

 folio of the statesman in its stead. As President of the 

 Council, the new Highway Act and other important 

 matters connected with county business came under his 

 supervision. The same ^' thoroughness " which in all 

 that he undertook seemed to be his moving principle, 

 was brought to bear upon his new sphere of labour, with 

 the result that the efficiency of his work has not been 

 exceeded by that of many of his predecessors in office. 

 Sore trouble awaited him in Ireland ; but he met it in a 

 spirit so gallant, and yet so gentle, that it may be said of 

 him that in every Irish heart save that of the murderer 

 and the dynamitard " exegit monumeiitum cere perenniusJ' 

 As he has said in a letter quoted elsewhere, " many a 

 time he was saved from collapsing by a gallop with the 

 ' Meath ' or the ' Ward Union ' staghounds" — a hint 

 that should not be lost upon future Irish Viceroys. 



