THE NEW SCHOOL 57 



When Goodall took over the pack in 1872, the ' good tan ' 

 was conspicuous by its absence. ' I found them,' Frank 

 Goodall writes to me, ' bad colours, mostly black and 

 white.' 



Davis's diaries and manuscript books are very well kept, 

 but the comments are lamentably few, and he confines him- 

 self generally to the bare facts of the day — where they met, 

 how long they ran, the expenses, and so on. But on May 2, 

 1829, Davis enters in his diary — it is almost the only entry 

 where he commits himself to an observation : ' Turned out 

 an elk at Swinley ; he wobbled away — I could not call it 

 running — for half an hour, and I took him at Bagshot. The 

 hounds would not hunt him.' The elk was to have been 

 fatted for his Majesty, but he was ultimately sent to the 

 Zoological Gardens. I suppose he came from the menagerie. 

 As far as I know, this is the last record of George IV. 's 

 direct intervention in the affairs of the Buckhounds, and not 

 a very proper one. 



Very few words will suffice for William IV. As a boy 

 he hunted when ashore, and I have no doubt rode with the 

 dash of a seaman and the undeniable courage of his race. 

 But I have only been able to trace one circumstantial occa- 

 sion to his credit as a stag-hunter. In 1791, the French 

 Revolution being at its height, Kempshot was crammed 

 with French emigres of distinction ; and ' /Esop ' relates 

 how a stag-hunt was got up by the Prince of Wales for 

 their amusement ; post horses being hired from Hartford 

 Bridge to help out the Royal stables and mount them. 

 William IV. was at that time a middy at Portsmouth 

 and came out on a pony ; but he got into a deep ditch 

 early in the day's proceedings. This hunt nearly drove Sharpe 

 mad owing to the crowd, the confusion, and the horns of 

 the excited visitors, which they had stuck to in spite of the 



