70 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



To ride jealous in a forest, you must be really intrepid ! 

 ' ^sop ' relates how on another occasion Mr. Smith was 

 talking to Charles Davis, and not looking where he was 

 going to, when his horse suddenly swerved, Mr. Smith falling 

 on his back over the horse's shoulder. An officious well- 

 wisher asked him if he was hurt — always a mistake when a 

 man has tumbled off — on which Charles Davis turned round 

 and said, 'He is much too hard to hurt,' an encomium 

 which greatly pleased Mr. Smith. 



I read somewhere or other that a great many pictures of 

 Davis were painted at different times. His namesake and 

 relative painted him several tiixies on Hermit, the grey horse 

 he is riding in the well-known engraving of a Meet of the 

 Buckhounds on Ascot Heath during Lord Chesterfield's 

 Mastership. Then there is another engraving of him on 

 Columbine, a short-tailed mare which went to Badminton 

 and bred some capital coach-horses. The Duke of Beaufort 

 was telling me about her only the other day, and I have 

 the entry now before me in Davis's horse-book. For the 

 Michaelmas quarter 1831, under ' Horses sold,' he notes : 



* Brown mare Columbine and foal to the Duke of Beaufort, 

 19^. 5s.' 



I believe, though, that the most characteristic and best- 

 known engraving of him is on Traverser, after Barraud. 

 Without placing this picture in such company as Titian's 



* Charles V.' or Velasquez's ' Don Balthazar Carlos ' at Madrid, 

 or Stubbs's 'Duke of Hamilton ' in the green coat on the chest- 

 nut hackney, if the painting is as good as the engraving 

 it must be a very charming and distinguished equestrian 

 portrait. People who care for sporting engravings should 

 buy it ; it is getting very scarce. In my time the reduced 

 photograph from the engraving was popular at Harrow. I 

 had one in my room over the mantelpiece. How often 

 have I looked to Mr. Davis for inspiration in the horrid 



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