CHARLES DAVIS 8i 



the pressing society of the bailiffs, and set him again on his 

 rather unsteady legs. But it is doubtful whether anybody 

 ever had occasion to enter into such savage covenants for 

 Davis. We might have asked him to stand godfather to our 

 first-born, or act as trustee to our marriage settlement — if in 

 order — but we should not have dared to write to him as Tom 

 Oliver did to Mason, to say we were in Short Street and 

 entertaining the sheriff of the county. 



For some years before his actual resignation, failing 

 health and increasing years had led to arrangements with 

 King, by which Davis only went out hunting and remained 

 out for his own pleasure. But in 1866 he had a bad fall and 

 hurt his leg, and at the end of that season he asked leave to 

 retire, and Harry King was appointed in his place. He died 

 at Ascot on October 26, 1867, of bronchitis, in his seventy- 

 ninth year. Charles Davis left no family. 



II n'l/ a i^as d'homme necessaire, but within the possi- 

 bilities of this unimpeachable aphorism it was manifest that 

 his death had made a gap, and that his life had made a quite 

 particular impression upon a considerable public. Davis's 

 was a conspicuous career, many things conspicuously 

 English had contributed to his renown. But the distinction 

 of his looks and ways, the elegance of his seat, the scarlet 

 and gold of his public duties, the bold serenity of his horse- 

 manship are not of themselves enough to account for the 

 vitality of his prestige and tradition. All these things we 

 admire in horse- and hound-loving England ; all these things 

 will be associated with and ornament his memory and 

 profession. But there is something else of Charles Davis 

 which I like to think lives to inspire and to encourage. 

 There is the staidness of his private life ; there is the 

 conduct of responsible duties ; there is the example he 

 has left us of endeavour to provide things honest in the 

 sight of all men. 



G 



