Introduction 



before permitting it to appear in public ! There is an 

 unfinished appearance about the last one, which leads us 

 to suppose that there was probably a good deal more to 

 follow, but of this there is no trace. 



And I think " Lord Tankerville's Instructions " deserve 

 a more than passing notice, for the advice contained 

 therein is so sound, notably the one referring to " confabula- 

 tions down wind," that many a callow sportsman (aye, and 

 full-fledged ones as well) might do very much worse than 

 commit them to memory for future guidance. 



And so I off'er this scrap-book unreservedly, and without 

 apology for its incompleteness, to all who may care to turn 

 over its pages. For it is indeed a scrap-book, with no 

 pretensions at all to being a complete history of the 

 Charlton Hunt. But it has possibly the saving merit of 

 being original ; and if these scanty Records of the good 

 old days afford the reader one tiny fraction of the 

 fascinated interest which I have experienced in compiling 

 and arranging them in some sort of sequence, then shall I 

 be amply repaid for what, after all, has been but a labour 

 of love. 



For to me Charlton and " The Forest " possess an old- 

 fashioned and indeed pathetic charm which a stranger can 

 never realise. The landscape and surroundings can have 

 undergone Httle change since the " Gentlemen of Charlton " 

 made the place the INIelton of the age ; and as on hunting 

 mornings we wend our way now and again through the 

 little old village, it requires but a small effort of imagination 

 to picture old Tom Johnson on that "lowering wintry 

 morn " in .January 1738, jogging along the narrow lanes on 

 his way to that historic meet at East Dean AVood, with the 



xiv 



