Chapter X: Part 10

With the Restoration came the palmy days of the Turf. Regular meetings were established at Newmarket, and various other parts of England; silver cups and bowls of the value of one hundred pounds were presented as royal gifts, and, more than all, the light of royal favour shone upon it in shape of Charles the Debonair and Mistress Eleanor Gwynne. William III. had no taste for racing, and died by a fall from his horse. Prince George of Denmark, on the other hand, was warmly attached to the Turf, and promoted its interest by every means in his power. We are indebted for many royal plates to his influence with his consort Queen Anne. George I. was no sportsman; in his reign, however, the alteration in the royal plates took place, by which a sum of one hundred guineas was substituted in their stead. Shortly after George II. ascended the throne, arose a morbid yearning after legislating for the Turf. Some of the acts enacted were mischievous; very many were very silly; one was good:--“That no plate or prize of a less value than £50 should be run for, under a penalty of £200.” It was during this reign that the Darley and Godolphin Arabians were brought into this country,--two horses from whom have descended all the most celebrated racers that adorn the annals of our turf. This is the period at which the genealogy of our unrivalled thorough-bred horse then, was _naturalized_, and it is the date whence I think it most convenient to begin my notice of English racing.

Even a notice so confined as this is beset with obscurities that few would conceive possible. As an instance, I will adduce the case of an old and well-informed inhabitant of Epsom, who some years ago published a very clever history of that place. He starts somewhere about the Conquest, and never halts for want of materials as he goes on, till he comes to the great stumbling-block, concerning which he shall speak for himself:--“When the races on Epsom Downs were first held periodically, _we have not been able to trace_; but we find that from the year 1730 they have been annually held in the months of May or June, and about six weeks previous to which the hunters’ stakes are occasionally run for on the Epsom race course, at one of which, in 1730, the famous horse Madcap won the prize, and proved the best plate-horse in England.”

To return, however, to the reign of George II., though we find little bearing on the business of the Turf to be gleaned from its records, it introduces us to the great forefathers of our thorough blood, and stirs one of the most interesting questions in our domestic natural history--the problem of the seed or origin of the English thorough-bred horse. A brief search through the stud-book will convince the inquirer that, almost without exception, our great racers were and are descendants of the Darley and Godolphin Arabians: I use the latter term merely because its conventionality now identifies those celebrated animals. They were both, as has been stated, imported in this reign: the question that I would here investigate applies equally to each, but, for the sake of simplifying it, I will treat it with reference to the latter only. “That he was a genuine Arabian,” says the stud-book, “his excellence as a sire is deemed sufficient proof;” a little further on we read, “It is remarkable that there is not a _superior_ horse now on the Turf without a cross of the Godolphin Arabian, neither has there been for several years past.” The probable date of his arrival in this country was 1725, or thereabouts. Hundreds of Arabs had preceded him as sires, their introduction for that purpose having been a very general speculation from the time of Charles I. That the indigenous island breed had thereby been rendered good service, there can be no doubt; but that the Turf derived any signal advantages from the importations is more than problematical.

Are our celebrated strains of racing blood derived at all from an Arab source, and, if so descended, are they excellent _consequently_, or of accident? As regards the first moiety of the inquiry, a work has just appeared in Paris, the production of a gentleman of some literary celebrity[80], relating to the genealogy of the horse so long known to us as the Godolphin Arabian. His statements go to show that he was a pure _Barb_, presented, with seven others, by the Bey of Tunis to Louis XV., _about_ the year 1731. All the portraits I have ever seen of him certainly go to strengthen this reading of his descent, and proclaim him not of Asiatic origin. The date is an erroneous one, as he was a sire in England in the year in which he is said to have reached France; but we must be content with very vague data in all that concerns our subject a century ago. As to the second division of the question, after-time must furnish the means of replying to it, if it be ever answered. My bias is to a belief that there exist families of the horse in the East possessed of a perfection infinitely surpassing any generically inherited. This I have attempted to demonstrate in a work upon which I am at present engaged, some portion of which has been already published.[81] The fact (of which I was made conscious by authority beyond question) that the Imaum of Muscat, one of the most powerful sovereign princes of India, expended ten years of active search, backed by the enormous bribe of ten thousand pounds, before he could procure a descendant of a line sufficiently pure to present to King George IV., seems to establish the truth of the theory to which I profess being inclined. All that we learn from our knowledge of the almost religious veneration with which the genealogy of the horse is treated in the East, goes to the like confirmation. “It is remarkable that there is not a _superior_ horse _now_ on the turf without a cross of the Godolphin Arabian,” I leave the reader to interpret as his own reflections may lead him.

[80] M. Eugene Sue.

[81] Annals of the British Turf, from the Introduction of Eastern
blood to the present Time. The first century concluded in the Old
Sporting Magazine.

Shall I venture, at the hazard of pursuing my theory “ultra fines,” to offer one more example in support of it? That no structural organization available to the eye, no individual excellence in the parents, influence, in our raising stock, the performances of their offspring, are truisms taught by every stud in the kingdom. All that exist among us, descended from the great forefather of the Turf, are capable of producing offspring of equal pretension, as regards the root from which they are sprung. Far different was the result in relation to the importations of Eastern blood contemporary with the Godolphin, and the same it has been with all more recently introduced. Enough, at all events, has been adduced, if not to _prove_ my position, to warrant me, at least, in its assumption, as well as for offering it to the consideration of those who hold the subject to which it relates of sufficient interest to engage their attention.

From such speculations on the origin of the British racehorse, we will turn to the annals of his exploits,--a theme more generally attractive, though intrinsically less important. Here, to begin with the early worthies of the turf, all is as obscure as is the genealogical problem with which we have been already engaged. Of the performances of Childers, detailed, as they are, with all apparent microscopic observations of the seconds’ hand, I am convinced that we know rather worse than nothing. In a recent work of more than an ordinary character on the subject to which it addresses itself (Lawrence’s History of the Horse), Childers--Flying Childers, as he was designated _par excellence_--is stated to have been a chestnut, whereas he was a rich bay with four white legs. The same slovenly style, no doubt, attaches to the records of the early performances, as well as to the more recent attempts of equestrian historians. Again, the only criterion by which we can estimate them is, when we can refer to a timed race, because, knowing little of the principals, we cannot be supposed to have a better knowledge of the pretensions of their contemporaries. Now, even in our day, when all the appliances for chronometrical accuracy are so vastly improved and multiplied, we rarely hear of the time of a race being kept at all, even accidentally: it is never done by authority, or on a principle deserving of confidence.

We know that the taste, in the middle of the last century, inclined to long distances, and repeated exertion--six and eight-mile heats being events of constant recurrence; and yet we are required to believe that there existed at and previous to that time a flight of speed unknown to our degenerate days. Moreover, by far the greater portion of the early racers were undersized, Galloways as the old Calendars have them in every page; and stride is, save in rare exceptions, indispensable to a high degree of swiftness. In the absence of any actual data as to speed, worthy being confided in, it may not be inconvenient to relate a performance of one of the first-class horses of that period; and, by contrasting it with a match against time, done by a contemporary hackney, some deduction may be drawn of the qualities of the racers of that era.

Gimcrack, a grey horse bred in 1760, by Cripple out of Miss Elliot, was considered one of the best of his day. In consequence of his superiority, he was sent to France, where he was matched for a large sum to do a certain distance against time. Whatever it was, he was the winner, having accomplished twenty-three miles in fifty-five minutes. This was probably in 1770. In 1778, a foundered hackney, aged twenty-two, belonging to a Mr. Hanks, did twenty-two miles within the hour, upon the high road in the neighbourhood of London. Gimcrack carried eight stone: the weight on the hackney is not given, but there is no reason for believing it less than eight stone; so that one of the best race-horses of that day could only beat a broken-down hack a mile and five minutes in an hour!

It is a conventional fallacy to attribute to past days virtues superior to those in which were live. Every thing, from the seasons to the flavour of home-brewed, was better, if we credit the popular voice, “in the good old times.” To examine the application of this rule to the matter before us, I may perhaps be permitted to borrow a leaf out of my own book, seeing that I could scarce make my argument stronger in any other form of words.

“After a careful examination of all the best authorities bearing upon the condition of the Turf in that so emphatically called its palmiest era--the middle of the last century--I find nothing to warrant the belief that, as a species, the contemporaries of King Herod, Imperator, Eclipse, Florizel, and Highflyer, possessed either speed, power, or symmetry, unknown to the racer of our day. At the very date to which this extraordinary excellence is ascribed, we find the degeneracy of that particular breed the subject of legislative consideration; and in 1740 that an Act of Parliament was passed, denouncing the Turf as the cause of the growing debasement of the breed of horses all over the kingdom, and fixing the weights to be carried in all plates and matches at ten stone for five-year-olds, eleven stone for six, and twelve stone for seven-year-olds and upwards, on pain of a penalty of £200, and forfeiture of the horse. It is true that this Act was repealed soon afterwards, through the intervention, as it was believed, of the Duke of Cumberland; nevertheless it is manifest that there must have existed strong grounds for complaint against the system of breeding and racing before the consideration of its economy would be made a subject of Parliamentary interference. Let us turn to the weights carried by two-year-olds fifty years ago, and those common to the present period,--the former averaging from six stone to six stone six pounds, the latter from eight stone five pounds to eight stone seven pounds, and what evidence of degeneracy does that furnish?” Racing, wherever we meet it existing as a popular sport, is the growth of a root indigenous to England. All the appliances of civilization are carried to a higher degree of perfection among us, in the present day, than at any former period of our history: the Turf, and all its _materiel_, it cannot be doubted, has attained a comparative condition of excellence.

In a nation peculiarly attached to rural sports, that, as matter of course, becomes entitled to the place of honour which diffuses the greatest portion of enjoyment to the greatest number of people. In this view, racing is well entitled to the pre-eminence which it has so long claimed, and had conceded to it; but it prefers demands of a higher nature than its mere pleasurable results. In a political sense, it is an engine of no mean importance. A state must benefit largely from an agency which exhibits its nobles promoting, at great individual cost, a sport in which all classes can participate equally with themselves, and which brings together all the divisions of society for one end and purpose--social recreation. Where shall we seek the great moral of England’s power and station?--In the wealth which commerce pours upon her shares?--In her wooden walls?--In the skill, learning, and valour of her sons? We can scarce study it in a more impressive page than that yearly spread before us at the great popular re-unions of Epsom, Ascot, and Doncaster. Let such as love such lore, then, search after it where the examination will surely reward their industry: we will take it up, abstractedly, as a pastime, and in that character look into the nature and influence of its present economy.

As a treasury of art, an assembly of learning, ingenuity, and pleasure, our metropolis has many rivals--some superiors: in our rural life we stand alone. Mainly this has been brought about by--is the consequence of--a general taste for field sports. Whether the cause of morality is served by horse-racing, it is not our province to inquire. An inelegant but most _apropos_ salt-water axiom says, “every man to his post, and the cook to the fore-sheet.” Mankind, since the creation, has set its face against all work and no play, and will do so to the end of the chapter. We are of the disciples of Democritus; and, feeling in the vein, will just touch in here, merely in outline, a faint sketch of a DERBY DAY.

Perhaps, with one exception alone, none of the realities of life come up to the anticipations of them; and what, you ask, is that singular deviation from the general rule?--It is a DERBY DAY. Imagine a conglomeration of two millions of souls stirred to its _penetralia_, shaken from its propriety, morally earthquaked, because of the necessity which annually requires that a certain portion of the mass (say a fortieth) should rendezvous in a neighbourhood where certain horses are to contend some two minutes and sundry seconds for certain monies, and you arrive at a general idea of something by no means in the ordinary course. The scene of this commotion is London, the majority of the actors automata that make yearly one solitary diversion (in both the word’s interpretations) from the regular cycles of their orbits. But such a Saturnalia demands a word anent its note of preparation.

As soon as the month dawns, big with the catastrophe of Epsom Races, straightway from Belgrave Square to Shoreditch, from the Regent’s Park to uttermost Rotherhithe, forth the sackage goes that guts, from garret to cellar, every Pantechnicon, Bazaar, and Repository of all and singular the wheeled conveniences and inconveniences peculiar to each. Anon the horse, in all its infinite gradations, is had in requisition, from Newman’s choicest specimens of blood, that devour the Surrey highways, to the living quadrupedal skeleton redeemed from the knacker’s knife at the last Smithfield show for fifteen shillings, and a “drop o’ summut for luck.” The day arrives, and lo! a mighty chain of carriages, “in linked grumbling long drawn out,” extends from the Elephant and Castle to the merry Downs of Epsom, whitherwards we will suppose thy anxious way hath at length been achieved. The moisture of travel encumbereth thy brow: searchest thou for thy best Bandana to relieve thee of the damp? Luckless wight!--

“----That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian from thy pocket prig.”

Is not the tide of humanity at the flood of spring? Ten deep do vehicles of all kinds, definite and undefinable, line the course. Opposite and around the stand all is high-bred and aristocratic: lower down, leading for Tattenham’s classic corner, you haply take your curious path. What lots of pretty girls you encounter as you go!--each so lady-like and _bien mise_, you would never dream of their metropolitan whereabouts, were it not for those awful mortalities that cluster around them; brothers, cousins, lovers it may be--pale shadows that haunt the glimpses of Bow Church--horrible illusions from Ludgate Hill and the Ward of Cheap, with prickly frills to their linen, swallow tails to their coats, green velvet waistcoats, or, still more shocking, similar habiliments of black satin, whereon the indecent chain of Mosaic grins ghastly, like the gilding on a coffin!--faugh!

Drawing near to the lines, hark! from glass coach, britscha, jarvey, phaeton, proceed various sounds of discontent.--“Cold chickens, veal pie, lobsters and _no_ salt.”--“Half-a-dozen bottles is all very fine, and never no corkscrew.”--“Sir, I’ll set that right if you’ll only accommodate us with the loan of a glass; really it’s too provoking.”... Ascend the hill, approach the Ring, and hear what sums are jeopardied on the coming event!--enough to purchase half-a-score of German principalities; but the warren is open, and thither you are borne by the countless thousands who throng for a glance of the coursers on whom hang the hopes and fears of all.

No spot can be better adapted for the purpose to which it is assigned than the so well-known warren; but all that nature has done man takes especial care to frustrate. Instead of its cool quiet alleys being kept for the tranquil preparation of animals peculiarly disposed to excitement (their most dangerous foe at a moment when the entire possession of every faculty is of such vital consequence), every “dingle, nook, and bosky bourn” is invaded by a horde of ravenous, sight-seeing cockneys, of all beasts of prey the most reckless and perverse. Amid this restless crowd of babbling, cigar-smoking untameables, the process of saddling is effected, and, with graceful steps, the fiery-footed adversaries depart for the lists.

You reach the place of starting, and what awaits you there? Order, decorum, and all fitting arrangement for the important essay of which it is the arena? A second chaos!--all the human elements thrown together in a moral whirlpool. A score of men in buckram suits (blue linsey-wolsey), attempting to dispose of twice as many thousands--something like barring the gates of a beleagured town with boiled carrots! They draw together for the start--infinitely the most influential point in the great game to be played. Here all is confusion worse confounded: the multitude opens its thousand throats of brass; the steeds are frantic; the jockeys (born and bred devils from their cradle) practise every conceivable stratagem ever hatched in Fiendom; and there stands one nervous old man to front the pitiless pelting, and produce from such materials a result with which all are to be satisfied. “They are off!” and the old gentleman, in his agony, pronounces “go,” and the fatal signal has gone forth. Over the hill, adown the fall, there is a meteoric flash, as though a rainbow had borrowed the wings of the lightning, and all is over!

The Derby is decided--the steeds turned round--the jockeys approach the scales--Holy Mother of Moses! has it entered the heart of man (even an Irishman) to conceive the tearing and swearing, the howling and screeching, that instant rends the empyrean! Quick as thought a circle of bludgeons and constables is formed, into which the horses as they arrive are received, and against which a roaring ocean of humanity is dashing as fiercely as the vexed Atlantic. Look towards the grand stand--behold whole acres of countenances uplifted to the sky, wedged as closely as a crate of French eggs, and resembling nothing as yet discovered but a monstrous dish of opened oysters! The round earth is shaken, and echo gives up the ghost--the thunder hides its diminished head, as with the bellowings of ten thousand volcanos myriads of furious lungs crash forth, “WHO HAS WON?” Thus whilom did I sing of this scene; and with better experience, save in the episodes of flying voltigeurs, men “with never no back-bones at all, only a slip of gristle to hold head and heels together,” and epicures in cutlery, “who swallow knives and forks for all the world like gingerbread nuts,” I can add nothing to the _beau ideal_ of a DERBY DAY.

How little can they, who first give existence to a principle, foresee how it will operate, and what may be its results. The pastime of horse-racing, fostered and promoted simply as a channel of amusement by the gay and thoughtless Charles, called into being the strongest impulse of man’s nature--emulation, and thus entailed upon this country a race of the noblest of all existing animals, of a character apparently superior to that originally destined by nature. This may be an erroneous theory, but as yet we are unacquainted with any variety of the horse comparable to the artificial stock known as our thorough-blood. The very general efforts that were made from that period by the nobles and great landed proprietors to improve by lavish outlay, and all the appliances which it can command, the best strains of the recently imported Oriental blood, towards the middle of the last century, seem to have carried the race-horse _as a species_ as near to perfection as his generic organization will admit. True, every year produced some few infinitely superior to their contemporaries, but they were phenomena,--indebted to no individuality of parentage for their excellence, and unpossessed of the faculty of endowing their descendants with similar gifts. As a race, when opposed to the indigenous horse of any quarter of the earth, the English thorough-blood is universally victorious; among the various families into which it is divided at home, no _constant_ succession of superiority has ever discovered itself.

I am aware that those who only take a superficial view of the economy of our racing system will at once pronounce against this position. They will adduce the sons and daughters of King Herod, Eclipse, and Highflyer; in our day, of Sultan and Emilius, as far surpassing the ordinary run of their contemporaries. But they do not bear in mind that not only did and does the progeny of these justly celebrated sires greatly outnumber that of their less favoured brothers, but that the best mares of their respective eras were and are exclusively put to them. Not to travel beyond our own day for proofs, did excellence ensure its like, what chance would have remained to those who now and then breed a solitary nomination against the gigantic studs of Hampton Court, Riddlesworth, or Underly? To confine the question to the present year (1838), we had evidence that not all the wealth, skilful training, Sybarite care and treatment of the best of England’s blood could produce a match for the son of one of our indifferent racers,--the despised of an Irish tenth-rate stable,--the wonderful and the basely-abused Harkaway.[82] I may be told that he was defeated here, and by second-raters, too,--but under what circumstances? With ordinary care, without having been subjected to actual ill-treatment, at weight for age there was nothing of the year in England that could have stood any chance with him.

[82] This extraordinary animal is now (December 1838) advertised for
sale, his price six thousand guineas, with this strange addition,
“that his owner (Mr. Ferguson) rides him hunting once or twice a
week!”

From these premises the deduction at which we arrive bearing upon the economy of the turf, its nature and influence is twofold, and admits of a very brief solution,--the first being that the day is long passed since the means of winning upon the race-course were to be obtained by breeding; the second, that the vast advantages still to be derived from a proper application of our thorough-blood is most strangely neglected. Mr. Bowes began his racing career by breeding a winner of the Derby, while the late Duke of Leeds, the most extensive breeder of blood stock in the north, toiled in vain for the Leger till he won it with a colt bought from the tail of the plough. Lord George Bentinck, the best winner on the turf of modern days, if the Calendar be any criterion, regards breeding racers as an expedient no man in his senses should dream of, and, acting upon his theory, has put money in his purse. A first-class racer, a colt of extraordinary promise, are each productions of chance-medley, only to be come at by being secured where and when they can be found.

But if the Turf be thus restricted in further profiting, save as matter of hazard, by the means which securely ministered to the success of its first speculators, it furnishes materials from which may be moulded other distinct races, as valuable, each in its province, as the flying family of the modern race-course, now the sole representatives of our thorough-blood. The ragged regiment of cock-tails will, it is devoutly to be hoped, speedily be disbanded; the day soon arrive when no gentleman shall be seen bestriding the mongrel of a base-bred hackney, scarce worthy the shafts of a costermonger’s trap. And first, as is befitting, such reform must commence with its next of kin--THE FIELD. Shall this, assuredly the second--nay, the twin-sport of racing, in the esteem of Englishmen, long continue dependent upon chance for a supply of horses for its service? Impossible; the period cannot be far distant in which the British thorough-bred hunter will be as distinct a race, and of as high renown, as his progenitors were the pride of the Turf.

HUNTING.

As the whole object of the Manly Exercises is not accomplished in the attainment and practice of them, it was thought convenient that the business of their details should be succeeded by a partial notice of some of those sports of which they form the elementary process, and which may be regarded as their ultimate “end and aim.” It has been well said by my talented friend, Nimrod, that all the writing in the world will not make a sportsman. The pen of Pindar, and the pencil of Grant, indeed, exhibit him in all perfection to our admiration; but, could they both write for the education of the student whose ambition is Olympic fame, they would not insure success. Like the poet, he must be born, in a manner, to his cunning.

The Exercises, upon which Mr. Walker has written, admitted of being inculcated by methodical rules, and acquired by a systematic routine of practice. An acquaintance with them will be found of service to youth, whatever the destination of its manhood may be; while they are essential to the formation of a frame and character fitted for the maturity likely to be devoted to the wear and tear of our hardy Rural Sports. Driving and Yachting, though neither of them strictly coming within the pale of a course of physical exercises, still are not out of place in a practical book devoted to the science of manly recreations, because each is governed by certain rules, which may be taught and acquired. It is not so with the subjects constituting the matter on which we are at present engaged. A man may out-study Zoroaster without being one whit the better qualified for winning a fifty-pound plate, hitting off the line of a fox that has been headed, or bringing down his woodcock in cover; these are arts which, being decimated, leave one part to theory and nine in favour of practice. For this cause I have made my Article on the Turf of a character more suited to the purposes of the general reader than those of the visionary theorist, who may fondly hope to meet, on page traced by mortal hands, a recipe for breeding, training, and managing an embryo winner of Derby or Leger. The Chase, however, admits of a certain code of general maxims: it has, if not limits, at all events courses better defined than those of the Turf, and to the application of them by practical men of modern experience we will at once proceed.

Assuming that a tolerable proficiency in horsemanship has been attained before the young disciple of Diana ventures to show at all with hounds, he will do well to dedicate the first of his novitiate to hare-hunting, whether his future destination be that of a M. F. H., or merely a partaker of the “light from heaven,” dispensed by the “noble science.” As this little treatise addresses itself more particularly to the latter, it will be sufficient to point out what should be his aim in his early lessons. Of these, the most essential to the formation of a good sportsman, and the only one that will enable any man to live to the end of a severe run, is, that he cultivate the faculty of a _quick eye to hounds_. With harriers he will constantly have practice in this task: the perpetual doubles to which nine hares out of ten, when chased, resort, will soon convince him of the necessity of keeping a wary look out for the line towards which the leading hounds incline. He will have little difficulty in deciding with which portion of the pack, or with which individual of it, the scent is, if he only observe closely when there is any indication of a check. The instant a hound catches the scent, he will see him drop his tail horizontally, and spring to the front, the one who has lost it elevating his, as if engaged in questing. Keeping his look-out always upon the leaders, and leaving the body of the pack to follow a similar system, he turns his horse as he sees the chase lean, and thus is going at his ease _inside_ the circle, around which others can hardly live at the best their nags can accomplish. When a huntsman is coming past with hounds,--particularly at check in a lane or road,--get out of his way all you can; the narrower the pass the greater the necessity that you give room, or hounds must break over the fence, and so run the risk of putting up, or crossing the line of, another hare: moreover, horses on such occasions are apt to strike out at hounds, and it is far from pleasant to be constituted by such a casualty “the observed of all observers.”

In the matter of riding at fences, with harriers you will be more enabled to suit your practice to the individual case than when you come to ride alongside fox-hounds. With the former, when any thing very cramp crosses your line, you may “look before you leap,” and this is no bad maxim, whoever may choose to sneer at it. Let this too be an axiom from which you never depart, as far as regards the hounds: when you are out with the jolly dogs, “hear and see, and say nothing”--so shall you earn golden opinions from the field in general, and prevent much out-pouring of wrath from the officials in particular. It will serve you to bear in mind that in almost every difficulty of ground a horse can serve himself better than you can assist him. I do not mean to say that in heavy, deep galloping you should not hold him together, and if there be a furrow or path at hand, that you should not give him the advantage of it. But in woodlands, for instance, where young timber has been felled, and the surface is covered with live stubs, give him his head: let him pick his own way; never touch his mouth with the bridle to guide him, and you will find how rarely he will give a chance away. Thus in a rabbit warren the difficulty is doubled by the nervous man who attempts to steer his horse. The biped is looking at one hole, the quadruped at another, and being diverted from the spot where he intended to place his foot, puts it _in_ where it was meant that he should not. Still, however, you may attempt it: never charge ground of this nature without using the precaution of slacking your pace. I remember a well-known bruising rider, who thought it impossible that he could be hurt, once trying the experiment over a warren in the neighbourhood of Whitchurch, in Shropshire, and being assured of the affirmative in the first hundred yards by the fracture of his collar-bone, and the dislocation of a shoulder.

With the common run of fences, where the grip is from you, go faster at them than when it lies on the side you take off from. When they consist of live thorns and quicks newly laid down, take them, whenever the chance presents itself, _aslant_, rising where the top of the thorn is laid, as being the least capable of holding your horse’s knees, should they catch in rising at it. In your noviciate it is hardly necessary to offer you any advice as to water. As a general rule, however, it may as well be said here as elsewhere that, in brook-jumping, pace comes first and then judgment. With a powerful impetus you get over; should your horse blunder, somehow--if with a fall at the other side, no matter: less speed enables you to pick your ground better, but it throws all the odds on the side of a cold-bath, should the span be wider than you calculated on, or the bank be soft, and let you in. Never take hold of your horse’s head till you feel that he is safely landed; if there is a scramble for it, and you pull at him but an ounce, it may turn the beam of his equipoise, and in you go together.

Young hands are prone to think that it is necessary to the acquisition of the reputation of a sportsman that they show in front throughout a run. Indeed I might have said this idea seems to hold with many who ought to be wiser. The sooner the youthful Nimrod discards this fallacy the better. The chances are so multiplied and various against a good run that it is next to a miracle how a real clipper ever occurs. From foil, to which ground is every where exposed, down to an infant of three years old that heads your quarry, on every side you are beset with risk, even _with_ a scent. Without it your difficulty becomes almost an impossibility, and that is the time when over-riding, more fatal than all other obstacles put together, is to be seen in its superlative degree. There is your hard-rider, _par excellence_, who _will_ be first: the leader pulls up at a check--the nuisance passes him, even with hounds at fault, without a moment’s care for the mischief he must do the chase, or what he may do himself. Let such as this teach you that which you should avoid: acquire in youth the way you should go, and in your maturity you will not depart from it.

We now come to the matriculation of the “noble science,” and consider the _quondam_ novice entered to fox-hunting. It would be bootless here to offer any eulogy upon a sport admitted, by authorities allowing no question, to be, in a political as well as a social view, a powerful moral engine. In a letter now before me, which I lately received from a gallant general, himself a master of fox-hounds, he ascribes to a taste for the chase that characteristic manly daring which distinguishes the officers of our service from those of any other. Of all field sports its claims are the most general upon the properties of manhood. The tiger-hunts of the East may appeal more directly to the courage, but with activity and physical endurance they have little or nothing to do. But see the qualities that must combine to form the accomplished fox-hunter. He must be bold, ready, decisive, capable of commanding and sustaining great bodily exertion: he must join unity of purpose to promptness of action; capability of foreseeing events, that he may best turn them to advantage, with a frame and a spirit alike competent to meet and oppose undauntedly difficulties and dangers, how and when they may assail him. I would not have it supposed that I claim for the chase a higher station for enterprise than any other of the adventurous occupations in which we find mankind employed. It would be absurd for an instant, for example, to compare it with that most exciting and magnificent of all the daring offices to which man has ever addressed himself--the South Sea fishing. But as a sport,--an act to which pleasure alone induces him, fox-hunting has nothing at all bearing comparison with it in modern days. To the present fashion of its details we will now turn our consideration.

I do not think it necessary here to enter into any foreign matter, such as the nature and economy of the establishment with which the field may be taken with reference to the country hunted, or the number of days weekly to be devoted to its business. We will suppose our young Nimrod has completed all such arrangements in a convenient fashion, and proceed to the _res gestæ_ for which he has made preparation. In this hard-riding era, it is regarded as a dashing style of going to cover, by your aspiring tyro, to approach it as the crow would fly. If he _must_ go thither across country, let him, at all events, avoid passing through, or riding too near any of the covers likely to be drawn during the day. If they hold a good fox, it is sure notice for him to quit, for he is ever on the _qui vive_. The result is, should the hounds be thrown in, they come upon a scent some hours old--crawl upon it over probably the cream of the country, never come on terms with him; and a capital day’s sport is lost to a whole field by a selfish half-hour’s lark. Arrived at the place of meeting, he should not address himself to the master, if he hunt his own hounds; or, in the other case, to the huntsman, notwithstanding he may be on familiar terms with them, beyond the mere exchange of a passing civility. Even then, a man, bent upon showing a good day’s sport, has his mind sufficiently engaged on the business before him. He is consulting temporary causes, by which to be directed as to the particular cover to begin with, and how it is to be drawn. The point of wind, the nature of the day, the weather of the preceding week,--all must be weighed, and brought to assist his judgment. A fox well found is always the most likely to be well accounted for.

But if conversation with the master or huntsman be inconvenient before hounds are thrown off, afterwards it becomes a positive impertinence. It is no excuse for doing so that they are not actually engaged at the moment. A huntsman, having drawn without a find, is probably waiting for some of his hounds; at the same time he is debating with himself what cover he shall next try, and how to get to it, as the wind may affect the best lying in it for his fox. He has also observed how his hounds have behaved, and has orders to give to a whip as to the conduct of some one prone to riot; or that a particular corner of the cover about being drawn shall be carefully watched. In short, success or failure are dependent on his management; and how can he deliberate if he is to stand a general catechism?

If it be a large cover, keep within hearing of the hounds and huntsman. This can only be effected by being down wind, and should be done without any reference to the distance round, which it may impose. Of course, it is not intended that a man should take any thing he can avoid out of his horse by galloping round a cover, but let him keep on steadily opposite the hounds, taking heed that he does not get so far forward as to endanger heading back the fox, and so spoiling his own and his neighbours’ sport. This I only recommend where covers are very large, and even then it may not be the best system. In all cases where it is practicable, I never throw a chance away by losing sight of hounds. I remember, some years ago, meeting Sir Richard Puleston at Cresford village, whence we trotted to a wood that skirts the high road to Chester. As we jogged forward, a friend overtook me, accosting me with, “You need not hurry yourself, for they’ll find nothing where they’re going: it has been beaten within an hour by a party of coursers, who have left nothing alive on four legs within it, you may rely.” In ten minutes, the pack and field were streaming, best pace, after a fox found in that same coppice, away for Shavington, over a country like the cream of Leicestershire or Northampton.

In fox-hunting, depend solely upon yourself, and keep with the pack. Even in going from cover to cover, be with them. Circumstances frequently arise which induce a huntsman to abandon trying a place upon which he may have previously fixed; and how often has a fox jumped out of a hedge-row in the centre of a pack trotting industriously away to look for a chance probably half a dozen miles off! In windy weather, when hounds are in cover, unless you draw it with them, it is two to one you never get away at all, and ten to one against a good start. I have had some experience of horses in my day, and have ever found, that, of all ways of beating them, the surest is that of trying to catch hounds. Laying aside the excitement and energy produced by the music, alongside of which they go sailing away in wild delight, it must be remembered that the pace of fox-hounds with a scent is equal to the best, if not superior, that any first-class hunter possesses. What sort of a nag then is it, that you can expect to catch them with ten minutes’ law? In calm weather, also, the danger of losing sight of hounds is by no means to be disregarded. There are some days (those which invariably carry the best scent) when hounds will find, and fly away like magic, not one in the pack attempting to throw tongue. Here, if the cover be large, unless you have them in your eye, the odds are you never get away; and see what you lose--the excellence of the scent has stopped the cry: the faster hounds go, the less they say about it.

When in a large cover, with hounds unavoidably out of sight, depend upon your ear much rather than upon the movements of others. You will constantly find men riding straight on end, merely because the hounds were running so when they entered, while very probably the fox has turned short, and is already away, with the pack at his brush, in an opposite direction. With a little patience and attention, your ear will soon come to the knack of detecting the line of hounds in cover: it is well worth your while to take pains to acquire this art. When you have learnt it, you will speedily find out the advantage it will confer upon your horse, and yourself too. It is by no means easy to lay down rules for that which so mainly depends upon circumstances; but it may be convenient to offer a few examples, upon which you may found a system for general application. Suppose, for instance, you have had a burst with your fox, and he has reached a large cover, in which there are strong earths, or beyond which lies a country too open for a blown fox to set his head for. If the earths are open, in he goes, and there is an end of him; if stopped, he turns, or leans to the right or left. During this time, brief as it maybe, you have eased your horse; he gets his wind (a minute, in many cases, will put him right after a very quick thing), and you are fresh, while your hard rider has been going best pace beyond the hounds, and comes toiling after you in vain. These points of practice, however, require good judgment, and great promptness of action. You must know well how to distinguish between a cry that grows faint and fainter, as a failing scent leads to a final check, and one that, from a crash, at once becomes almost wholly lost, as the pack flies to their fox with a view, or a scent breast-high.

You will, no doubt, at the commencement of your career, hear a great deal about the influence the wind has upon the line of chase. Do not take all such theory for gospel. I have tried my hand at a few systems of the kind, but only found one that admitted general adoption. When a fox, on being found, takes up wind at first, do not ride, though the pace be first-rate, so as to take much out of your horse. Foxes constantly, after going a mile or so up wind, turn and head back. This will let you in with a good start, and a fresh nag; and even should the chase hold on up wind, you run little risk of being thrown out, as you will have the cry to guide you, and the puff in, to enable you to get to them when the first brush is over.

One good effect of the hard riding of modern days is, that hounds are much less meddled with by strangers than they used to be when first I remember fox-hunting. Indeed, I am not sure that too much etiquette does not now exist upon that point. The total disappearance of the thong to the hunting-whip seems like carrying a good thing rather too far. A fox breaks probably under your horse’s nose: out comes the pack, none of the servants are at hand, and they run a field or two from the cover before any one stops them, or their own mettle allows them to turn: one crack of your whip would have saved all that. One thing you _can_ do without your thong, but you should be very careful how you do it. I allude to hallooing a fox away. Never attempt to lift up your voice till he is evidently bent on going, and then give him at least a field’s law, or the odds are, back he goes, perhaps into the hounds’ mouths. When he _is_ gone, then clap your hand behind your ear, and give the “Tally-ho--_away_!” to the best of the lungs that are in you. Should he merely show for a moment outside, and then pop in again, give a “Tally-ho--back!” that it maybe known where he was seen, as well as that he is not away. Another service in this latter halloo is, that all the points where it is likely he will try to break will be left clear for him. If a fox is seen crossing a ride or path, in cover, in front of you, pull up; and if hounds are at check, tally him, as it will serve as a guide to the huntsman.

In drawing a cover you may give this signal, should any fox cross you, but if you have run him in, be awake not to tally any but the hunted one, or you will have few thanks for your trouble. A little experience will easily teach you the difference between one just unkennelled and that which has stood any time before hounds. Not only will the former be sleek and unstained, but the method of going be very dissimilar. A fresh fox bounds off, throwing his hind legs clear from him, and his whole frame, from the tip of his nose to that of his brush, as straight as an arrow; if hunted, and at all blown or beaten, his action is laboured, like that of a rocking-horse, his back is curved, his brush drooping, and the ears thrown back, all the fire for which when found his eye is so remarkable, quenched, and exchanged for an air of cunning and subdued resolution. I am far from any design of counselling you to interfere with the business of a pack of fox-hounds that you may be either in the habit of hunting with, or one that you may merely meet by accident occasionally. Still there are instances in which to withhold all assistance would be to put the chance of sport in jeopardy, and in which the true lover of the chase ought to act first and think afterwards. Should any casualty, for example, so find you that, _with hounds at fault_, you catch a halloo that the huntsman does not or cannot hear, contrive so to place yourself between the halloo and the hounds that you may be heard by huntsman or pack, and so lead them on the line that the halloo proceeds from. I repeat, however, that these and similar aids must be offered with due discretion. The halloo may be a false one--true, but had you gone to make inquiries, you, too, would have been out of hearing--the points of fox-hunting require temporary and local adaptation, and a headpiece to direct all. Mere physical endowments will never make an accomplished fox-hunter--combined with judgment they are very excellent subsidiaries: for him who would shine in the chase

“Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.”

In riding to hounds it will essentially serve you if you bear in mind what ninety-nine out of a hundred seem never to give a thought to, namely, that the pack only acts _pro tanto_ upon the line of country which a fox is likely to take. Independent of the point which it is assumed he will make for, he has a hundred other things to avoid, as well as the enemies baying on his trail. He settles his point, but he must also get to it unseen. Unless beaten and all but run into, he will give a wide berth to any thing like the habitation of man as well as man himself. Thus, by keeping your eye well before you, there is a chance that the turn hounds will take may be so far anticipated, that you avoid riding outside of their circle. It has been well said that when hounds are running, a man ought to consider what, under the circumstances in which things happen to be, be would do were he the fox. I cannot offer you better counsel. By adopting such a principle you will be enabled to foresee a check should you detect any thing in the line that the chase is taking, however far ahead--and if you have a knowledge of the country, you will calculate such chances almost to a certainty. In a district with which you are acquainted, the line a fox takes when found, will enable you to judge whether he has been before hunted, and if he has, the odds are he runs the same again. Even in cover you may fairly assume that he is accustomed to be stirred by the ring he takes, the points he tries, the gaps he uses in the fences, and similar observations, which should be the business on which you are intent from the moment the hounds are thrown in.