I do not rhyme for that dull elf Who cannot picture to himself that the chief reason why our ' flower of chivalry' are the finest and best field officers in the world is owing to the knowledge of the management of the horse, and the courage inspired thereby acquired by early lessons taken in the hunting field.

"There is no breed of dogs that have attained to such a high degree of perfection in form and substance as Foxhounds. Their pedigrees have been longer and better kept; their breeders have united science with practice for many years past, and the result shows the master's hand. They have also been long under the control of a class with whom petty jealousies do not stand in the way of improvements, the services of a favourite hound in most packs being available for any other kennel if properly sought, of which we have an instance in the case of the late Sir Richard Sutton, who, in a letter to a brother M.F.H., written only a few days before his death, says, 'Send bitches to Glider,' Glider being considered the best hound in Sir Richard's kennel.

"The modern Foxhound possesses in the highest degree thep roper conformation for courage, scenting powers, speed, and endurance, which proclaim him a workman of the first order and a model of canine perfection to breed up to - a model such as Petrarch in the equine world, that we may fancy to have said at the St. Leger post, 'Tell Kisber and the gentlemen that I am here waiting.' In short, the Foxhound is a pattern card for the breeders of pointers, setters, retrievers, etc, to help them to breed out chumpy heads and lumpy shoulders, lanky backs and cranky hind quarters, leathery necks and narrow chests, cow hocks and weak feet and pasterns.

"To give a list of the names of the patriarchs of the stud which have taken their part in bringing the foxhound to his present standard of excellence would fill a volume of no mean size. Most kennels have had their Tarquins and Furriers, their Ringwoods and Rallywoods, to make or mar their destinies. Yorkshiremen of the old regime would swear by Sir Mark Sykes's Aimwell, that Chalon transferred to canvas, and whose grand head 'gardant' is considered the choicest specimen from that artist's easel. His written eulogy - Aimwell is by judges called a handsome hound, And always foremost when the fox is found, being attributed to the pen of Major Healey, than whom few had a more correct eye for horse or hound, or stronger nerve or better hand, as he proved when he jumped the iron-spiked gate in the Welham carriage drive when on the swing, without disturbing a hair on the clever brown bay, Hard Bargain. Willing and Wanton, and a long array of W's have kept up the dark patchy Aimwell's reputation in this and other kennels.

"Willing was a wonder at carrying a scent over sticky fallows; but, being too fast for Tom Carter on the wolds, she was transferred to Brocklesby, where Will Smith did not give her many trials before he returned her with 'She's of no use to me; we can't keep her in sight.' But Carter had no cause to regret the return, as she bred him Warrior and Woodman to Splendour. The former carried home the fox's head the first day he was out; and, if allowed, he would always do so, be the distance never so great.

"Of the fifty couples in the Eddlesthorpe hound list of 1842, before the kennel was transferred to Birdsall account, for the third time during the half century, Wanton and her sister Willing contributed ten and a half couples. The Mennithorpe miller never forgot his short cut across the kennel meadow at Eddlethorpe, when Wanton, catching sight of his dusky figure flitting through the early dawn, opened tongue, and, deserting her Shiner puppies, after a brief run, gave him a two hours and twenty minutes bay in the ash tree, at the end of which time he was released by Robert Wise, the kennelman, as he arose to his duties at 5 a.m. 'Tak' her away, Robert,' he pleaded; 'I was runnin' ti Burythorpe to fetch t' cow doctor; dea tak' her away!'

" The Brocklesby hounds, like the Yarborough estates, passed in male tail, of which the old lord, regardless alike of the tooth of time or the increase of the gods, decreed, 'We will fall our Brocklesby oaks every hundred years and our ashes every fifty.' The Brocklesby horn also descended from father to son for several generations, and old Will Smith's last command to his son and successor was, ' Stick to Banter.'

"Tom Sebright was first entered to the chase by running after his father's primitive pack in the New Forest, where they would hunt anything from a deer to a dragon fly. He was then caught up and schooled by Mr. Musters; thence he passed to Sir Mark Sykes for three seasons, when he was transferred to Mr. Osbaldeston as whip, with this recommendation, 'He kills all our horses.' In 1822 he entered upon his forty years' service under Earl Fitzwilliam, and hunted the Milton hounds up to his death in 1862, having spent well-nigh half a century in breeding and hunting hounds. He had his favourite Furriers and Feudals; but the cheery face of the veteran never beamed more radiantly than when he dilated on the Quorn Tarquin of his whipper-in days. 'There never was such another hound as Trimbush ' was Will Danby's rooted belief, and he had had a lifetime of experience in the Baby, Holderness, Ainsty, and Harworth saddles. No day was too long and no seduction powerful enough for this unpledged disciple of Father Matthew, always excepting the curacoa substitute in the coffee cup when the Holderness meet was under the old Scorbro' elms; but he took much more kindly to this little counterfeit than any allusion to his fast fifteen minutes with the Neswick badger, which he pulled down on Tibthorpe Wold. The tastes of Danby's henchman, Ned Oxtoby, also ran in the temperance groove; and he proved that his mother was no false prophetess when she predicted that 'he was born to be a huntsman,' as the Holderness killed their fox under her cottage window at Long Riston in the same hour in which he first saw light, and he himself was strong in the faith that his mission in life was foxhunting.