The Express.
London, England, 1865-05-31 00:00:00

LITERATURE•

Bunting Sketchu. By ANTHONY Taouors.
Chapman and Hall.
Will not the author of these pleasant sketches, the
freshest and most fertile of our living novelists, seine
awe idle hour to glee the world a good spurting
novel 1 There are but fww, indeed we never met
'with one that really satisfied at onee the a
n
ds
of taste and truth. Sporting novels, for the most
part, either abound with slang, or are beset with an
affectation of refinement equally objectionable.
Mr. Trollope is, it is essay to perceive, a thorough
hunting man, and belongs emphatically to the
second class, according to his own order of ar-
rangetuent,—i.e. "the man who hunts and does like
it." Will he permit us to differ with him in his
enumeration of the first cleas—vie, " the nian
who hunts and doesn't like it I" Is " their name
and number legion ?' "If we were to de-
duct," asys Mr. Trollop., „from the hunting
crowd, farmers and others who hunt because
hunting is brought to their door, we should find of
the remainder that the men wholike it
have the preponderance." We donut pretend
to rival Mr. Trollope in closeness of observation,
but, in an experience of many lowa, we have mot
with but two men who might be included in his list,
and we are in doubt abo one
graf t
hewse
ut. The first
was a contemporary of underdte days. He
bunted regularly twice a week. His toilet was per-
fection, the result of anxious study. One speck of
dirt, one fold awry, was to him an abomination.
He laid claim to have invented a complete suit of
" over-alls " of light macintosh, covering boots
and all, out of which he loved to emerge at the
covert side, unstained and radiant. A fox being
found, he might be heard to whisper, "Come with
me ; I know • lane."
The second man, whom we had noticed going very
straight during • sharp burst, told us of his own
notion, " that he did not like it." That it was
medicine, and better than • doctor's bill—better
than Rotten-row ; out that he did not see anything
to like in hunting beyond the satisfaction produced
by exercise. However, as we saw Lim twice a week
throughout the season going equally well, andouce,
having lost his hat at the beginning of a run, ride
uncovered to the end, we should hesitate before'
placing him on Mr. Trio/lope's list. Still he never'
would admit to us " that be liked it."
But can there really be men who keep up the
expenses of • hunting stud, who suffer the positive
discomforts, disappointments, impositions, to say
nothing of subscriptions, for vanity's sake I Mr.
Trollops says " yes."
One of our bunting friends thus sums up the
expenses of his amusement :—" Hunting costs a
guinea a minute ;" that is if you put down the
number of minutes in which you are, in sporting
phrase, actually "going," and agaimit these every
item of expense when you are not "going," the
guineas and the minutes will nearly balance. The
expense of keeping • horse twenty miles from
London, and hunting him about twenty-five times
in the season, we have found to be just 48s. 4d. per
hunting day.
We can scarcely agree with Mr. Trollops that
"vanity and vexation of spirit have been to most
of us the prevailing characteristics of our hunting

life." -
The days on which a man returns home satisfied
with his day's sport, as mere hunting, are probably
few, and they who keep a record will be surprised
to find how few they are ; but there is much enjoy-
ment to be got out of a day with hounds, be the
run ever so short, the scent ever so bad:--the
meet itself, the kindly recognition, the friendly
shat, the excitement of the " draw," the
find, the satisfaction induced by bodily exer-
tion, and no little secret pleasure in the con-
sciousness that your horse—a favourite, of course—
will be able to come out next hunting day. Besides,
Is not the same equally true of all sport? For how
many hours may the fly-fisher flog the stream with-
out a rise ! Either the water is too bright, or
there is no ripple, or the trout are not feeding.
And yet, though he return with an empty creel, he
is a poor sportsman who would say he had had no
enjoyment. Has he not passed a day, a spring or
summer day, among the loveliest of nature's
scenes, falling waters, hanging woods 1 has he not
wen the " eddies dance and poise," has he not
heard a hundred sounds to delight his heart
So it is with hunting, or at least it may, and
should be. Perhaps no men enjoy hunting so
much as men of business, who have their one lay
a week from London. Men hunt for various
reasons ; we remember bearing one man say to
a friend in the field, be "liked hunting because it
made him so hungry." But we are inclined to
think that what moat men seek and enjoy, even
unconsciously, is excitement. Nor is the excitement
of hunting commonly followed by depression ;
indeed, hunting is almost the only strong pleasure
known to us that leaves no regret behind, unless
it be that we shirked that fence, which Jones
took so skimmingly, and lost our place in couse-
queme.
Mr. Trollops is quite right in pointing out bow
such hunting men owe to the hunting farmer.
"If farmers," he says, " did not hunt, or were
not friends of hunting, the sport would be impos-
sible." What impracticable fences farmers might
put up—what " squire-traps," to say nothing of
the death of foxes. And yet they have great cause
of complaint. We have seen men by the fifty ride
across wheat, beans, clover, turnips, for no reason
whatever, except that they did not know or heedthe
damage they might be doing. And it is this that
angers farmers. They don't mind a man who goes
in a good place keeping it, wherever he may be led
but they hate to see men who are not to be found
after the first ten minutes, pounding over their
crops in a sort of make-believe anxiety to keep on
terms with the leading hounds. Wheat is not
often injured, unless in sticky weather, its roots
are too deep ; but the trampling of a crop of any-
thing, the poaching of the soil, is an eye-sore,
which neat farmers abominate, though in silence.
Farmers' sons are commonly among the boldest
riders of the hunt ; their fathers perhaps are now
among theme " who hunt and never jump ;"
but it was not always so. Increasing years, and
probably increasing weight, incline them to prefer
the cob to the five-year-old of their own breeding ;
but they are generally " there or thereabouts."
We join with Mr. Trollops in having a certain
respect for "those who hunt and never jump." We
have known many excellent sportsmen, men whose
advice would be sought in a hunting difficulty in
the field or out of it, whose enjoyment of hunting
has been as keen as a first-flight man's, and yet who
never put horse at fence. We have, by way of ex-
periment, tried if it be possible to go through a run
without a jump. You must have a fast horse, almost
a racer, to make up the inevitable loss of ground ;
but it may be done. But unquestionably that man
most relishes hunting who goes as straight as he
can, without having much "eye for country," ex-
cept what lies within a field or so of him ; who sees a
fence before him and goes at it, because the hounds
have gone before him, who rather liken the chance
of being "pounded," being tolerably sure he never
will be. What so delightful as the crash of a dry
thorn fence, as your horse sweeps over and through
it I What so glorious as the sight of a yawning
ditch below you, on the far side of the fence
your horse is carrying you over i We must not
stop to speak of the " Hunting parson,"
except to say that we remember on
one occasion seeing some twenty men ride at a fair
fence : only one took it artistically, and he was a
parson. And we will only say of the " Lady who
rides to hounds" that one of the prettiest sights we
ever saw in a hunting field was the daughter of a
peer and her horse, and her escort. The two best
of Mr. Trollope's sketches are, perhaps, the two
last—the " Master of hounds," and " How to ride
to them." All honour, we say, to masters of hounds ;
theirs is a difficult position, and they fill it well Mr.
Trollope says, " The Lord Mayor pays for his
whistle—so does the M.F.H." He adds, "If I
found myself called upon to pay for one whistle
or the other, I would sooner be master of foxhounds
than Lord Mayor." So would the writer of these lines.
It is a thankless task to teach people how to ride to
hounds, for be the lessous ever so good they are
sure to ride in their own way. Ladies basing been
through a course of instruction ride pretty much
alike; those who can ride ; but men having generally