CHAPTER XII

SOME SPORTING WRITERS

A review of the literature of the Chase has been so well written in the first chapter of the Hunting volume of the Badminton Library, that it could hardly be improved. The author closes his retrospect with an appreciation of Beckford’s Thoughts on Hunting, and supposes his reader to be well acquainted with such authors as Delmé Radcliffe, “Nimrod,” “Scrutator,” Surtees, and Whyte-Melville. There are others besides these, however, who deserve some mention, which will presently be attempted, although this chapter does not pretend by any means to be an exhaustive description of a complete Fox-hunter’s library.

Books about Fox-hunting roughly fall into four classes: Text-books, Hunt Histories, Fiction, Poetry. Of the writers of Text-books, taken in the sense of a text-book being a manual of instruction, Beckford is at the top of the class. Country gentleman, Fox-hunter, scholar, linguist, and wit, he has illuminated his Thoughts upon Hunting with an amusing and cultivated style that is quite his own. The authors of the Badminton volume remind us of an appreciation of Beckford’s work by a contemporary writer: “Never had fox or hare the honour of being chased to death by so accomplished a huntsman; never was a huntsman’s dinner graced by such urbanity and wit. He would bag a fox in Greek, find a hare in Latin, inspect his kennels in Italian, and direct the economy of his stables in excellent French.” Every word of Beckford can be studied to-day with advantage by any one who wishes to become M.F.H. If one dared to make any reservation with regard to this distinguished author, one might say that too much attention is devoted to the correction of Hounds by the whip; and that to turn down before the young Hounds a badger, having first taken care to break the teeth of the poor brute, seems a needless piece of cruelty. It is also curious to find such a fine sportsman as Beckford countenancing the turning down of bag Foxes. It is true that he says he dislikes bag Foxes, and proceeds to state his objections to them in his own inimitable manner. But the minute description on the very same page, of how to organize a hunt after a bag Fox, can hardly have been written by any one who had not done it himself.

The best thing in Thoughts upon Hunting is Beckford’s description of a Fox chase in Letter XIII. From the point of view of a lover of Hounds, it is probably the best thing of its kind that has ever been written. Here you have the feelings of the enthusiast and the spirit of the sportsman, set down by the pen of the expert in language that is almost blank verse, and can be described without impertinence as being superior to the lines of Somerville, whom he so amply cites. Beckford need not have called Somerville to his aid. He knows how to “get it over” better than the poet. He conveys the romance while preserving the technique of the chase in a style that will always bring a thrill to the heart of the true Fox-hunter.

Less witty and cultivated than Thoughts upon Hunting, but almost equally instructive, are such text-books as The Noble Science, by Mr. Delmé Radcliffe; Notitia Venatica, by Mr. Thomas Vyner; The Diary of a Huntsman, by Mr. Thomas Smith; and Observations on Fox-hunting, by Colonel Cook. Of these Colonel Cook’s work is probably the least familiar to this generation, though a modern M.F.H. would do well to follow almost every word of advice it contains. It is interesting to recall that Colonel Cook married Miss Elizabeth Surtees, a kinswoman of Robert Smith Surtees, author of Handley Cross and Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour, because, in the latter work, there are two oft-quoted sayings that are extracted by Surtees from Colonel Cook’s book. One is that which he puts into the mouth of Dick Bragg: “A weedy hound is only fit to hunt a cat in a kutchen.” The other is to be found in Mr. Puffington’s letter to Lord Scamperdale about the celebrated Beaufort Justice: “The late Mr. Warde, who of course was very justly partial to his own sort, had never any objection to breeding from the Beaufort Justice.”

The Diary of a Huntsman, by Mr. Thomas Smith, published in 1838, contains the diagram of the famous “all-round-my-hat” cast already described in this book; admirable drawings of a good-looking and a faulty Hound, and of a fresh Fox and a beaten Fox; as well as some sterling advice to Fox-hunters. This is perhaps the best text-book of the lot after Beckford’s work, and should be carefully studied by all Huntsmen and whippers-in. Goodall’s Practice, by Lord Henry Bentinck, can hardly be dignified by the name of a text-book, as it is really only a fragment. But what a fragment! It is of the kind that makes one long for more of the same sort. Every Master, Huntsman, and whipper-in ought to know it by heart. It is but three thousand words or thereabouts, but from its condensed, terse, and “varminty” phrases there is more to be learnt about hunting the Fox than from many volumes ten times its size.

Of course the authorities already mentioned are not in absolute agreement upon all points, but there is one point upon which all the Master minds agree. It is so well stated by Lord Henry Bentinck that his words may here be quoted. He says it is ruinous to a pack of Hounds to meddle with them before they have done trying for themselves. “If they are meddled with in their natural casts they will learn to stand still at every difficulty and wait for their Huntsman … for once the Huntsman can help them, nineteen times the Hounds must help themselves.” It is remarkable that, in the accounts we now get every morning in the news-papers of the doings of so many packs, we seldom read of tired Foxes being killed at the end of good runs. A possible explanation of this may be that nowadays Hounds are taken off their noses far too often. Nothing tells in favour of the Fox so much as getting the Hounds’ heads up. As soon as ever you see the Hounds following the Huntsman about when they are in difficulties, the Fox is as good as lost. Much stress has been laid on this in an earlier chapter, but it cannot be too often repeated.

Of Hunt Histories there are many. Among the most interesting are The Annals of the Warwickshire Hunt, by Sir Charles Mordaunt and the Rev. Walter Verney; The History of the Brocklesby Hounds, by Mr. George Collins; The History of the Belvoir Hunt, by Mr. T. F. Dale; and The Fox-hounds of Great Britain and Ireland, by Sir Humphry de Trafford and his collaborators.

Among the writers of the Fiction of Fox-hunting, Surtees must surely be given the palm. He not only thoroughly understood the sport itself, but has also painted with his pen a gallery of portraits which, among a large class of readers, will outlive many of the characters of the novelists of the nineteenth century. It is no impertinence to say that these pen-portraits would have survived even had there been no Leech to make their immortality doubly sure. But what a collaboration! The alliance between Gilbert and Sullivan is the only alliance in the world of art to which it can be compared. Leech knew his subjects as intimately as did Surtees. Thackeray’s paper on Leech’s pictures of Life and Character tells us something of the secret of his fame. “The truth, the strength, the free vigour, the kind humour, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, a woman, a child! … Any one who looks over Mr. Leech’s portfolio must see that the social pictures which he gives us are authentic … the inner life of all these people (the English) is represented. Leech draws them as naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch boors, or Morland pigs and stables. … Mr. Leech has as fine an eye for tailoring and millinery as for horseflesh … the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech’s drawings are as excellently true to nature as the actors themselves; our respect for the genius and humour which invented both increases as we look and look again at the designs.”

Handley Cross is regarded by most people as the masterpiece of Surtees. For the pure Fox-hunter this appreciation is certainly correct. In the pages of this book there is Fox-hunting of all sorts, from the romantic narratives of Michael Hardy’s fine hunting run, and of the last effort of the old customer in the middle of a large grass field outside Pinch-me-near-Forest, down to the priceless burlesque of Fox-hunting on the Pomponius Ego day. Mr. Jorrocks’ sporting lectures are rich in anecdote and contemporary reference. They are amusing enough, if a trifle forced, and have the merit of giving an advertisement to Geoffrey Gambado’s “Academy for Grown Horsemen.” No sporting library is complete without a copy of this work.

But the student of the early Victorian epoch, whether or no he or she be a Fox-hunter, will find a delicious comedy of contemporary manners in Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour, Ask Mamma, Plain or Ringlets, and Mr. Romford’s Hounds. In these books we find that Surtees could not only portray Huntsmen and grooms, but could with equal skill present noblemen, country gentlemen, bankers, parvenus, actresses, card-sharpers, farmers, and many other characters. The account of Mr. Sponge’s visit to Jawleyford Court cannot be beaten. It is a delightful piece of burlesque, in half-a-dozen chapters, of this pretentious Jawleyford with his spurious hospitality, his cheap cellar, his third-rate art gallery, his weakness for a lord, his ostentatious reception of his tenantry, his family pride, his love of display,—in fact all the attributes that make a really vulgar snob of a man who ought to have been a gentleman. All this, together with the interior economy of Jawleyford Court, is depicted by the hand of a master whose power of penetrating character and skill in delineating it is surely of the very first order. The great merit of his picture of Jawleyford is that, with the exception of the extravagance in making him ride to the Meet of the Hounds in the uniform of the Bumperkin Yeomanry, it is not really overdone. Less subtle, but none the less historical, are the portraits of Lord Scamperdale, Jack Spraggon, Mr. Puffington, and Mr. Sponge himself. Ask Mamma is not so widely read as Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour, but is well worth reading, if only for the Pringle correspondence and the portrait of “that gallant old philanthropist, the Earl of Ladythorne, of Tantivy Castle, Featherbedfordshire, and Belvedere House, London.” The letters from Mrs. Pringle, who, as Miss Willing the lady’s maid had been the friend and as the widow Pringle of Curtain Crescent Pimlico afterwards became the wife, of Lord Ladythorne, to her son Billy Pringle, instructing him how to behave while on a visit to Tantivy Castle, and the naïve replies of Billy to his mother, are masterpieces in a manner all their own. Lord Ladythorne is admirably drawn. He had hunted Featherbedfordshire in a style of great magnificence for nearly forty years, so he cannot have been far short of sixty, but in spite of his years “no pretty woman in town or country ever wanted a friend if he was aware of it,” and he said that “the sofa and not the saddle was the proper place for the ladies.”

Plain or Ringlets is not so clever as Ask Mamma, but it contains a first-class comedy scene, depicting an interview between Mr. Jasper Goldspink, the local banker, and the Duke of Tergiversation, the needy political hack peer who was always ready to change his party in order to get office.

Mr. Romford’s Hounds is perhaps better known than either Ask Mamma or Plain or Ringlets, and is certainly too well known to call for much comment here. One cannot help forming a sneaking affection for Facey the Impostor, because he knew so well how to hunt a Fox; and the author contrives to invest Mrs. Somerville, the soi-disante sister of Facey, once Lucy Glitters the circus rider and now grass widow of our old friend Soapey Sponge, with sufficient charm to make us think Facey was a very lucky fellow to have her for his sole companion during a hunting season at Beldon Hall. The most amusing thing in the book is the account of the “camouflage” employed by Lucy and her stage friend Betsy Shannon, to conceal from Facey, up to the very last minute, that the small party which he fondly thought was to be regaled by a rabbit-pie and a cheese before listening to his rendering of “Old Bob Ridley” on the flute, was actually to be a first-class county ball, with a band and a champagne supper provided by the renowned Mr. Fizzer of London, Confectioner to the Queen.

Surtees’ works have now survived for some sixty or seventy years, and, among a large class of reader, bid fair to outlive many of the Victorian novelists. Surtees might be described as the Thackeray of Fox-hunting fiction. His characters live. It would be very interesting to know whether a greater number of all ranks in the Army in 1918 knew Rawdon Crawley than knew Mr. Sponge, or whether a greater number knew Becky Sharp than knew Lucy Glitters. Thackeray would probably win the day, but possibly not by a very large majority.

But it would require less courage to hazard the suggestion that, as a sporting writer, Surtees has outlived Whyte-Melville. At the same time, Market Harborough can be read again to-day with pleasure. The portraits in this book are indeed the only portraits in Whyte-Melville’s gallery that most people will remember by name without much effort. Mr. Sawyer and his flat-catching horse Marathon, the Honble. Crasher, and Parson Dove have been too well drawn to be easily forgotten, while the spirit of horse-coping that pervades the whole book seems to reappear in most modern transactions.

When we speak of the Poetry of Fox-hunting we probably mean nothing more than Verse. If Coleridge was correct in saying that “Poetry is the blossom and fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language,” then it is doubtful if true poetry can be a vehicle for the spirit of the hunting-field. Yet, on the other hand, as Shakespeare has not omitted to write about the Chase and about Hounds,

perhaps it may be claimed that hunting has indeed received the authority of the poets. Those who wish to examine this proposition cannot do better than read a delightful work called The Diary of Master William Silence; a Study of Shakespeare and of Elizabethan Sport, by the Right Honble. D. H. Madden, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin. The author reminds us of Dr. Johnson’s saying that “He that will understand Shakespeare must not be content to study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning sometimes among the sports of the field.”

The official poet of the Chase in the eighteenth century was William Somerville, constantly quoted by many writers until about a hundred years after his death, which took place in 1742. Doctor Johnson is not so kind to Somerville as he is to Shakespeare; he says in his Lives of the Poets that “To this poem” (“The Chase”) “praise cannot totally be denied … and though it is impossible to interest the common readers of verse in the dangers and pleasures of the chase, he has done all that transition and variety could easily effect.” Although Somerville outlived this characteristic criticism for some time, he has very few readers today, possibly few more than those who come across quotations from “The Chase” in Handley Cross.

Of songs and verses about Fox-hunting there are many. The late Mr. Bromley Davenport has made two contributions which may not be very widely known, but are, nevertheless, classics in their own sphere. It is impossible for any Fox-hunter to read the “Dream of an old Meltonian” without a thrill:

How he heard the voices of his dead friends now riding by his side, how he got a start, how he rode his young horse over the Whissendine, how the bitches raced into their Fox outside Woodwellhead Covert, all this is told in fifteen throbbing stanzas, the very best of their kind. There is an exquisite sense of pace about the whole thing, and a gathering note of triumph that cannot be described in writing, but can only be felt by reading the epic itself.

In a different vein, subtle and satirical, is Mr. Bromley Davenport’s “Lowesby Hall,” a parody on Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall,” pronounced by Whyte-Melville to be the best parody in the English language. The burlesque is so fine that, in some passages, it is hardly distinguishable from the original. It is as fresh to-day as on the day on which it was written, and is startling in its prophecies of modern events. There are some shafts of satire levelled at the Cobdenites and the Radicals, and that school of thought which we now call Pacifists:

If for Frenchmen you read Germans, and for Napoleon you read the Kaiser, you have a strange family likeness to a certain school of thought that made itself heard before the War. Then comes more prophecy:

Nor do the Fox-hunters escape:

This last line is masterly, and was described to the writer by a good judge of literature who had never hunted, as the very quintessence of parody on the author of “Locksley Hall.”

It had not been intended to offer comment in these pages on the works of any living author. But it is irresistible to pay a tribute of sincere admiration to Mr. Masefield’s recent work entitled Reynard the Fox, which will take a very prominent place on the shelves of most hunting libraries. There has been but one voice among both hunting and non-hunting people in proclaiming its excellence. Had Dr. Johnson seen it he would have had to revise his maxim already quoted in this chapter, that “it is impossible to interest the common readers of verse in the dangers and pleasures of the chase.” The feelings of the hunters and the hunted, and in fact the whole spirit of an English hunting country, have never been so faithfully portrayed in rhythm and metre. There has been some discussion among Fox-hunters as to whether Mr. Masefield has committed any solecisms in the matter of hunting technique. To say that he had done so would be to prick spots upon the sun. Yet the Hounds of Sir Peter Bynd would surely have been worthy of a place in the Foxhound Kennel Stud Book, which you may search from end to end without finding any Hound’s name expressed by a monosyllable, such as “Queen.” The reason of this is that names of a single syllable do not carry when called out in the field so well as names of two or three syllables. The names that are in most general use are what would be described in terms of prosody as dactyls, spondees, and trochees. But possibly Mr. Masefield has authority for this. Sir Peter would appear to have given the word to move off from the Meet, and the name of the covert to be drawn, to his first whipper-in Tom Dansey, instead of to his Huntsman, and to have called Tom by his surname instead of by his Christian name. Later on the Huntsman also calls him Dansey. He would surely have called him Tom. Mr. Masefield also writes of a pink coat and a crop. Perhaps these words are now sanctioned by general use. Most of us, however, who were blooded in the ’seventies, would naturally talk of a red coat and a whip. Such trifles seem hardly worth mentioning, and they do not detract one jot or one tittle from the fame of Mr. Masefield, who has alone succeeded in writing of a run which would make even the most bloodthirsty Huntsman want the Fox to beat the Hounds at the finish. Perhaps this Fox saved his life because Sir Peter’s Hounds were “great chested” and “broad in shoulder,” and therefore lacking in a sufficient turn of speed to pull their Fox down in the open. Be this as it may, the account of the run holds the reader breathless from find to finish, and conveys an atmosphere of animal and country life in a manner that can hardly be equalled.

Let us conclude with one who has gone. There is no writer of Fox-hunting songs whose ring sounds more merrily than that of Mr. Egerton Warburton of Arley Hall, a Cheshire squire like Mr. Bromley Davenport, and the bard of the Tarporley Hunt. “The Woore Country,” “The Tarporley Hunt, 1833,” “The Little Red Rover,” and “Tar Wood” are among the best. But all his songs breathe a spirit of good-fellowship in the hunting-field and conviviality in the Club, to the accompaniment of a jolly jingle of bits, spurs, and claret glasses and the music of the hunting-horn.

This is in his best manner:

The End