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and both horses out of the same stable.

There is a great improvement since the Spring in the exercise ground, and on all the courses, under the able management of Lord Lowther. There is also a great increase of beautiful new stables; a great accumulation of fine young horses; and, if we can but have a great increase of money,we shall have great sport indeed at our next meetings. OBSERVATOR.

Norfolk, Nov. 1.

THE CALEDONIAN HUNT.

SIR,

ΠΟ the late Duke of Hamilton, "who lov'd his country as a Briton ought;" and to Mr. Baird of Newbyth, a man enthusiastically devoted to field sports, whose death was noticed in your Number for September-Scotland is mainly indebted for the benefits which have resulted from the establishment of this patriotic and national Association, whose leading objects are-first, the improvement of the breed of horses; and, second, for patronising the amusements of the Turf and the Chase. From the institution of the Society in 1775, it has been invariably deemed a distinguished honour to be a member of this band of brothers: hence the extraordinary rivalry and feverish anxiety among the noble and gallant sons of Caledonia, whenever a vacancy happens, to make the election certain.

In 1788, His late Majesty was pleased to give a purse of one hundred guineas to the Hunt, free for any horse, &c. carrying 12st. fourmile heats. The Royal grant has been continued to the present time; but in 1822 an important

alteration took place: the race was restricted to one four-mile heat, and to carry weight for age. For variety, value, and number of the Stakes annually run for, as a Race Meeting the C. H. ranks in the first class.

After the late Meeting at Edin burgh, when the Purse was won by Lord Kelburn's Action, by Saul, out of Diana, a ballot took place to fill up the vacancies occa sioned by the death of Mr. Baird and General Charles Hope, when W. F. Campbell, Esq. of Islay, and John Campbell, Esq. of Glensaddel, were elected.

With sincere wishes for the prosperity of the C. H., I conclude with a quotation from the dedication of Robert Burns, Scotia's darling bard, to the Members of the Hunt:-"When you go forth to waken the echoes, in the ancient and favorite amusement of your forefathers, may Pleasure ever be of your party; and may Social Joy await your return!"

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N so much estimation was Izaak

Walton, the father of anglers, held by the late Lord Rivers, that, in one of the many interviews with which I was honored by that amiable man and true phi,

lanthropist, whose departure from this to another and a better world was announced in a recent Number of your excellent miscellany, he remarked, on my noticing an edition of The Complete Angler, superbly bound in green Morocco in the antique style, the covers or namented with medals in bronze of old Izaak and his disciple Charles Cotton, that whenever he felt himself oppressed with ennui, he had recourse to that volume, and after reading a few pages he invariably found himself refreshed. Allow me, Sir, to record the subjoined, and, as I believe hitherto unpublished, anecdote of that eminent and highly-distinguished Statesman, CHARLES JAMES FOX, related to me by Lord Rivers :-

"In corroboration of my own opinion, as to the real benefits to be obtained from an attentive perusal of my favorite author," said his Lordship, with his wonted urbanity, "let me add the sentiments of a truly great man. Speaking of solitude, in the strictest sense of the word, Mr. Fox remarked, Should it ever be my fate to be cut off from all intercourse with society, my actual wants would, by inevitable consequence, be comprised within a narrow compass: there are, however, two books, which, if possessed of, would fill up the measure of my wishes-and those are, THE BIBLE and WALTON'S ANGLER.""

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in all its various branches and departments, makes any fault now found with the system appear very like ill nature, and farther melioration almost unnecessary: yet while coachmasters and coachmen, coach-guards, and coachproprietors are entitled to their due meed of praise for what has been done, it must be allowed that there is still, as in all systems of mortal management there must be, ample room for farther reform. There are, I am rejoiced to say, numerous existing causes upon which safe reliance may be placed for producing these desirable effects; and I will be bold to assert, that not the least efficient cause will be, (as heretofore I think it has been,) the great interest taken in the condition of all sorts of horses by Gentlemen of fortune or of judgment, and by many wellknown and most highly-respected individuals, in that of coach-horses in particular.

The Four-in-hand Club, now I believe dissolved, among all the satire, and in spite of all the quizzing so unmercifully bestowed upon it by the dandies, old and young, of its day, did infinite good. Harness, if ill-constructed, is at once unsafe to travellers, and more tormentingly punishing to horses than all the whips and all the spurs which Swaine, Griffith, Crowther, and Vincent ever sold. The Four-in-hand Club improved it in a thousand particulars, of which they, without practical experiment, could never have been judges; and of which coachmasters and their servants were too careless or too ill informed to be aware. Men of mathematical and classical education, of refined manners, and of humane hearts, made the well-working of a car

rage-and-four their study and their amusement; and though grave old men have despised them, bookworms have pitied them, and fine ladies have been shocked to death, the country has reason to thank them, travellers to pray for them, and the noblest creatures in the brute creation, had they the tongues and reasoning powers which Esop, the father of moral fable, has so beautifully given them, would bless and praise them, let ignorance and cold-hearted pride sneer and laugh as they may.

To the amateur and gentlemen whips of England, Englishmen are really indebted. To them we owe the improved manners, if not morals, of public coachmen; among whom they have excited a wholeSome spirit of emulation, a creditable style of dress and address, and an honest pride in the condition, neatness, order, and cleanly comfort of their cattle. Coach-travelling has changed (from what it used to be in the olden time, a disgusting and tedious labour), first into comparative comfort, and at last to something very like luxury. A modern stage-coach is now an ornamental and beautiful object on the road. It used to be an unwieldy machine, loaded (or rather over-loaded) with luggage, and way-worn passengers groaning in concert with the surcharged and crazy vehicle that conveyed them. Dry wheels, they say, make wet horses. Those rotatory circles, whose even and radiated movement I love to watch, are now on a greatly amended principle; and the springs are at once more easy and more secure. There is an increase of speed, with a very great decrease of suffering to the horses. The guards are really the guardians of the passengers, and trustees of

their moveables; and, instead of calculating only upon the present moment and immediate fee, they conduct themselves with a view to the character of the coach they are employed upon, study the comfort of their customers, and look forward, as good agents ought to do, beyond the limits of their pocket to-day, to the establishment of a good name and reputation for "the concern" in future.

I have not lately seen many private teams, and indeed, they are not in vogue amongst the exquisite fashionists of the day, who still give a vacant stare of shallowdisapproval as they pass their low carriage windows, and throw their dull heads back against the sympathetic stuffing, with "Law! what a thing! it's just like a vulgar stagecoach!" To these "things," and their not vulgar drivers, the British public are indebted for models, by which stage-coaches are at once rendered symmetrically beautiful, substantially strong, and comfortably safe.

The Honorable Mr. Kenyon, the venerable Mr. Annesley of Bletchington, Mr. Trafford of Trafford, and Sir Henry Peyton, are the only four-horse sets-out that have lately fallen under my very limited observation; but there are many more of course and should this meet the eye of any of those Gentlemen, I trust, and sincerely hope, that what I have said, and what I would say, will induce them (if any inducement be wanting) to give such practical hints as they must be able to give from time to time to our spirited coach-proprietors; and I am sure it will not diminish the pleasure any one of them has in driving a beautiful team in private, to feel conscious, that, by affording thus the benefit of his

skill and experience to his humbler and hard-working fellow-creatures, he has performed an act of humanity, and done a patriotic and a public good*.

There is a common opinion abroad, (which like many common opinions on particular subjects is I think a common error,) that a man cannot frequent a coach-box without being morbidly infected in manners and good taste, and catching a surfeit of slang or a low fever of bad style from the fellows whom necessity and their rank in life have placed them professionally. Now I think the head of that gentleman (for I must have him a gentleman with a sound healthy head, or I can't get on, and won't have him at all) may be very justly suspected of pre-indisposition, and "too much room inside," which can allow its wearer to catch any such complaint what ever. Contact is not contagion, nor is intimacy necessarily productive of infection; but if it be, does it necessarily follow that when a gentleman and an artificer meet and converse for six or eight hours, the former must depart with an itch (I beg pardon) to become as vulgar as the latter? Or, does it not frequently happen that the artificer is thereby made more civilized and enlightened, whilst the gentleman is at least as sound a man, and as good a gentleman too,

as he was before? Do gentlemen who can drive a coach, or turn a beautiful ivory ball upon a lathe, or judge of a fine Leicestershire sheep, or steer and sail a yachtdo such men swear, blaspheme, and debauch more than they did before?-and do not coachmen, artificers, shepherds, and boatmen, swear and drink much less?

Those coachmen, and with many I have travelled and talked for miles, who speak most of the patronage of amateur nobility and gentry, seem to me uniformly improved by it. They are better coachmen, and better men. You hear from them no ill language or gross and offensive expressionsand, what is more to the purpose, you are disgusted with no insolence to the inferior people whom they carry, and shocked with no cruelty to the dumb but delightful animals they drive.

To a remark I once made upon a coach-mare who trotted along, but did nothing towards draught, I received from Scott (formerly coachman in Lord Harrowby's family) this humane reply: "She cannot Sir-she cannot workthere's nothing left in her but a good heart, and I declare I don't like to whip that out of her." I said nothing, but I silently hoped, as I do still, that his heart and head might never ache on the near side of eternity! SUTTON.

A practical illustration of the benefits derivable from a friendly intercourse with men of rank, talent, and education is strikingly exemplified in the instance of the late enterprising and persevering Mr. John Roberts, of the White Horse, Fetter-lane, who prided himself, and justly too, on the neatness and general superiority of his equipments, as regarded coaches, harness, and horses. He constantly directed the energies of his active mind, not only to the improvement of wheel carriages, but to the general system of road-work, readily availing himself of the suggestions offered by one of the parties above mentioned. The establishment of the Yarmouth, Cambridge, and Manchester Telegraphs, aroused the leading coachmasters from the slumber in which they had long indulged. At that time the Fetter-lane coaches were looked upon with admiration, and considered as models, so superior were they to the heavy drags running from other yards. The ingenuity of the coach-builder was called into immediate action, and improvement proceeded with rapid strides. Fair and honorable competition has now brought English travelling to a point which requires but little more to make it perfect.

REMINISCENCES OF THE LOTHIAN HOUNDS.-No. II.

THE whole turn-out, indeed, of the Lothian Hunt is of a very superior stamp; and I was never more forcibly struck with the effects of comparison than some time after the period I am at present speaking of, when not a few of the most celebrated packs in Yorkshire and the adjoining counties fell under my observation for the first time. Of the hounds themselves I shall hereafter speak more particularly, when describing a few of the runs I have had the happiness of witnessing with them; and shall content myself meanwhile with transcribing a sentence respecting them, which I find writ

ten on the last leaf of my Hunting
Journal for 1822, at the close of a
very brilliant season of spring-
hunting with Lord Harewood and
some of his neighbours.
"Who-
whoop for Yorkshire!-never have
I seen such sport, or so delightful
a country to ride over-it wants,
indeed, only the Lothian hounds to
make it perfection itself."

Few packs probably had a greater range of country than the Lothian (under the management of the late worthy and lamented Mr. Baird) enjoyed at this periodits strict limits extending from "the Duke's coverts" west of Linlithgow, to Permasheil Wood,

''

In spite of NIMROD's objections I still entertain a strong predilection for Yorkshire. By far the greatest part of it that I have seen-and I have hunted at various times a great deal in it-is, in my opinion, a very excellent one to cross, and the cream of it quite metropolitan enough to please even the most fastidious and Meltonian taste. In the rough portions of it too I have seen some extraordinary good runs with the Ainsty in particular; and, altogether, I cannot conceive a much more delightful district for a man's lot to fall in. As for the tenantry, on whom so much depends for the sport of a country, they are, nine-tenths of them, above all praise; and even in the best and most liberally disposed farmers of other parts, it is in vain to look for that enthusiastic devotion to hunting that characterizes the real Yorkshire Yeoman. NIMROD, I dare say, will smile at the introduction of his name in the subjoined letter from one of them; which, in corroboration of what I have said, and as a sample of correspondence in its way, I cannot, although it is written at a very distant date, refrain from giving. November 23, 1826. "DEAR SIR-I have the pleasure of informing you we have most excellent sport, having killed already twenty-six brace of hares. We have eighteen couples of most beautiful hounds, and I assure you they run like fox-hounds. Sir B. Graham has become a member, and hunts with us; and we are to shew the hounds next Tuesday to a Mr. (the NIMROD in the Sporting Magazine), a friend of Sir B.'s. I have been mounted by Sir B. and Mr. who is staying at Norton, a day each-one day with Lord Darlington, but not much sport-although I have been most splendidly carried on Minskip a pretty burst from Camp-hill to Low Park Wood, and not a piece of any coloured cloth except Scarlet and myself but he is no joker. Bob Smith has bought Tramp of Jacob, and the Devil's own self cannot beat him-he has been offered one hundred and fifty for him by Colonel Wallace, but his price is two hundred. He jumped Staveley beck the other day with the Ainsty, and had the hounds entirely to himself-not one thinking it prudent to follow him. The old Peer's hounds are looking very fine; but he is in an ill humour, as the foxes are destroyed in many of his coverts; six at Pickhill Whin, and I believe some about Sleningford and Azerley. The Hunt dinner is fixed for Tuesday, December 5, when I expect there will be some hard running. Sir B. Graham, NIMROD, Captain Smith, and many other Gentlemen, have there, as I am so promised to attend, and I freely wish the wind may blow Mr. well convinced he would be in his element. I have ordered a chaise to be in attendance, as the nights are very dark, and some gentlemen have ordered beds. I must now conclude having wrote so long a letter and I am, dear Sir, very respectfully yours,

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This letter I think requires no comment; and I have given it exactly as I received it from my worthy correspondent, who is, I should observe, at the head of one of the best packs of harriers that the county can produce-“ of whom, more anon,"

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