« THE THORN." ENGRAVED BY E, HACKER, PROM A PAINTING BY W. SEXTIE, The Royal Hunt furnishes the materials for the group so well employed by Mr. Sextie on the incident his picture illastrates. Harry King, with a favourite horse, “ Sefton," and two couple of hounds, make up the scene, which tells its own story ably enough. A few particulars, however, of the several performers may not be out of order, and " by your leave ” we proceed to give them. In the first place, to prevent mistakes, or any unfair impressions being made, it is necessary to say that the portrait of King must not be strictly judged by its merits as a portrait. The artist had only the opportunity of sketching very slightly in so much of the face as is visible. The figure, on the other hand, is more finished, and good enough to stand without the aid of any apology from us. King himself, as we think we shall show, is famously bred for his business. His father, Charles King, a noted man in his day, served under the Dukes of Grafton and Beaufort, as well as under “old Mr. Ward,” as the renowned John of Squerries was sometimes called. Charles King, though, is perhaps better known and remembered in Northamptonshire, where he hunted the Pytchley during the whole time they were in the management of the late Lord Spencer, or, as he was then, Lord Althorp. Charles King, in fact, was entered very early to hounds, his father before him having hunted the Marquis of Salisbury's for many seasons. With, then, a father and grandfather with horns at their saddles, it is not surprising to find another generation owning at once to the cheering note. At thirteen years of age Henry King came in from walk to “ the Warwickshire,” at that time (1828) hunted by the celebrated Jack Wood, who had for several years whipped-in to King's father in Northamptonshire. The young one's duties here were chiefly confined to the kennel work, varied occasionally with riding the huntsman's second horse when they went to the woodlands. After two seasons well spent in this manner, he had one with Mr. Drake, in Oxfordshire, leaving him in turn for the Atherstone, with which pack King remained for five years. At the close of this engagement, in 1836, he came direct to the royal kennels, where he has now been for over sixteen years-a fact that speaks of itself for his value and conduct as a servant. There are few who Irunt with “ the royals” who will require to be told of King's ability as a horseman. He is not only a hard rider, but a very good one--and better still, perhaps, a very lucky one. During the whole of the time he has been in her Majesty's service, he has rarely met with an accident, or in any way injured his horses. Care instead of luck may, after all, be a more correct reading of his good fortune in the field. We have the best authority for what we say on this point, and with much pleasure avail ourselves of the following certificate forwarded to us : “ Ascot Heath, Nov. 8th, 1852.-Henry King, as a horseman, is firstrate ; and in crossing the miserable country in which her Majesty's hounds have the misfortune to be located is seldom out of his place, being ready to assist the huntsman upon all occasions. As an ardent lover of hunting, he is indefatigable in the pursuit of it.- CHARLES Davis, Huntsman.” We think we need say no more as to King's character as a servant and a sportsman. The horse he has on his arm was introduced to “ the miserable country” Mr. Davis speaks of, by the late George Lewis Ridehalgh, Esq., of Winkfield House, who brought him up from Cheshire, where “ Sefton” had already arrived at some repute as a hunter. He was got by Taragon out of a mare by Sir Charles. Taragon as a race horse was chiefly remarkable as being one of the four who contested an extraordinary handicap at Newcastle-under-Lyne ;* whilst Sir Charles was a favourite hunter of Sir Bellingham Graham's during the time he hunted Shropshire. Than Sefton himself-says a gentleman who knew him well, and has obliged us with some particulars—" a better hunter no man ever rode. He was quick, clever, fast, and stout; and, though to look at not very large-limbed, he had the power of going through dirt in a style that few horses possess.” He stood about fifteen three, and was altogether a fine specimen of the modern hunter—as we think the portrait, a very good one, will show of itself. Sefton's career was somewhat prematurely brought to a close, from his getting cast in the stable ; in his struggles to free himself he so injured his sight as not to be trusted afterwards over a country. To make our story complete, and leave the houndsman no cause for complaint, let us next draw out the two couple before us. The name of the one undergoing the operation is “ Gadfly,” by Romulus, now an eight-year-old hunter, according to the new list Mr. Davis has favoured us with. The looker-on at her stern is a half-sister, Rosalie, by Rallywood, in her sixth year ; and the couple of dog-hounds further on, own brothers, Truant and Traveller, by Talisman : all four being out of the same mother, Goneril (by Governor out of Glow-worm), “one of the best and stoutest hounds that ever a man rode after.” Goneril is still well represented in the royal kennels—another of her sons, Castor, being evidently a favourite stallion hound. But the visitor must not seek to identify Truant or Traveller, as they were both drafted at the close of last season. It is not often that we have “ horses, hounds, or men,” that we can give a public introduction to with more pleasure than we do these ; and though some of our friends may at first be inclined to think the Royal Hunt a little overworked, we don't fancy they will quarrel much with such a subject as “ The Thorn.” * « To return for a moment to the effect of weight on the race-horse. Perhaps an instance of the most minute observation of this effect is to be found in a race at Newcastle-under-Lyne, some years back, between four horses handicapped by the celebrated Dr. Bellyse ; namely, Sir John Egerton's Asibury, four years, 6st. 61b. ; Mr. Mytton's Handel, four years, 7st. lllb.; Sir William Wynn's Taragon, four years, 8st. ; Sir Thomas Stanley's Cedric, three years, 6st. 131b. The following was the result. Of the first three heats there was no winner, Taragon and Handel being each time nose and nose ; and although Astbury is stated to have been third the first heat, yet he was so nearly on a level with the others, that there was a difficulty in placing him as such. After the sccond heat, Mr. Lyttleton, who was steward, requested the Doctor and two other gentlemen to look stedfastly at the horses, and try to decide in favour of one of them; but it was impossible to do so. In the third dead heat Taragon and Handel had struggled with each other till they reeled about like drunken men, and could scarcely carry their riders to the scales. Astbury, who had laid by after the first heat, then came out and won; and it is generally believed the annals of the turt cannot produce such a contest as this." -The Turf, by NIMROD. LETTERS FROM MY UNCLE SCRIBBLE. MY DEAR NEPHEW, You started well : the hounds broke close to their fox, and you were close to the hounds. Yet in the first field you made a sad mistake. You caught sight of a bridle-gate in one corner; and to get to it, you bent to your right, whilst your eyesight might have shown you that the hounds were bending to your left. The gateway was well filled with contending sportsmen, and it must have been clear that your chance was a remote one. Under most circumstances a gate is preferable, when it can be had handy in the line; but mind you are first at it. In a crowd 'tis worse than useless; and with hounds just broke, on a burning scent, 'tis nothing less than venatorial suicide. The fence looked like a big one, but it was nothing so tremendous when you were once well at it. Besides, you must have a start to ride a run. A start is a grand thing. Some men always get starts—others never. They always can be got, excepting in a woodland country; but it requires nerve, quickness, and, above all, decision. I rather think this last quality makes more difference between modern sportsmen than most men imagine. There are in most countries men with pluck and horseflesh ; but decision is a rare quality, and a quick thing is counted by minutes. Once begin "Dash it! I think the gate's the best : no I don't—they are turning; I must have the rails in the corner-Whoay! you ugly brute ! stand still! come along ! 'tis the gate! they've turned up !” and 'tis all up with you. Foxhounds go roods whilst you are thinking. You are more likely to be right by going wrong at once, than by going right wben too late to avail yourself of your wisdom. Half-a-dozen men got away whilst you were sticking in the gate the only place one ever hears bad language in out-hunting. You had better have a fall, for you can only quarrel with yourself in a ditch, and all your vituperations descend on your own pate. However, you have been kept long enough in the crowd, so come on. The hounds are getting on terms with their fox; and with a laudable anxiety to make up for lost time, you feel your way out of the muffs at last, and find yourself, to your own surprise, in a field alone.. Plenty of men can ride second or third, but it requires a genius to lead ; and when you got a cropper into the fallow beyond, I think you were heartily glad to have got rid of the awkwardness of your situation. Your case has parallels : a gentleman of my acquaintance this last September, not over pleased with the scarcity of birds and abundance of turnip-tops and clay, by the kindness of his friends was at last relieved of his Manton. He then began really to enjoy the shooting: “Thank God,” said he, “ I've got rid of that confounded gun!” The Irishman in the sedan-chair with the bottom out, and Bob covered with mud, sitting on a gate, with a bridle in his hand, his unruly brute having left him “at last, the Lord be praised !” were happy emblems of your state of mind when somebody else took up EE the running. And now look at those hounds : after crossing the ploughed land, a bend to the left brings us on to a grassy hill-side, from which you look over a vale that makes you sigh for a steamengine instead of a horse. A road or two for the shufflers; a brook running right through it for the water-jumpers; stiff-doubles; black bullfinches; and here and there an accommodating hog-backed style for the funkers--as the only means of egress, are the principal features of the work cut out for you. “The road and the chace" mean two different things, certainly, though occasionally combined ; and here the former had many votaries. You, my dear boy, were not of the number. Twenty-five minutes, and the only bit of hunting over a deep fallow, has told a tale upon some of the horses. The gentleman-dealer has given up the lead a quarter of an hour ago. The curate is nursing the Dublin mail-coach horse. The member for the county has just dropped into the second place, followed by two heavy weights, and a 10-stone steeplechaser on a through-bred one. The huntsman still holds his own; but he sadly wants his second horse-too straight for even a hope of such a thing. Second wind is the next best thing; and having got that by another check, away we go again, joined by a large detachment from the road, through a line of hand-gates. And here, my dear boy, I saw you take a liberty which generally eventuates in a header sooner or later. Within ten yards of a large white gate, through which you might have ridden, your besotted vanity induced you to follow the huntsman over a not very small fence by the side of it. He had reason-you had none; he saw his hounds wanted him immediately ; you saw only some admiring old woman in red coats, whom you determined upon astonishing ; and though you ought to have done that at the start, you must see, with your present line and stout fox, that nothing could be more stupid. “Capital run! what a pace ! did you see my grey horse jump the rails ?” • Burning scent! how's poor Snooks's collar-bone?" Yes, you may well say, “ where are the hounds?" If you had only looked, you might have seen for the last five minutes some of that beautiful display of instinct, in which the hound is unequalled. Hark to Merryman-a whimper! see how he carries the scent! and as the whole body own it, away we go for the cover right ahead. Crash goes the fence with their weight, as the pack dash forward. “ By Jove ! that's a nasty one !” but his Lordship will not be denied, and in one moment in the place of an embryo duke, nothing is to be seen but the soles of his boots, and a pair of spurs. The mail-coacher drops bis hind-legs, but, like his countryman, has a leg to spare. A breaker on a young-’un is seen for the last time underneath bis horse on the landing-side; whilst the heavy weight of the country pokes a hole big enough for the rest of the field to come after him, of which they avail themselves generally two or three abreast. Á mile of grass, and then the cover. Can he reach it? Mark the sheep! they stop them not: the hounds are beyond them, and have made good their own cast. Here there was no time to look at the company. Every hound owned the scent, and raced for blood. But the cover has saved him for a time. Now watch a little of the business. Your horse will be glad of a moment's breathing, and you may chance to give it him. The whipper-in slips round to the other side of the cover, a little too hasty; the fox has been headed, and as he lies down in the thick underwood they overran him. Nothing can save him but a change of foxes; he has it, but it is the advantage of a minute-an old head is not to be deceived; the harmony is different, and the old hounds are stopped. A moment more, and the gallant and true, the real Simon Pure is gone again. And now for a little patience: give your huntsman room at his casts, and you will probably be rewarded. Let them spread. In the fast countries a lesson might be taken from Mr. Selby Lowndes's bitches. Hounds, like schoolboys, will get their task done for them, if they can; but they may casily be tanght to do it for themselves. Their very nature and instinct instruct them. We put a pretty finger in the pic when our science overrules, instead of directing their capacity. Here a diversion in favour of bold Reynard took place. A sheep dog coursed him : transportation for life, death recorded, and a storm came on. When scent gets cold, the steam of horses is highly injurious. Hark! there was a halloo, and a very lucky one; it enabled us to hold it on over some very cold-scenting land. We have seen hounds run; we must be content to see them hunt; and when the scent has become as cold as it now is, a huntsman may kill his fox, bat he cannot do it by his hounds. If he is now to be hunted, the hounds must do it themselves. Lift them, and scarcely a hound will speak to it. We are over him. Look at that gipsey encampment close by the road! he never would have crossed in the face of it: try back! in spite of Pigg and Jorrocks, and see if we can't recover him. The hounds deserve him ; and if you go out to kill a fox, he ought not to be saved because he is a good one. When I go out to shoot partridges, the faster and stronger they fly the more anxious I am to hit them. When I go after a stout and wild one, I love to turn him up at the end of it. The huntsman was right : he is back, and tries again the shelter of the cover: If your attention is not distracted by the young gentleman on the grey, who is out for a sovereign to pound his friend, you might at this crisis of the business see a little hunting, almost as interesting as the gallop in the open, and certainly more trying to the capacity of your servants. There, thank Heaven! the man on the grey is down at last, and as the ditch is very deep and full of black mud, he won't trouble us again at present. This is a point when quiet is very essential. The scent is better in cover, probably; and the hounds have had the benefit of the wind : Reynard begins to run very short, and is now in the thickest part of the cover. Do not light your cigar, or begin talking about your performances. Listen to that crash! every hound is in, and running for him; and as he turns and turns again, death is not far off. A sudden silence; an earth at hand-no! he's down beneath the brushwood, and they have overrun the scent. But our huntsman is not to be done; and as he |