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KINGS OF THE ROD
RIFLE AND GUN

/ - //.

KINGS OF THE ROD
RIFLE AND GUN

BY

THORMANBY"

AUTHOR OF

" KINGS OF THE HUNTING FIELD,"
" KINGS OF THE TURF," ETC.

WITH 32 PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS,

LONDON

HUTCHINSON AND CO
PATERNOSTER Row
1901

PRINTED BY

HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEV, LD.
LONDON AND AYLESBURY

Preface

" T AM but a gatherer and disposer of other men's
-•• stuff." It is thus that Sir Henry Wotton, who
was, as his friend and biographer Izaak Walton tells us,
" a most dear lover and frequent practiser of the art of
angling," and a good poet to boot, modestly describes
himself in his preface to " The Elements of Architecture."
Without presuming to place myself within measurable
distance of so eminent a person, I may apply that
description to myself in regard to a great portion of
" Kings of the Rod, Rifle, and Gun."

But I hope I shall not be thought to overstep the
bounds of modesty if I claim credit for something more
than compilation in the present work. For, original
research has in several cases resulted in my unearthing
details and incidents undiscovered by previous bio-
graphers, whilst personal knowledge has enabled me
to supply anecdotes and facts which have never before
appeared in print. Moreover, the estimates I have
formed of the characters sketched in these pages have

v. preface

at least the merit of being the outcome of independent
study and judgment.

It is possible, therefore, that even that terror of sciolists,
the well-informed and superior person, may find in these
volumes something which he did not know before. I wish,
however, to make it clearly understood that I have not
attempted to cater for the omniscient and omnivorous
reader to whom there is no new thing under the sun. I
do not soar to such heights of presumption and audacity.
Mine is the much humbler rdle of purveyor to the more
numerous but less formidably equipped " general reader,"
who will, I hope, be pleased to find collected within the
covers of a single book biographical and anecdotal
records of famous sportsmen with whose lives and
actions he has hitherto been but scantly acquainted.

I cannot, of course, expect that the selection I have
made will satisfy everyone. Some names, no doubt, will
be objected to as too familiar and others as too obscure.
I shall be taken to task for sins of omission and of
commission. Among the latter the superior person
will probably be down upon me for the impertinence
of supposing that there is anything new to be written
about Izaak Walton at this time of day, and that, if
there were, " Thormanby" is the person qualified to write
it. In extenuation of this and the like sins of com-
mission I would plead that to have left out such names
would have been a worse sin, that there are some men
of whom the public is never tired of reading, and that

preface vii

there are numbers of the class to whom this book
appeals who will find something fresh — to them — even
in the chapter on such a hackneyed subject as Izaak
Walton and Charles Cotton.

As to sins of omission, 1 can only say in defence that
I have carefully considered the claims of a long roll of
worthies before making my choice, and that I have
chosen those whose lives afforded most material for
interesting and entertaining biography. There have
been some great sportsmen — the late Earl of Malmesbury
and his father, for example — whom I would gladly have
included in my gallery of portraits, but the information
obtainable was so scanty and so devoid of personal
interest that I felt the impossibility of making anything
readable out of it. I think the names which I have
selected are fairly representative of the great experts
with Rod, Rifle, and Gun.

I have confined myself to deceased celebrities,
because I should have been hampered by many con-
siderations in dealing with living notables. But I
readily admit that there are sportsmen living who have
as much right to be considered " Kings " of sport as any
of those whom I have included in these volumes. Sir
Edward Braddon and Mr. F. C. Selous are shikarris of
equal renown with Sir Samuel Baker and William Cotton
Oswell ; and not far below them are such hunters of
big game as Mr. Clive Phillipps-Wolley, Mr. Baillie-
Grohman, and Mr. F. J. Jackson, whose contributions

viii preface

to the Badminton volumes on " Big Game Shooting "
are as fascinating reading as any sportsman could
desire. Then again, Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Lord
Walsingham, Earl de Grey, and Mr. A. J. Stuart-
Wortley are knights of the trigger whose prowess
may bear comparison with that of Colonel Hawker,
Captain Ross, or Lord Kennedy ; whilst in the domain
of angling Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell (poet and crack-
shot to boot), Major Traherne, Mr. R. B. Marston,
Mr. Christopher Davies, and many other expert
fishermen of to-day can make good their claim against
the best of their predecessors to be regarded as
" Kings of the Rod."

" Kings," be it understood, according to Thomas
Carlyle's definition of the word, " Konning, *'.*., can-mng
—Able-man." The latest philologists, I believe, scout
that definition ; but let it stand : it was good enough
for the sage of Chelsea, and it will serve for me,
especially as it makes the title undeniably applicable
to all and sundry in these pages. For in this sense
the Shoemaker of St. Boswell's is as much a King
as the Lord of Holkham.

Artists and men of letters, poets, painters, philo-
sophers, sculptors, chemists are all to be found in the
Valhalla of sportsmen, and the field-sports which
Britons love gain additional lustre and dignity from
the fact that men of genius have found them objects
worthy of enthusiastic pursuit

preface

In all these biographical sketches I have gone on the
principle that when a man has told the story of his
own adventures it is best, as far as possible, to give his
ipsissima verba. One may criticise the feats of heroes
in one's own language, but it is only fair to the actors
to let them tell the tale of their own exploits in
their own way and in their own words. The reader
can thus form his own judgment of the veracity and
the literary style of the narrator. If such excerpts
have increased the bulk, I think they have also
added to the interest of the book.

Moreover, I have not confined myself to the sporting
side of the lives here depicted, but have included every
phase of character which helped towards the making of
a vivid and faithful delineation.

With regard to the illustrations, I have to express my
grateful acknowledgments in many quarters for per-
mission to reproduce pictures.

To Messrs. Vinton & Co. I am indebted for the
admirable steel engravings of Captain Ross, Lord
Elcho, and Lord Stamford from Baity s Magazine.

I have to thank Mr. R. B. Marston, Editor of The
Fishing Gazette^ for permission to use the portrait of
Charles Cotton and the sketch of the Fishing-house
Doorway, reproduced from Mr. Marston's superb quarto
edition of " The Compleat Angler."

To Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co. I tender my
acknowledgments for their kindness in acceding to

x Ipteface

my request to make use of the bust of Colonel Peter
Hawker from their edition of the Diary of that
great sportsman.

For the characteristic likeness of John Younger I
have to thank Messrs. J. & J. H. Rutherfurd, of Kelso,
publishers of the Autobiography and "Literary Re-
mains" of the "Shoemaker of St. Boswell's." And,
by the way, touching John Younger I have to correct
a misstatement in the text. The date of his death
was the igth of June, 1860, not November, 1863, as
erroneously given in my sketch of his life.

For the portrait of " Christopher North," the finest, I
think, in existence, I must express my gratitude to my
old friend Mr. James Hogg, who possesses a rare
engraving from a photograph taken by Messrs. Ross &
Thompson, of Edinburgh, and has kindly permitted me
to reproduce it in my book. There is a good story
attached to this portrait. Professor Wilson was very
difficult to catch for such a purpose as taking his
photograph. Mr. Hogg's father and himself were very
anxious to have a portrait of the Professor for their well-
known periodical Hoggs Instructor. When they at
last succeeded in landing their fish, Christopher wanted
to see what the photographer had made of him. On
beholding the photograph he exclaimed, " Ah ! that's the
fellow, is it ? I shouldn't like to meet him on a dark
night ! And whafs more, I shouldn't like to buy a horse
of him ! " But the reader has only to look at the noble

portrait to sec how grotesquely " Kit North " libelled his
" counterfeit presentment."

Sir Ernest Clarke, Secretary of the Royal Agricultural
Society, has courteously allowed me to use the copy of the
famous Gainsborough portrait of Thomas William Coke,
Earl of Leicester, the original of which hangs in Holkham
House. The copy was taken by special permission to
illustrate Mr. Walter Rye's admirable article on " Coke of
Norfolk " in The Royal Agricultural Society's Journal.

I have also to thank the Proprietor of The Field
for leave to reproduce the portrait of the Hon. Grantley
Berkeley, which was taken specially for that journal
after Mr. Berkeley's return from his American sporting
tour.

For the portrait of Sir Samuel Baker in the uniform
of a Turkish Pasha I have to make my grateful
acknowledgments to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., the
publishers of Mr. Douglas's Memoir of the famous
sportsman and explorer, in which the portrait first
appeared.

I offer my sincerest thanks to Miss Anna M.
Stoddart for her kind permission to use the portrait of
her father, originally the frontispiece to his " Angling
Songs." I have elsewhere expressed my indebtedness
to Miss Stoddart's charming Memoir of the poet-angler
of Kelso.

My grateful acknowledgments are also due to Mrs.
Russel, who was good enough to lend me the excellent

XII

preface

photograph of her late husband, Alexander Russel of
The Scotsman, which is here reproduced.

By the courteous permission of Messrs. Henry
Graves & Co., Ld., publishers of the engravings, I have
secured the fine equestrian portrait of Sir Richard
Sutton as Master of the Quorn Hounds, which forms
the frontispiece to the second volume, and also the
celebrated " Connoisseurs," in which Sir Edwin
Landseer has limned his own likeness.

For the rest, the reproductions of Abraham Cooper's
pictures speak for themselves, and serve to give the
sportsman of to-day some idea of the modes in which
his grandfather and great-grandfather pursued their
sport with Rod and Gun.

WINCHELSEA, November, 1900.

Contents

PAGE

THE FATHERS OF ANGLING I

IZAAK WALTON AND CHARLES COTTON 35

COLONEL THOMAS THORNTON 56

JOE MANTON 91

THE REV. WILLIAM BARKER DANIEL 108

COLONEL PETER HAWKER 132

JOHN HOLT, OF TOTTENHAM 154

"CHRISTOPHER NORTH" 162

THE COKES OF HOLKHAM 199

LORD KENNEDY 227

CAPTAIN HORATIO Ross 243

ROUALEYN GEORGE GORDON GUMMING 262

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY 296

Xlll

List of Illustrations

LIEUT.-COLONEL THORNTON Frontispiece

IZAAK WALTON Facing p, 1 6

CHARLES COTTON ,, 36

COTTON'S FISHING-HOUSE „ 52

THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER. — COLONEL HAWKER

AND JOE MANTON ,, 96

"THE BISHOP OF BOND STREET" .... ,, IO6

THE REV. WILLIAM BARKER DANIEL . . . ,, 112

COLONEL PETER HAWKER „ I $2

JOHN HOLT „ 154

JOHN WILSON Ml62

THOMAS WILLIAM COKE, EARL OF LEICESTER. . „ 2OO

PHEASANT-SHOOTING — OLD STYLE .... „ 2l6

PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING — OLD STYLE .... ,,228

CAPTAIN HORATIO ROSS ,,244

THE FATE OF HENDRICK ,, ^82

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY ... ,,296

KINGS OF THE ROD, RIFLE, AND GUN

The Fathers of Angling

THE late Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, sometime Bishop of
Oxford and of Winchester, and known to the irreverent
as " Soapy Sam," was not much of a practical sports-
man, though he had a genuine sympathy with field
sports. On one occasion, however, when on a visit
at the country seat of a well-known nobleman during
the shooting-season, he was persuaded to join the
shooting party. He entered with considerable zest
into the sport, though I am not sure that he actually
handled a gun. On returning to the house his host
mentioned that his head gamekeeper was a Dissenter,
and although he did not wish to interfere with the
religious opinions of his servants, still, he confessed
that it was an annoyance to him that this man alone
of all his establishment should absent himself from
church. It didn't look well, and his lordship thought
that perhaps the Bishop, if he would undertake the
task, might talk the man over and induce him to
become a church-goer. The Bishop laughingly con-
sented to try the effect of his persuasive powers, and
went to the head keeper's lodge. He soon put the

i

of tbe TCofc, IRffle, anb (Bun

good man at his ease by those winning manners which
charmed all with whom he came in contact, and
gradually led the conversation up to the point at
issue, until quite naturally the question came :

" By-the-bye, how is it that I don't see you at
church ? You know it's my duty as a bishop to
look after these things. Surely you don't find any-
thing in the Bible against going to church."

" No, my lord," returned the sturdy Dissenter ;
"neither do I find anything in the Bible to warrant
a preacher of the Gospel in going out shooting. The
Apostles never did."

" No," said the Bishop sweetly ; " true, they did not.
You see, there were neither guns nor game in Palestine.
They went out fishing instead. It is the older and,
some think, the more exciting sport."

As disciples of the "older sport," then, I am bound
to give the " Fathers of Angling " the first place among
" Kings of the Rod, Rifle, and Gun." But where shall
I begin ? Who was the first Father of Angling ?
Who first discovered the delights of the gentle craft ?
Learned mediaeval writers tell us that the honour
belongs to Seth, the third son of Adam. The curious
in such matters will find this and other fantastic
theories on the origin of angling gravely set forth
by Piscator in " The Compleat Angler," and as that
classic work is within the reach of every reader, I
will say no more on the point.

It is odd that some of the most enthusiastic anglers
that have ever wielded rod have been soldiers. Ulysses
was an angler, Mark Antony was an angler, and,

ffatbers of BnoUno 3

coming to more modern times, I shall introduce the
reader to several " veterans practised in war's game "
who have found delight in the most peaceful of sports.
There was, for example, that stalwart warrior and
devoted patriot, Scotland's national hero, Sir William
Wallace. If we are to believe his minstrel trumpeter,
" Blind Harry," Wallace was a keen fisherman, and
it was on one of his fishing excursions that he fell
in with certain minions of Earl Percy, who "was
captain then of Ayr." Percy's men demanded the
whole of "Wullie's" well-filled creel. He good-
naturedly offered them part, but they would have
"all or nothing." Whereat the stalwart Scot's temper
rose, and when one of Percy's men drew a sword
to enforce his demand, " Wullie," with no weapon but
a " pont-staff," floored him and disarmed him. Then
the row began ; and when it ended the big Scotsman
stood unvanquished, with three of his assailants stretched
dead before him. A tragic ending to a day's angling,
and the precursor of many still bloodier days, both
for Scot and Southron !

More ardent anglers, however, than the men of the
sword have been they of the gown and cassock. Their
name is Legion, and the first of them that comes under
the historian's ken is Piers of Fulham, whose manuscript
treatise on fishing — the earliest known — I have seen in
the library of my own old college, Trinity, Cambridge.
The date assigned to it is 1420, and the author's
address to his readers, stripped of archaisms in
spelling, runs thus : " Lo, worshipful sirs, hereafter
followeth a gentlemanly treatise full convenient for

of tbe 1Rot>, IRtfle, anfc Gun

contemplative lovers to rede and understand, made by
a noble Clerke Piers of Fulham, sometime usher of
Venus School, which hath briefly compiled many
pretty conceits in love under covert terms of fishing
and fowling."

All we know of Piers of Fulham is contained in
his curious poem. From his own showing he must
have been a notorious gossip and picker-up of scandal :

Piers of Fulham was a well-governed man ;
He knew the condition of every bride,
There was no husband from him hyde.

How he got his information he does not say —
possibly he wormed it out of his friends at angling
suppers ; in any case he must have been a very un-
pleasant person to all his married neighbours. But even
admitting that his references to angling are allegorical,
he was evidently well versed in the gentle craft.
He knows all about "gins and baytes of delyte,"
" nettys and angle hookys " ; he can tell you how
to lay night-lines in "weris and sprenteris [whatever
they may be] in narrow brookys." He has a sports-
manlike aversion to poaching on his neighbours'
preserves, and is a stickler for fair fishing in running
rivers that are common to all honest anglers. He
knows the habits and habitats of all fresh- water fish,
and above all he recognises the attraction of the sport
for the " contemplative "—thereby forestalling " Father
Izaak " in his pet phrase.

There are four manuscripts of this poem of Piers
of Fulham in existence, two at Cambridge and two

ZTbe jfatbers of angling 5

at Oxford. The Rev. Charles Henry Hartshorne and
Mr. Carew Hazlitt have both published the poem in
collections of Early English metrical romances, but
neither of them has attempted to throw any light
on the authorship or commented on the remarkable
circumstance that this is the first detailed and elaborate
allusion to the art of angling in the language. Whoever
Piers of Fulham may have been, and whatever he may
mean by calling himself "an usher of Venus School,"
I confidently claim him as a genuine "brother of the
angle."

But though Piers of Fulham is credited with the
first English work on angling which can be dignified
with the name of a treatise, he was not the earliest
writer to mention fishing. Professor Skeat says the
oldest notice of fishing in the English language is the
passage in " ^Ifric's Colloquy," where fishing is referred
to as a craft. It is contained in the Cotton MS. Tiberius,
A 3. The colloquy is written in Latin, with an inter-
linear English (Anglo-Saxon) translation ; and was
intended to help scholars in acquiring some knowledge
of Latin. For this purpose it takes the form of a
discourse between a master and his pupils. One of
these is a young fisherman, and the conversation between
the master and this pupil is to thejbllowing effect, M.
standing for Master, and P. (Piscator) for Fisher-boy :

" M. What craft do you exercise ? — P. I am a fisher.

M. What do you get by your craft? — P. Victuals,
clothes, and money.

M. How do you catch fish? — P. I get into my
boat and cast my nets into the river, and throw out

of tbe 1Rofc, 1Riflet anfc (Bun

my angle [hook] and my rods, and whatever they
catch I take.

M. What if the fish be unclean ?— P. I throw the
unclean away, and take the clean for food.

M. Where do you sell your fish ? — P. In the town.

M. Who buys them ? — P. The townspeople. I can-
not catch as many as I could sell.

M. What fishes do you catch? — P. Eels, and luces,
and minnows, and eel-pouts, trout and lampreys, and
whatever else swim in the river.

M. Why do you not fish in the sea? — P. I do so
sometimes, but seldom, because rowing in the sea is
troublesome to me.

M. What do you catch in the sea ?— P. Herrings and
salmon, dolphins and sturgeon, oysters and crabs,
mussels, periwinkles, sea-cockles, plaice and flounders
and lobsters, and many more.

M. Do you not wish to catch a whale ? — P. I do not.

M. Why not? — P. Because it is a perilous thing to
catch a whale. It is safer for me to go to the river
with my boat than to go with many ships a whale-
hunting.

M. Why so ?— P. Because I had rather catch a fish
I can kill, than one that can, with one stroke, sink and
kill both me and my comrades.

M. Nevertheless, many do catch whales, and escape
the dangers, and get a good sum of money by it. — P.
You say sooth ; but I dare not do so, on account of
my sluggishness of spirit."

It is interesting to note that the very first piece of
angling literature in the English language takes the

ZTbc jfatbers of Hnottna 7

form of a dialogue — a form which has been a favourite
\vith anglers ever since, from Izaak Walton to Sir
Humphry Davy.

The earliest printed treatise on fishing in our language
is that assigned to Dame Juliana Bernes, or Barnes
(not, as it is commonly misspelt, Berners), compiler of
the "Boke of St. Albans," the first woman writer in
English literature. Legend has it that Dame Bernes
was sometime Prioress of Sopwell Nunnery, near St.
Albans, that she was the daughter of Sir James
Bernes, who was beheaded in the reign of Richard II.,
and that she was beautiful, high-spirited, and fond of
sport. But this is mere conjecture. Beyond the state-
ment on the title-page of the " Boke of St. Albans,"
printed in 1486, that the matter therein contained was
collected by Dame Juliana Bernes, there is no proof
that any such person ever existed. As to the tradition
that she was Prioress of Sopwell Nunnery, it is true that
there is a long blank in the extant list of the prioresses
of that convent, and it is possible that there may have
been during that unrecorded period a prioress named
Juliana Bernes ; but if so, why should she be styled
" Dame," a title only given to married women ?

I am not concerned here with the " Boke of St.
Albans," and its disquisitions on Hawking, Hunting,
and Coats-of-Arms, but only with the "Treatyse of
Fysshinge with an Angle," which is not to be found in
the first edition of the " Boke," but was added ten
years later. Now, I do not believe that this " Treatyse "
was written by a woman. The details and instructions
given are far too minute and technical to have come

8 i&fnas of tbe TCofc, ramie, ant> Gun

from a woman's pen, and the sport was not one in
which the women of that time indulged. I can find
no evidence whatever that the ladies of the Middle
Ages ever patronised angling. Had they done so, there
would certainly have been some reference to it in the
mediaeval chronicles of manners which have come down
to us. These chronicles contain frequent allusions
to the pastimes in which ladies engaged. Hunting
and hawking were favourite amusements. Shooting,
too, with the crossbow was a feminine accomplishment.
I have seen at the British Museum two rough old cuts
representing ladies shooting not only deer but rabbits.
But never a word or a picture have I found illustrative
of their pursuit of angling. From which I infer that
ladies did not in the Middle Ages patronise the rod
and line. It is only in quite recent times that women
have taken seriously to fishing ; and so far as I know, the
only woman who has ever written a book on the gentle
craft is Mrs. Mary Orvis Marbury, of Boston, U.S.,
whose work on " Favourite Flies " is known to most
anglers.

There was indeed a book published early in the
eighteenth century entitled "The Female Angler,"
which professed to instruct ladies "in the newest and
most excellent way of Angling and taking all manner
of fish ; containing a collection of choice and rare
experiments, and secrets now in practice among the
most famous Fishermen Anglers." The book is dedi-
cated to the Countess of Sunderland, and the authoress
was said to be Mrs. Hannah Wolley. But the work
is a mere compilation from various treatises on angling ;

ZTbe jfatbcrs of Bugling 9

and that it cannot claim to be written by a woman for
women is evident from such passages as the following :
" He that would be a compleat sportsman must first
acquire to himself the noble art of Patience. His
temper must be calm and serene, and his constitution
strong enough to bear the vicissitude of all weathers.
He must rightly understand the practical part, as well
as theory," etc., etc. From which it will be seen that
the compiler, though ostensibly appealing to " female
anglers," did not take the trouble to alter the gender
in copying from the works of male anglers addressed
to their own sex.

That the author of the " Treatyse of Fysshinge "
was a man I cannot doubt, for it is against reason to
suppose that any woman should have so completely
mastered the technicalities of angling in an age when,
so far as there is any evidence to show, women
never practised the sport. And that the prioress of
a nunnery, the rules of which were exceptionally
strict, should have been such an accomplished and
experienced sportswoman as to be capable of writing
a mediaeval " Badminton " on angling is rather more
than the present writer, at any rate, is able to
swallow.

Those who credit Dame Juliana Bernes with the
authorship of the " Treatyse of Fysshinge with an
Angle" would have us believe that the Prioress of
Sopwell Nunnery, with the necessity of providing fish
for fast-days ever before her, cultivated the art of
angling to meet that necessity. But then every mon-
astery and convent had its fish-ponds, which were netted

io lifnas of tbe TCofc, IRffle, ant> 6un

whenever fish were wanted, and it is absurd to suppose
that the prioress and her nuns sat down with rod and
line to angle for the fare to supply their table on
fast-days. It would have been a poor look-out for the
unfortunate sisters if they had had to depend upon
angling for their regular supply of fish.

The writer of the " Treatyse " was an expert, practical
angler who knew what a good rod was and how to
make it Indeed, good Master Izaak, finding that
the directions for making rods, lines, hooks, and floats
given by this author could not be improved upon,
calmly appropriated them without acknowledgment and
gave them to the world as his own !

It is in this "Treatyse" that there occurs the first
mention of fly-fishing, with minute instructions as to
the flies effective for each month. " There be xii
flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to ye trought [trout]
and graylling and dubbe, lyke as ye shall now here
me tell." And then follows the list, among which
figures the "Red Hackle," the oldest known artificial
lure. It is odd to read of the salmon : " You may also
take him with a fly in lyke forme and manner as ye
do a trought or graylling, but it is seldom scene."

Whoever the author of the " Treatyse on Fysshinge "
may have been, he gave the text on which all angling
writers have preached ever since with monotonous
repetition. Take this passage from the exordium of
the " Treatyse " :

" Thus me semyth that huntynge, and hawkynge and
also fowlynge ben so laborous and grevous that none of
theym maye perfourme nor bi very meane that induce a

ZTbe ffatbers of

man to a mery spyryte : whychc is cause of his longe lyfc
acordynge unto y° sayd parable of Salamon. Dowtelcs
thence folowyth it that it must nedes be the dysporte of
fysshynge wyth an angle. For all other manere of
fysshynge is also laborous and grevous : often makynge
folks ful wete and colde, whych many tymes hath be
seen cause of grete Infirmytees. But the angler may
have no cold nor no dysease nor angrc, but yf he be
causer hymself. For he maye not lese at the moost but
a lyne or an hoke ; of whiche he may have store plenty
of hys own makynge, as this symple treatyse shall teche
hym. Soo thenne hys losse is not grevous, and other
greyffes may he not have savynge but yf ony fisshe
breke away after that hee is taken on the hoke ; or elles
that he catche nought : whyche ben not grevous. For
yf hee fayle of one he may not fay lie of a nother, yf he
doo'th as thys treatyse teechyth ; but yf there be
nought in the water. And yette atte the leest he hath
hys holsom walk and mery at his ease ; a swete aire of
the swete savoure of the meede floures, that makyth hym
hongry. He hereth the melodyous armony of foules.
He seeth the yonge swannes ; heerons : duckes : cotes
and many other foules wyth their brodes, whyche me
semyth better than alle the noyse of honndys : the
blastes of hornys and the scrye of foulis that hunters
fawkeners and fowlers can make.

And yf the angler take fysshe : surely thenne is
there is noo man merier thanne he is in his spyryte."

Robert Burton, in that wonderful medley of erudition
and philosophy, " The Anatomic of Melancholic," gives
angling as one of the cures for " moody vapours and

12 ifcfnss of tbe 1Rot>, raffle, atto (Bun

humours," and, paraphrasing the passage I have quoted,
uses the phrases " still and quiet," " sweete silver
streams," and the like pretty words which became the
stock-in-trade of angling writers. Whenever Walton
grows sentimental he invariably babbles of " sweet silver
streams," and " meadow flowers," and the " melody of
birds " ; in fact, he simply rings the changes on the
phraseology of the author of the a Treatyse on Fysshinge
with an Angle " or his paraphraser, old Robert Burton,
and thereby betrays a lamentable lack of original
expression.

And now I come to the momentous question : Was
Shakespeare an Angler ? Can the brotherhood of the
angle claim " the divine William " as one of their craft ?
Mr. Justice Madden, in his fascinating book " The Diary
of Master William Silence," has proved conclusively that
Shakespeare was an expert in the "Arte of Venerie,"
and wrote of hunting and coursing as none but a
keen, practical sportsman could have written. There
is hardly any craft or calling whose members have
not found proof in Shakespeare's works that the Bard
was a brother craftsman. And why not the angler?
When the poet in " Much Ado about Nothing " makes
Ursula say :

The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait :
So angle we for Beatrice, —

was he not thinking of days passed with rod and line
among the deep pools of the Warwickshire Avon ?

jfatfoers of angling 13

When Hotspur vents his bitterness on the arts by
which Henry Bolingbroke had wormed himself into the
affections of the people, it is to the angler's craft he goes
for a simile :

And by this face,

This seeming brow of justice, did he win
The hearts of all that he did angle for.

In the heat and fury of his passionate denunciation of
his uncle, does not Hamlet fly to the fisher's craft for
an image, and accuse his father's murderer and his
mother's betrayer for that he hath —

Thrown out his angle for my proper life ?

When Cressida puts to Troilus the question, " My lord,
will you be true?" mark the metaphor in which the
noble Trojan wraps his answer :

Who, I ? Alas, it is my vice, my fault :
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion ,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity.

Who but an angler would have made Claudio say to
Don Pedro, " Bait] the hook well ; this fish will bite " ?
Who but one who had often gone " a-angling " for the
" foolishest of fishes " would have put into the mouth of
Gratiano, as he seeks to cheer the sad Antonio, the
words :

But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion?

Would anyone who had never thrown a line have

14 fdnas of tbe Utofc, TOfle, anfc (Bun

made Bertram, in lame defence of his meanness to
Diana, urge as his excuse :

She knew her distance and did angle for me ?

And who can fail to detect the practical angler,
versed in all the mysteries of the craft, in that muttered
" aside " of Leontes, as he cast his jealous eyes on
Hermione toying with Polixenes :

I am angling now,
Though you perceive not how I give line.

Then, lastly, listen to Jack Falstaff: "If the young
dace be a bait for the old pikey I see no reason in the
law of Nature but I may snap at him." If the man who
wrote that had not many a score of times trolled for
jack in full-fed Midland streams, then " fillip me with
a three-man beetle."

What say you, then, my masters, is there not here
" ocular proof " that William of Stratford was an angler ?
And may not every honest brother of the angle lift his
head proudly and say, " Shakespeare was of us " ?

There was a notable angler contemporary with Shake-
speare who wrote the most delightful verses on the
gentle craft that are to be found in the English language,
but withal so modest and retiring a bard that he was
not credited with the poems he had written till he had
been two hundred years in his grave. Nay, so diffident
was he that he could not be persuaded to publish his
verses in his life-time ; and it was not till after his
decease in 1609 tnat a slim volume entitled " The
Secrets of Angling, by J. D.," issued from the press.
The authorship was attributed by some to Donne, by

Zlbc ffatbers of Hn0ltn0 15

others to half a dozen different rhymesters whose initials
corresponded with those on the title-page ; and we
should probably never have known who the real author
was, had not the discovery been made in 1811 that
" The Secrets of Angling " is entered in the books of
the Stationers' Company as being by "John Dennys,
Esquier," not to be confounded with another and more
notorious John Dennis, gibbeted in the Dunciad, author
of two familiar sayings : " A man who could make so
vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket " ; and,
" They will not let my play run : yet they steal my
thunder."

All that is known of John Dennys is that he belonged
to the old family of that name long settled in Puckle-
church, Gloucestershire. But that no man of his time
knew more both of the history and practice of angling
is evident from his remarkable poem, which has formed
the ground-work of scores of angling books since his
day. Walton knew "The Secrets of Angling" well,
though he was wrong in his conjecture as to the author-
ship. " Will you hear," says Piscator in " The Compleat
Angler," " the wish of another angler and the com-
mendation of his happy life which he also sings in
verse — viz. Jo. Davors, Esquire ? —

Let me live harmlessly; and near the brink

Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place,
Wheie I may see my quill or cork down sink

With eager bite of perch or bleak or dace :
And on the world and my creator think :

Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace,
And others spend their time in base excess

Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness.

16 ifcfnss of tbe IRofc, TCifle, anb (Bun

Let them that list, these pastimes still pursue,

And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill ;
So I the fields and meadows green may view,

And daily by fresh rivers walk at will,
Among the daisies and the violets blue,

Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil,
Purple narcissus like the morning rays,

Pale gander-grass and azure culverkeys."

The tone of the poem, as will be gathered from this
extract, is religious, and the moralising is truly after
old Izaak's heart ; indeed, he was indebted to " The
Secrets of Angling" for much of the sentiment and
picturesque phraseology which are the charm of " The
Compleat Angler." But John Dennys was not a mere
bottom-fisher. He could both make and throw a fly
with the skill of a true fisherman, and as a blend of the
poet and the angler he had no equal till James Thomson
wrote "The Seasons." His name deserves to be held
in honour by all honest anglers, for none of the
brotherhood, albeit there have been many good poets
among them, has sung with more sweetness and grace
the praises of the sport which they love.

In the year 1651 there was published a small duo-
decimo volume which literary anglers prize highly.
Its title is as follows : " The Art of Angling : where-
in are discovered many rare secrets very necessary
to be known by all that delight in that recreation.
Written by Thomas Barker, an ancient practitioner
in that art."

In his Dedicatory Address to Lord Montagu, Thomas
Barker informs that nobleman and the world in general
that he was born " at Bracemeol in the liberty of Salop

IZAAK WALTON.

jfatbcrs of BnGling 17

being a freeman and burgess of the same city." For
more than sixty years he had practised the art of
angling, and " spent many pounds in the gaining of it."
At the time when he wrote " The Art of Angling,"
known also as " Barker's Delight," he was living at
Westminster, and made his livelihood by accompanying
gentlemen on fishing expeditions or teaching the use
of tackle and bait at home. He thus advertises his
qualifications in his book : " If any noble or gentle
angler, of what degree so ever he be, have a mind to
discourse of any of these wayes and experiments, I
live in Henry the Seventh's Gifts, the next door to
the Gatehouse in Westminster ; my name is Barker :
when I shall be ready, so long as please God, to
satisfie them and maintain my art during life which
is not like to be long."

One would hope that the old angler, who thus
pathetically indicates that his course is nearly run,
found pupils enough to render his declining years
comfortable. But I doubt whether budding anglers
were numerous enough to have made teaching the art
a lucrative calling. In looking through the Diary of
Nicholas Assheton, of Downham, near Clitheroe, who
may, I suppose, be taken as a typical Lancashire
squire of the early part of the seventeenth century; I
find no mention whatever of angling. All his fishing
apparently was done with nets of various kinds — a
bastard sort of sport which Barker would have viewed
with abhorrence.

To Thomas Barker belongs the discredit, in the eyes
of modern anglers, of being the first to advocate the

2

1 8 HinQB of tbe IRofc, 1Rfflet atti> (Bun

practice of using salmon-roe as bait ; but he used it in
a raw state, when it is not nearly so deadly a lure as
in the preserved form, and, being a practical fisherman,
he thought that any and every bait which would kill
fish was permissible.

Barker is the first writer who mentions the reel and
gaff, and the following passage on night-fishing for
trout is worth quoting :

" My Lord sent to me at Sun going down to provide
him a good dish of trouts against the next morning
by sixe of the clock. I went to the door to see how
the wanes of the air were like to prove. I returned
answer, that I doubted not, God willing, to be provided
at his time appointed. I went presently to the river
and it proved very dark, I drew out a line of three
silks and three hairs twisted for the uppermost part,
and a line of two silks and two hairs twisted for the
lower part, with a good large hook : I baited my hook
with two lob-worms, the four ends hanging as meet
[even] as I could guess them in the dark, I fell to
angle. It proved very dark, so that I had great sport
angling with the lob-worms as I doe with the flye
on the top of the water: you shall heer the fish rise
at the top of the water, then you must loose a slack
line down to the bottom as near as you can guess,
then hold your line strait, feeling the fish bite, give
time, there is no doubt of losing the fish, for there is
not one among twenty but doth gorge the bait ; the
least stroke you can strike fastens the hook and makes
the fish sure ; letting the fish take a turn or two you
may take the fish up with your hands. The night

ZTbe jfatbers of Hug lino 19

began to alter and grow somewhat lighter, I took off
the lob-worm, and set to my rod a white Palmer-flye
made of a large hook ; I had sport for the time till
it grew lighter, so I took off the white Palmer and
set to a Red Palmer made of a large hook ; I had
good sport then till it grew very light. Then I took
off the Red Palmer and set to a Black Palmer ; I
had good sport, made up the dish of fish. So I put
up my tackles and was with my lord at the time
appointed for the service.

These three flies with the help of the lob-worms
serve to angle all the year for the night, observing
the times as I have shewed you in this night-work,
the white flye for darknesse, the red flye in medio, and
the black flye for lightnesse. This is the true experience
for angling in the night, which is the surest angling of
all, and killeth the greatest Trouts."

But Barker could not only kill trout : he could cook
them ; and some of his recipes for serving up trout in
savoury dishes are things to make the epicure's mouth
water.

Barker, by the way, was an advocate of fishing down
stream. "You must angle," he says, "always with
the point of your rod downe the streame, for a fish
hath not the quickness of sight so perfect up the
stream as opposite against him ; observing seasonable
time."

But the quaintest and queerest thing in Barker's
book is his grave recommendation of fishing with
geese \ " The principall sport," says this veteran of
sixty years' angling experience, " to take a Pike is

20 Ifcfnas of tfoe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc 6un

to take a Goose or Gander or Duck : take one of the
Pike lines I have showed you before : tye the line
under the left wing, and over the right wing, about
the body, as a man weareth his Belt : turne the Goose
off into a pond, where Pike are, there is no doubt of
sport, with great pleasure, betwixt the Goose and the
Pike : It is the greatest sport and pleasure that a
noble gentleman in Shropshire doth give his friends
entertainment with."

Barker does not specify in what the sport consists,
but I think the following anecdote will indicate the
nature of the pleasure (!) which "a noble gentleman
in Shropshire" and his friends derived from the
spectacle.

Some years ago a farmer living near Lochmaben,
Dumfriesshire, kept a gander, who not only had the
trick of wandering himself, but also delighted in leading
his cackling harem to circumnavigate their native lake,
or to stray amidst the fields on the opposite shore.
Wishing to check this habit, the farmer one day seized
the gander just as he was about to spring into his
favourite element, and tying a large fish-hook to his leg,
to which was attached part of a dead frog, he suffered
him to proceed on his voyage of discovery. As had
been anticipated, this bait soon caught the eye of a
greedy pike, which, swallowing the deadly hook, not only
arrested the progress of the astonished gander, but forced
him to perform half a dozen .somersets on the surface
of the water ! For some time the struggle was most
amusing, — the fish pulling, and the bird struggling with
all its might; the one attempting to fly, the other to

ttbe ffatbcrs of Hnolfna *'

swim from the invisible enemy ; the gander for one
moment losing, the next regaining his centre of gravity,
and casting, between times, many a rueful look at his
snow-white fleet of geese and goslings, who cackled
out their sympathy for their afflicted commodore. At
length victory declared in favour of the feathered angler,
who, bearing away for the nearest shore, landed on the
smooth green one of the largest pikes ever caught in
the castle-loch. The adventure is said to have cured
the gander of his propensity for wandering.

That anecdote will, I think, suffice to show those
who care to follow Thomas Barker's recipe for pike-
fishing what delightful entertainment it is likely to
afford them. It seems to me to be on a par with the
duck-hunting by dogs in which I have seen men and
boys indulge in those dark days when barbarity and
cruelty were considered piquant adjuncts to sport.
But it is pitiable to think of so good an angler and
sportsman as Thomas Barker recommending such a
pastime. Perhaps he would not have done so had he
not deemed it politic to fall in^with the barbaric views
of sport entertained by that "noble gentleman in
Shropshire." Still, something must be allowed for the
age they lived in. It is only within the last fifty years
that we have begun to realise that brutality and cruelty
to man or beast are unsportsmanlike, and even now
we have not wholly shaken ourselves free from bad
traditions.

An accomplished angler and genuine sportsman of
this period, to whom, I think, but scant justice has been
done by his brethren of the angle, is Richard Franck,

22 1kin09 of tbe 1Ro£>, IRifle, anfc 6un

sometime Captain in the Parliamentary Army, and
author of a remarkable book, "Northern Memoirs."
Now, Franck had a poor opinion of Izaak Walton, and
had the audacity to flagellate that venerated " Father
of Angling," for which act of sacrilege all writers on
the gentle craft have poured the vials of their wrath
upon him. But, for all that, though it may sound
heresy to say so, Captain Richard Franck was a far
better sportsman than the revered author of " The
Compleat Angler," and knew far more about the art of
angling in its higher branches than either Walton or
Cotton. For he was a salmon-fisher, and the first to
describe that noble sport in the rivers of Scotland.
It was probably in 1658 that he made his tour in the
North by Carlisle and Dumfries to Glasgow, thence to
Stirling, Perth, Forfar, Loch Ness, and on through
Sutherlandshire to Caithness. Sir Walter Scott, in the
Preface to a new edition of " Northern Memoirs," makes
the following comments on the book and its author :

"The rage of fine writing had unfortunately seized
on Richard Franck, Philanthropes, with inveteracy un-
paralleled, unless perhaps in the case of Sir Thomas
Urquhart of Cromarty ; and instead of acquainting us
with what actually befel him, like a man of this world,
he generally renders himself obscure, and sometimes
altogether unintelligible, by his affected pedantry and
obscurity. Probably no reader, while he reads the
disparaging passages in which the venerable Izaak
Walton is introduced, can forbear wishing that the good
old man, who had so true an eye for nature, so simple
a taste for the most innocent pleasures, and withal, so

tCbe jfatbers of Snoltno 23

sound a judgment, both concerning men and thin
had made this northern tour instead of Franck ; and
had detailed in the beautiful simplicity of his Arcadian
language, his observations on the scenery and manners
of Scotland. Yet we must do our author the justice
to state that he is as much superior to the excellent
patriarch Izaak Walton in the mystery of fly-fishing,
as inferior to him in taste, feeling, and common sense.
Franck's contests with salmon are painted to the life,
and his directions to the angler are generally given
with great judgment. Walton's practice was entirely
confined to bait-fishing, and even Cotton, his disciple
and follower, though accustomed to fish trout in the
Dove, with artificial fly, would have been puzzled by a
fish (for so the salmon is called, par excellence, in most
parts of Scotland) of twenty pounds weight ; both being
alike strangers to that noble branch of the art, which
excels all other uses of the angling-rod, as much as
fox-hunting excels hare-hunting."

Now, I think that Sir Walter is too hard upon
Richard Franck in his criticism of the Roundhead
Captain's style, which is nowhere very much worse than
the worst parts of" The Compleat Angler " — for example,
the discourse of " Auceps " and " Venator " in the " First
Day." And I cannot echo the wish that Walton had
made the northern tour instead of Franck. The ex-
cellent Izaak would have been as little at home in
" Caledonia stern and wild " as Charles Lamb. What
possible delight could the mild, contemplative London
tradesman have found in the rush and roar of impetuous
salmon-streams, or the gloom and grandeur of Highland

24 Ikings of tbe 1Rofc, Iftifle, ant) (Bun

lochs and mountains ! No : Franck's narrative might
have been easily improved upon, no doubt, but Izaak
Walton was not the man to do it. Doubtless Captain
Richard, as a bold soldier who had ridden in, may
be, a score of charges against the' Cavaliers, and seen
life in many stirring aspects, had a wholesome con-
tempt for the loyalist linen-draper, who had never
handled any weapon deadlier than his yard-wand
and angling-rod, and scorned his bottom-fishing in
the still waters of the Lea or that prosaic Cockney
conduit the New River. I can understand and half
sympathise with that contempt, and I think none the
worse of the Cromwellian trooper for expressing it.
He has his first dig at old Izaak in the following
passage, where Arnoldus unfolds to his friend The-
ophilus the programme of their tour :

" We may also in our progress, as we travel the
country, take a survey of their towns, forts, and
fortresses, the like we may do of their cities, castles,
and citadels, with their rivers, rivulets, and solitary
loughs, which will furnish us with fish enough, provided
we can furnish ourselves with baits. But to furnish
every angler with a new bait was the studious invention
of Izaak Walton, author (as you may read) of the
Compleat Angler, who industriously takes care to
provide a good cook (supposing his wife had a finger
in the pye), which will necessarily be wanting in our
northern expedition where the fry are numerous (nay,
numberless almost) in some of those rapid and
trembling streams ; from whence the artificial fly (if
that exercise be well understood) will contribute as

Tlbe jfatbers of Hnolina 25

much as anything to court them ashore and sweeten
our recreation. But I speak more peculiarly to in-
genious artists, not to those flcgmitick fellows, indigent
of art ; such only I allot an accidental fate."

But the passage in which he most severely flagellates
Izaak, to the horror and indignation of all idolatrous
Waltonians, is the following :

"Am. That was my intention, had you never
mentioned it ; but were it to another, I should rather
refer him to one of our modern assertors. For indeed
the frequent exercise of fly fishing, though painful, yet
it's delightful, more especially when managed by the
methods of art, and the practical rules and mediums
of artists. But the ground bait was of old the general
practice, and beyond dispute brought considerable
profit ; which happened in those days when the curiosity
of fly fishing was intricate and impracticable. How-
ever Isaak Walton (late author of the Compleat
Angler) has imposed upon the world this monthly
novelty, which he understood not himself; but stuffs
his book with morals from Dubravius and others, not
giving us one precedent of his own practical experi-
ments, except otherwise where he prefers the trencher
before the troling-rod ; who lays the stress of his
arguments upon other men's observations, wherewith
he stuffs his indigested octavo ; so brings himself under
the angler's censure, and the common calamity of a
plagiary, to be pitied (poor man) for his loss of time
in scribbling and transcribing other men's notions.
These are the drones that rob the hive, yet flatter
the bees they bring them honey.

26 Udnas of tbe Iftofc, tRifle, anb (Bun

Theoph. I remember the book, but you inculcate
his erratas ; however it may pass muster among
common muddlers.

Am. No, I think not ; for I remember in Stafford,
I urged his own argument upon him, that pickerel
weed of itself breeds pickerel. Which question was
no sooner stated, but he transmits himself to his
authority, viz., Gesner, Dubravius, and Aldrovanus,
Which I readily opposed and offered my reasons to
prove the contrary ; asserting that pickerels have been
fished out of pools and ponds where that weed (for
ought I knew) never grew since the nonage of time,
nor pickerel ever known to have shed their spawn
there. This I propounded from a rational conjecture
of the heronshaw, who to commode herself with the
fry of fish, because in a great measure part of her
maintenance, probably might lap some spawn about
her legs in regard adhering to the segs and bull-rushes
near the shallows, where the fish shed their spawn,
as myself and others without curiosity have observed.
And this slimy substance adhering to her legs, etc.,
and she mounting the air for another station, in pro-
bability mounts with her. Where note, the next pond
she happily arrives at, possibly she may leave the
spawn behind her, which my Compleat Angler no
sooner deliberated, but drop'd his argument, and leaves
Gesner to defend it ; so huff'd away ; which rendred
him rather a formal opinionist, than a reformed and
practical artist, because to celebrate such antiquated
records, whereby to maintain such an improbable
assertion.

jfatbers of Hn0lfn0 27

Theoph. This was to the point, I confess ; pray
go on.

Arn. In his book intituled the Compleat Angler,
you may read there of various and diversified colours,
as also the forms and proportions of flics. Where,
poor man, he perplexes himself to rally and scrape
together such a parcel of fragments, which he fancies
arguments convincing enough to instruct the adult
and minority of youth, into the slender margin of
his uncultivated art, never made practicable by himself
I'm convinc'd. Where note, the true character of an
industrious angler more deservedly falls upon Merril
and Faulkner, or rather upon Isaac Owldham, a man
that fished salmon with but three hairs to a hook,
whose collections and experiments were lost with
himself.

Theoph. That was pity."

That Walton, whose simple mind was open to receive
the most childish superstitions, deserved that castiga-
tion I think no candid person will deny after reading
the following passage from "The Compleat Angler."
Piscator is discoursing of the pike, a subject of which
he was as lamentably and ludicrously ignorant as of
the salmon, and he says gravely : " It is not to be
doubted but that they are bred, some by generation
and some not, as, namely, of a weed called pickerel
weed, unless learned Gesner be much mistaken, for
he says, this weed and other glutinous matter, with
the help of the sun's heat, in some particular months,
and some ponds apted for it by nature, do become
pikes. But doubtless divers pikes are bred after this

as Ikings of tbe 1ftob, iRffle, anfc (Butt

manner, or are brought into some ponds, some such
other ways as is past man's finding out, of which we
have daily testimonies."

Now, in his knowledge of natural history and in
his practical skill as an angler, Richard Franck was far
superior to Walton, and how could he help scoffing
at the simplicity and ignorance of the writer who
could propound such theories as to the propagation
of pike! For the rest, Franck's rules for fly-fishing
are admirable, and show a wider knowledge of the
subject than those of Charles Cotton.

He was a rolling stone, this Roundhead soldier, sports-
man, and theologian. When he came back from his
northern tour he lived for a while at his native place,
Nottingham, ever famous for its anglers, and then
betook himself to America. After some years of
adventurous wandering there he returned to England,
brought himself to an anchor at last in London at
the Barbican, wrote some fantastic and unutterably
dreary religious books in a style worthy of Don
Adriano de Armado, and gave up the ghost in the
year 1694.

Another notable Roundhead angler and soldier
was General Robert Venables, a man of far greater
consequence than Franck. Venables had military
talents of a high order. His services in the Parlia-
mentary army both in England and Ireland were
distinguished. He was Commander-in-Chief of the
forces in Ulster, governor of Belfast, Antrim, and
Lisnegarvey, and took a prominent part in the great
battle near Dublin when the Royalists, under Lords

ffatbers of Bnoltno 29

Ormonde and Inchiquin, were routed with great
slaughter. Just before he was ordered to Ireland,
General Venables, then a widower, met Mrs. Elizabeth
Aldersley Lee, the widow of Thomas Lee, Esquire,
of Darnhall, whose Diary, " wrote by herself," is extant.
The lady was eminent for her piety, and had also
a snug jointure, which, together with some personal
charms, rendered her attractive in the eyes of the
General. She thus quaintly describes the perturbation
caused by that godly and gallant warrior's attentions :

" But now I looked upon myself as a person so
settled that I had nothing to disturb my peace, so
long as I enjoyed the satisfying presence of my
God, for which I bless His name ; yet then I met
with a business that did exceedingly vex my spirit,
the love of a gentleman that I durst not but esteem,
a very precious servant of God, and in that regard 1
could not scorn him. Yet himself and some others
know how I have long slighted him. But that neither
satisfied him nor brought me freedom from the trouble
of it. ... God only knows the sighs and tears and
prayers this business cost me. For the truth is, I
am very unwilling to change my condition, yet eyeing
Providence and seeing something of God in it, I
durst not but in some measure satisfy his desire."

But then "some cross-passages fell out" between
her and her suitor, which were like to have ended in
estrangement. " I will not," she writes naively, " mention
what offers I have had since I parted from him. But I
bless the Lord my heart did not at all go out after
them." After more than two years' separation the

30 ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, TCffle, anfc 6un

General returned from Ireland, sought her out at
Chester, and pressed his suit so warmly that she
yielded. He had set his mind upon a triple alliance—
his son to her eldest daughter, and her son to his
eldest daughter. The General vouched for his son's
being free and ready to be ruled by him. The
scheme, however, did not work out quite as he
wished. '" But when the son came," writes the widow,
" it did not prove so. For he was in affection engaged
to one in Ireland that loved him. So our friends on
both hands were against it. Oh ! it proved a sad
business both in the beginning and the end of it."

But both young couples were married and were
apparently miserable ever after. A cloud, too, fell over
the General's life. He was placed in command of the
land forces despatched for the capture of Hispaniola
in 1654. The fleet which conveyed them was under
the joint command of Admirals Penn and Goodson.
From the outset there was friction between Venables
and his colleagues. He made the most earnest protests
against sending out troops in such ill condition. " A
wicked army it was," says his wife, " and sent without
arms or provisions." But no heed was paid to the
General's protests, for he was not in good favour
with Cromwell and his Council, who suspected him,
not without reason, perhaps, of having secret leanings
towards the Monarchy. Venables, however, did his
duty nobly. " On one occasion," writes his biographer
Gosden, "at the assault of a fort, he being before
brought very low with his flux, the toil of the day
had so far spent him that he could not stand or go,

ZTbe ffatfocrs of Hnaltna 31

but was supported by two ; and in that manner he
moved from place to place to encourage the men.
But the latter he could not prevail on, neither by
commands, entreaties, or offers of rewards. At last,
fainting among them, he was carried off."

Contrary to the General's advice, the troops, con-
sisting mostly of volunteers, who had been tempted
to enlist by the prospect of Spanish loot, were on
arriving at Hispaniola informed that they would be
allowed a fortnight's pay in lieu of booty, and that
any attempt to secrete plunder would be punished with
death. Naturally there was a mutiny ; the soldiers felt
that they had been defrauded, and refused to fight.
The attempt to capture Hispaniola ignominiously failed,
and the expedition returned to England without having
accomplished anything except the capture of Jamaica,
which was thought a very unimportant prize.

Penn and Venables were both sent in disgrace to
the Tower, but were soon discharged with a surly
intimation that there was not sufficient evidence to
convict them of criminal negligence. Mrs. Venables
probably expressed the General's feelings when she
wrote : " Unfaithfully was my dear Husband dealt
withal. Nothing of their promises performed. They
pretended the honour of God and the propagating of
the Gospel. But alas ! their intention was self-honour
and riches, and so the design prospered according to
their hypocrisy." She writes almost as bitterly as
Lucy Hutchinson when the base conduct of the
Presbyterians at Nottingham towards her husband
stirred her gentle spirit into fierce revolt. Soured and

32 Ikfnos of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& Gun

disappointed, the gallant old soldier retired into the
country, and there solaced himself with pen and rod,
for it seems to have been as much pleasure to him
to write upon the sport he loved as to practise it.

In 1662 he published the first edition of his " Ex-
perienced Angler," which has been^frequently reprinted
since. This edition is prefaced by the following
commendatory letter from Izaak Walton :

" To his Ingenious friend the Author of his
Angling improved.

HONOURED SIR.

Though I never to my knowledge had the
happiness to see your face, yet accidentally coming
to a view of this discourse before it went to the press,
I held myself obliged, in point of gratitude for the
great advantage I received thereby, to tender you
my particular acknowledgment, especially having been
for thirty years past, not only a Lover, but a
practiser of that innocent recreation, wherein by your
judicious precepts, I found myself fitted for a higher
form, which expression I take the boldness to use,
because I have read and practised by many books
of this kind formerly made publick, from which,
although I received much advantage in the practice,
yet, without prejudice to their worthy authors, I could
never find in them that height of judgment and
Reason, which you have manifested in this, as I may
call it, Epitome of Angling. Since reading whereof,
I cannot look upon some notes of my own gathering,
but methinks I do puerilia tractare. But lest I

ZTbe jfatbers of angling 33

should be thought to go about to magnify my own
judgement, in giving yours so small a portion of its
due, I humbly take leave, with no more ambition but
to kiss your hand, and to be accounted your
humble thankful servant

IZAAK WALTON."

Now, considering that Venables ranks fly-fishing as
"the most pleasant and delightful part of angling,"
and places it first of all kinds of fishing, that com-
mendatory letter from a confirmed bottom-fisher is
creditable to the broad-mindedness of the revered
Izaak.

I will just give one short quotation from the
Parliamentary General's book as a specimen of his
style.

" When you come first to the river in the morning,
with your rod beat upon the bushes or boughs which
hang over the water, and by their falling upon the
water you will see what sort of flies are there in
greatest numbers ; if divers sorts, and equal in number,
try them all, and you will quickly find which they
most desire. Sometimes they change their fly ; though
not very usual, twice or thrice in one day ; but
ordinarily they do not seek another sort of fly till
they have for some days even glutted themselves with
a former kind, which is commonly when those flies
die and go out. Directly contrary to our London
gallants, who must have the first of everything, when
hardly to be got, but scorn the same when kindly
ripe, healthful, common and cheap ; but the fish

34 Ikfngs of tbe 1Rot>, 1Riflet ant) Gun

despise the first, and covet when plenty, and when
that sort grow old and decay, and another cometh
in plentifully, then they change ; as if nature taught
them that every thing is best in its own proper season,
and not so desirable when not kindly ripe, or when
through long continuance it begins to lose its native
worth and goodness."

It was not surprising that when General Monk began
to take measures for the restoration of the king he
should have found in Venables a man willing to assist
him. The Commonwealth had not treated the old
soldier so handsomely that he should feel bound to it
by any tie of loyalty or gratitude. So he threw in
his lot with Monk and the Monarchy, and as Governor
of Chester Castle did yeoman's service in keeping the
King's peace. Whether he found Charles any more
grateful than his old Parliamentary masters I do not
know. Probably not, for gratitude was never one of
the strong points of the Stuarts. But in any case let
us hope that the peaceful delights of angling still to
the end gave him ample compensation for Fortune's
buffets.

He had taken part in two revolutions. He had
seen a king beheaded, and he had seen a king restored.
Had he lived a few months longer he would have
witnessed a third revolution, and seen another king
ousted from his throne. But Death spared him this
sight, and took him away in the year before James II.
fled from his kingdom and left his crown behind him.

Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton

AND so by gentle stages I have led up to the "Common
Father of all Anglers," the immortal Izaak Walton, on
whom so many reams of paper and gallons of ink have
been expended that I am almost ashamed to do more
than mention his name. I confess that my own feeling
towards " meek Walton's heavenly memory ".is something
akin to that of the old Greek who fled from Athens
because he was tired of hearing Aristides called "the
Just." The worship of " Father Izaak " has been a trifle
overdone. It has become a fetish among some angling
writers, to whom " The Compleat Angler " is as sacred as
the Bible or the Koran. The carnal mind resents having
this pattern of piscatorial piety held up to its admiration
and thrust down its throat. But, though my gorge rises
against the fulsome adulation of your Waltonian idolator,
for old Izaak himself I have still at heart a feeling of
affection and reverence. There was too little of the
" devil " in him to make a real sportsman, but his saintly
character was thoroughly in harmony with the mild form
of angling which he practised. There are moods in
which " The Compleat Angler " comes to one as a soft

35

36 Ifcfnss of tbe 1Rcto, IRtfle, anb (Bun

and soothing anodyne. How sweet and reposeful and
altogether redolent of that " Old Leisure," gone now
for ever, is such a picture as this:

" I sat down under a willow-tree by the water-side, and
considered what you had told me of the owner of that
pleasant meadow in which you had then left me : that
he had a plentiful estate and not a heart to think so ;
that he had at this time many law-suits depending, and
that they .both damped his mirth and took up so much
of his time and thoughts that he himself had not leisure
to take the sweet content that I, who pretended no title
to them, took in his fields : for I could sit there quietly :
and looking on the water, see some fishes sport them-
selves in the silver streams, others leaping at flies of
several shapes and colours : looking on the hills, I
could behold them spotted with woods and groves :
looking down the meadows, could see, here a boy
gathering lilies and lady-smocks, and there a girl
cropping culverkeys and cowslips, all to make garlands
suitable to this present month of May : then the many
other field-flowers, so perfumed the air, that I thought
that very meadow like that field in Sicily of which
Diodorus speaks, where the perfumes arising from the
place make all dogs that hunt in it to fall off and to
lose their hottest scent. I say, as I thus sat, joying
in my own happy condition, and pitying this poor rich
man that owned this and many other pleasant groves
and meadows about me, I did thankfully remember
what my Saviour said, that the meek possess the
earth : or rather they enjoy what the others possess
and enjoy not : for anglers and meek quiet-spirited

CHARLES COTTON.

33aafe Malton anfc Cbarles Cotton 37

men arc free from those high, those restless thoughts
which corrode the sweets of life."

Or take this bit of angling, picked out at random :
" About four of the clock in the afternoon repair to
your baited place : and as soon as you come to the
water-side, cast in one half of the rest of your ground-
bait, and stand off: then whilst the fish arc gathering
together, for there they will most certainly come for their
supper, you may take a pipe of tobacco ; and then in
with your three rods as in the morning : you will find
excellent sport that evening till eight of the clock : then
cast in the residue of your ground-bait, and next morning
by four of the clock visit them again for four hours,
which is the best sport of all : and after that, let them
rest till you and your friends have a mind to more
sport."

It is not exciting, that picture of sport, but the restful-
ness and the lazy indifference to the lapse of time which
it suggests are refreshing to those who suffer from —

This strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
Its heads o'er-taxed, its palsied hearts.

And then those mild symposia at " the honest ale-house
where we may have a cup of good barley-wine, and sing
' Old Rose/ and all of us rejoice together," the hostess
" handsome and civil," the " cleanly room, lavender in
the windows and twenty ballads stuck about the wall "
—how sweet and wholesome and refreshing it all is !
how it breathes the scent of honeysuckle and wild roses !
I love that " honest ale-house," and often come the times

38 Ifcfngs of tfoe 1Rofc, IRifle, anb Gun

when I would say with Venator : " Good master, let us go
to that house : for the linen looks white, and smells of
lavender, and I long to lie in a pair of sheets that
smell so."

Therein lies the perennial charm of " The Compleat
Angler " — this breath of peace, contentment, quiet, and
leisure that it wafts to us, hot and weary with the feverish
life of to-day. And then to think that this worthy
London tradesman lived this contemplative life, wrote
this placid pastoral, and pursued his gentle sport un-
ruffled in one of the stormiest periods of English history
— when King's men and Parliament men were fighting
like devils, when all England was seething with civil
war and ringing with the clash of arms ! " The Compleat
Angler" was first published in 1653, but four years
after Charles I. was beheaded at Whitehall, when the
memory of the impious murder of " the Lord's Anointed,"
as Walton must have regarded it, was still fresh in the
memory of Royalists. But our good, mild " Father
Izaak " was not a fighting man — he was the very em-
bodiment of the prudent and pacific bourgeois to whom
the thought of risking his skin is abhorrent — so he let
Cavaliers and Roundheads crack one another's crowns
to their heart's content, whilst he sensibly but unheroically
stuck to his shop and faithfully followed the advice
which he gave to "all that are lovers of virtue":
" Be quiet and go a-angling." I envy him his serenity
and content, whilst I am devoutly thankful that all
Englishmen have not been made in the same un-
heroic mould.

The known facts concerning Izaak Walton are, I

Walton anfc Cbarlcs Cotton 39

suppose, familiar to everyone. In what year he came up
from his birthplace, Stafford, to London is 'not known
for certain. But it has recently been discovered that
he was made a member of the Ironmongers' Company
on November I2th, 1618, and, seven years' residence
being the qualification, this would place the date of
his arrival in London approximately at 1611. He is
described in the entry in the books of the Company
as "late apprentice to Mr. Grinsell." It does not follow,
of course, that Walton was an ironmonger because he
was a liveryman of that Company ; but Mr. Marston,
nevertheless, claims to have settled by documentary
evidence the fact that Walton was not, as has been
generally supposed, a " sempster," or linen-draper, but
an ironmonger. I cannot say that the emendation
commends itself to me. I would rather think of the
gentle Izaak as a purveyor of "soft goods" than of
"hardware." It seems more in harmony with the
fitness of things that the former should have been his
trade. For then one can understand how his nature
should have been " subdued to what it worked in." The
handling of hosiery I can conceive to have a softening
influence conducive to such mildness of manner and
meekness of disposition as we find in the author of " The
Compleat Angler." But the touch of ironmongery
tends, methinks, to a hardening and blunting of the
finer feelings, and would surely have been repugnant
to those sensitive fingers which impaled the frog and
worm upon the hook with the exquisite tenderness of a
lover. However, if " Father Izaak " were an ironmonger,
it is all the more credit to him that he did not let the

40 Ikin^s of tbe IRob, IRifle, an& (Bun

hardness of his trade communicate itself to his
character.

I don't think that many persons nowadays read
his lives of Donne, and Wotton, and Herbert, and
Hooker, and Sanderson, albeit, Wordsworth says :

The feather, whence the pen

Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropp'd from an angel's wing."

His best work, as he himself no doubt believed, is in
those admirable Lives. But posterity has thought
otherwise, and "The Compleat Angler" lives in un-
fading greenness, while all the rest has withered into
oblivion. And yet " The Compleat Angler " is a perfect
cyclopaedia of errors. Even in that art of angling on
his knowledge of which he plumed himself, "Father
Izaak " was sadly to seek. As a barbel- and chub-fisher
he was without doubt unrivalled, and his instructions for
the taking of these, and indeed most other, coarse fish
could hardly be improved upon. But when he has the
temerity to write about salmon, trout, grayling, or pike
he displays a pitiful ignorance both of the habits of the
fish and of the modes of taking them. He admits that
his directions on fly-fishing, of which he knew absolutely
nothing, were given to him " by an ingenious brother
of the angle, an honest man and most excellent fly-
fisher," but even then they are practically worthless.
He quotes freely, too, from Thomas Barker, who really
did know something about fly-fishing ; sometimes,
indeed, good Master Walton, who had a considerable gift
of appropriation, " lifts " whole passages of Barker without

33aafe Walton anb Cbarles Cotton 41

any acknowledgment, and, what Is more, spoils them by
" variations " of his own, which only serve to exhibit his
plentiful lack of knowledge.

The credulity of" Father Izaak" is amazing. It will
swallow anything which the "learned Thebans," for whom
he had so superstitious a reverence, choose to assert.
Its capacity for gorging the marvellous is worthy of the
great pike on whose voracity he comments. He believes
that " the marrow of the thigh bone of a heron is a great
temptation to any fish " ; that pike are generated from
the pickerel weed ; that frogs settle on the heads of carp
and ride the fish to death ; that eels are bred " either
of dew or out of the corruption of the earth " ; that
" barnacles and young goslings are bred by the sun's
heat and the rotten planks of an old ship, and hatched
of trees" ; that there is a river in Arabia "of which all
the sheep that drink thereof have their wool turned into
a vermilion colour," and another in Judaea "that runs
swiftly all the six days of the week and stands still and
rests all the Sabbath " ; that in the Ganges " there be
eels thirty feet long " ; that " dolphins love music and will
come when called for." All these things and a thousand
others equally ludicrous to the well-informed person of
the nineteenth century Master Izaak Walton believed
in. His knowledge of natural history, derived, as it
mostly was, from what were called in his days " learned
writers," principally Germans, was the strangest mixture
of fable and imperfectly understood fact. To distrust
a " learned writer " would have seemed little short of
impiety to one of such a reverential temperament as
Walton. But I cannot help regretting that the good

42 1fcin0s of tbe 1Rot>, Ifttfle, anb 6un

man did not exercise his own powers of observation a
little more, and trust less to " learned writers," whose
" facts " were evolved from their own inner conscious-
ness and not from an intelligent study of nature. It is
in this respect that Walton seems to me so infinitely
inferior to Gilbert White.

Walton lived to the patriarchal age of ninety, and
retained his faculties unimpaired to the last. Only a
few months before his death he published, with a
Preface and Biography from his own pen, " Thealma
and Clearchus, a pastoral history in smooth and easy
verse, written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq., an
acquaintance of Edmund Spenser." One of Chalk-
hill's songs is quoted in " The Compleat Angler," and
this is the only specimen of his " smooth and easy
verse" which has survived. To the last old Izaak
loved the craft which he did so much to popularise.
When he was eighty-three he announced his intention
of making a pilgrimage into Derbyshire, a long and
hazardous journey for a man of his years in those days
of rough travelling, to visit his friend Charles Cotton
and enjoy the delights of angling in the beautiful vale
of the Dove. He was twice married. His first wife
was Rachel Floud, and in his marriage licence he is
described as " of the Cittie of London Ironmonger."
Mr. Marston regards this as a proof that Walton was
an ironmonger by trade. He may have been at that
time, or the term may simply imply that he was a
liveryman of the Ironmongers' Company ; but the
tradition that he was, in his later life, at any rate, a
haberdasher is too strong to be disregarded. His

33aafc TKHalton anfc Charles Cotton 43

second wife was a half-sister of Dr. Ken, the saintly
Bishop of Bath and Wells, who, when Dean, refused to
let Nell Gwynne lodge in his Deanery, who was one
of the seven bishops sent to the Tower by James II.,
and who is now best known to fame as the author of
the Morning and Evening Hymns. By her Izaak had
a son and daughter : the former took holy orders, and
became in due course Canon of Sarum ; the latter
married Dr. William Hawkins, Prebendary of Win-
chester, at whose house Walton died " on the fifteenth
day of December, 1683, in the great frost." He was
buried in the cathedral, where, through the indefatig-
able exertions of that enthusiastic angler, Mr. R. B.
Marston, a handsome memorial was erected to him by
subscription in 1893. But his real monument, more
lasting than brass, is "The Compleat Angler," which
has become a classic in the language. By a " classic "
is usually meant a book which everybody talks about
and nobody reads. I don't suppose that ten persons
in a thousand who talk of " The Compleat Angler "
have ever honestly read it through ; but there will never
be a time, one may safely prophesy, when it will not " fit
audience find though few."

The credit and renown attaching to the authorship
of " The Compleat Angler " has been practically
monopolised by Izaak Walton, whose fame has quite
overshadowed that of his friend and coadjutor, Charles
Cotton, though the latter was, to my thinking, in-
comparably the better sportsman of the two. I do
not say that for inimitable simplicity and grace of

44 Ikings of tbe IRofc, TCifle, an& (Sun

style Cotton's contribution to " The Compleat Angler "
is equal to Walton's. It is a very creditable imitation
of the master, but the indescribable charm of Walton
is lacking. To the fly-fisher, however, the name of
Cotton is dear, for he was the first to write at once
elegantly, practically, and in detail of the highest
form of the art of angling.

They were an oddly assorted pair, Izaak Walton
and Charles Cotton, and their friendship was a singular
one. At first sight it seems marvellous that two men
so utterly dissimilar in their lives and characters should
have become firm and affectionate friends — that the
pious, sedate, irreproachable London tradesman should
have found anything to attract him in the roystering,
dissipated, reckless young squire, and vice versa. The
writer of the brief notice of Cotton in the " Dictionary
of National Biography " says that he was " a man of
unaffected piety " ! If he had written affected piety
I could have understood him, for it was often politic
in Cotton's days to affect piety and other virtues, and
Charles might have found such affectation advisable in
his intercourse with the sober and devout haberdasher.
But how anyone who has ever glanced at Cotton's
" Scarronides ; or, the First Book of Virgil Travestie "
could call him a man of unaffected piety I am at a loss
to imagine. His version, for example, of the Judg-
ment of Paris is as obscene and indecent as any-
thing that even Rochester ever wrote. It is all very
well to say that much breadth and coarseness were
allowed to the writers of those days. But this man revels
in lasciviousness — a thing abhorrent to the cleanly

33aafe Tfflnlton anfc Cbarles Cotton 45

nature of Walton, who saw no wit in either " Scripture
jests or lascivious jests — for the Devil will help a
man that way inclined to the first, and his own corrupt
nature which he always carries with him, to the latter."
And what does Piscator say to Venator ? — " I would
you were a brother of the angle : for a companion
that is cheerful and free from swearing and scurrilous
discourse is worth gold. I love such mirth as does
not make friends ashamed to look upon one another
next morning."

But that was hardly either the discourse or the mirth
that Charles Cotton favoured. " My delight," he tells
one of his friends, " is to toss the can merrily round."
And in one of his poems he writes :

I speak it with tears,

I've been a toss-pot these twenty good years,
And have drank as much liquor as made me a debtor.

He was always over head and ears in debt, besieged
by duns for weeks together ; and they show you to
this day in Dovedale the cave in the limestone cliffs
where he used to hide from his persecuting creditors.

But if Charles Cotton had neither the morals nor the
piety of his " father Izaak," he had good qualities of
his own which rendered him a lovable soul. A jolly,
generous, free-handed, big-hearted gentleman he was,
whose purse and cellar and larder were ever at the
disposal of a friend. That luckless poet Richard
Lovelace twice owed his release from prison to Charles
Cotton, the best friend he ever had, as he himself
admits. And when the once brilliant courtier and

46 Ifcings of tbe 1Rofc, TCtfle, anO 6un

man of fashion, wont to flaunt his suits of cloth
and silver among the gayest, had spent all his patri-
mony in useless attempts to serve his sovereign, and
was wandering, poor and in rags, from one obscure
beggars' lodging-house to another, it was Charles Cotton
that once more came to his help. Every Monday
morning George Petty, haberdasher in Fleet Street,
carried twenty shillings from Charles Cotton to the
broken-down poet as he lay slowly dying in Gun-
powder Alley. Twenty shillings was a large sum in
those days, and shillings were none too plentiful with
Charles Cotton then or at any time of his life.

Cotton was born at Beresford, in Staffordshire, on
April 28th, 1630, and was therefore thirty-seven years
junior to Izaak Walton, who had been an intimate
friend of his father. The elder Charles Cotton was
a gentleman of good Hampshire family, connected
with the Earls of Chesterfield and Harrington, and was,
moreover, a man of brilliant abilities, to which Clarendon
has borne eloquent testimony in his " History of the
Rebellion." He inherited a considerable fortune, which
he increased by his marriage with Olive, daughter of
Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston, who brought him estates
in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Charles the younger
was the only child, and he was allowed to do pretty
much as he pleased. It is probable that he went up
to Cambridge, though he took no degree there. It is
certain that he travelled for some time in France and
Italy. But he never seems to have contemplated
entering any profession. To dabble in literature and
pursue his beloved art of fly-fishing in the Dove were

33aafe tfllalton an& Cbarles Cotton 47

enough to occupy such time as he could spare from
conviviality.

In 1656, when he was six-and-twenty, he married
a daughter of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, of Owthorpe,
Notts, and a sister of Colonel Hutchinson, who has
been immortalised by the pen of his devoted wife
Lucy. It was probably this union with a noted Puritan
family which secured him from molestation by the
Parliamentarians, in spite of the fact that he was an
ardent and pronounced Royalist.

Cotton had probably first made the acquaintance
of Walton at his father's house, for the retired London
tradesman was often a guest there, and nothing more
strongly shows the high position and reputation which
the author of " The Compleat Angler " enjoyed than
the familiar terms on which he associated with county
gentlemen of old family like Cotton and eminent
divines like Donne.

The younger Cotton was without doubt a man of
brilliant parts. Lovelace, in dedicating to him " The
Triumphs of Philamon and Amoret," describes him as
" the noblest of our youth and best of friends," and
I can well believe that his fascinating manners, his
handsome person, and his pretty wit, made him popular
in all circles.

In 1670 his wife died, leaving him with a family
of three sons and five daughters ; and soon afterwards
he joined the army in Ireland with the rank of captain.
Beyond the fact that his journey thither gave him the
opportunity of writing an amusing satiric poem, " A
Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque," I do not know that

48 Ifcfnss of tbe 1Rofct IRffle, anfc (Bun

it left any mark on his career. In 1675 he married
again. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Sir
William Russell, Bart, of Strensham, Worcestershire,
and widow of Wingfield, 5th Baron Cromwell. She
had a jointure of £1,500 a year, which enabled her
husband to keep some kind of state at his paternal
mansion, Beresford Hall, but did not help him to
liquidate his debts. Indeed, he drifted further and
further into insolvency, and was as pestered with
duns as Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

It was in 1675 that he renewed his acquaintance
with Walton, under the circumstances described in
the following letter :

" TO MY MOST WORTHY FATHER AND FRIEND,
MR. IZAAK WALTON THE ELDER.

SIR, — Being you were pleased, some years past,
to grant me your free leave to do what I have here
attempted : and observing you never retract any promise
when made in favour of your meanest friends: I
accordingly expect to see these following particular
directions for the taking of a trout, to wait upon
your better and more general rules for all sorts of
angling. And though mine be neither so perfect, so
well digested, nor indeed so handsomely couch'd as
they might have been, in so long a time as since
your leave was granted, yet I dare affirm them to
be generally true : and they had appeared, too, in
something a neater dress, but that I was surprised
with the sudden news of a sudden new edition of

33aafe Walton an& Cbarles Cotton 49

your ' Compleat Angler ' : so that having little more
than ten days' time to turn me in and rub up my
memory (for in truth I have not in all this long time
though I have often thought on't and about as often
resolved to go presently about it), I was forced upon
the instant to scribble what I here present you : which
I have also endeavoured to accommodate to your own
method. And if mine be clear enough for the honest
master of the angle readily to understand, which is the
only thing I aim at, then I have my end and shall
need to make no further apology : a writing of this
kind not requiring, if I were master of any such thing,
any eloquence to set it off and recommend it : so
that if you in your better judgment, or kindness rather,
can allow it passable for a thing of this nature, you
will then do me the honour if the cypher fixed and
carved in the front of my little fishing-house, may be
here explained : and to permit me to attend you in
public, who in private have ever been, am, and ever
resolve to be,

Sir,
Your most affectionate son and servant,

CHARLES COTTON.

BERESFORD,
\Qth of March 1675-6."

Walton in reply says :

" You now see I have returned you your very
pleasant and useful discourse of ' The Art of Fly-
fishing ' printed just as it was sent me : for I have

4

50 Ifcings of tbe 1Robt IRtfle, ant) (Bun

been so obedient to your desires as to endure all the
praises you have ventured to fix upon me in it. And
when I have thanked you for them, as the effects of
an undissembled love, then let me tell you, Sir, that I
will readily endeavour to live up to the character you
have given of me, if there were no other reason, yet for
this alone, that you, that love me so well, and always
think what you speak, may not, for my sake, suffer by
a mistake in your judgment.

And, Sir, I have ventured to fill a part of your
margin, by way of paraphrase, for the reader's clearer
understanding the situation both of your fishing house
and the pleasantness of that you dwell in. And I have
ventured also to give him a ' Copy of Verses ' that you
were pleased to send me,^now some years past, in which
he may see a good picture of both : and so much of
your own mind too, as will make any reader, that is
blessed with a generous soul, to love you the better. I
confess that for doing this you may think me too bold :
if you do, I will say so, too : and so far commute my
offence, that though I be more than a hundred miles
from you and in the eighty-third year of my age, yet I
will forget both, and next month begin a pilgrimage to
beg your pardon : for I would die in your favour and
till then will live,

Sir, your most affectionate Father and friend,

IZAAK WALTON.
LONDON,
April 29, 1676."

Whether the venerable angler ever paid that promised
visit is uncertain. But that he had been previously an

33aafc Walton anfc Cbarles Cotton 5*

honoured guest at Beresford is evident from the words
of Piscator in Cotton's supplement to "The Compleat
Angler " when he invites Venator to partake of his
hospitality : " And now, Sir, if I am not mistaken I
have half overcome you : and that I may wholly
conquer that modesty of yours I will take upon me
to be so familiar as to say, you must accept my
invitation, which that you may the more easily be
persuaded to do, I will tell you that my house stands
upon the margin of one of the finest rivers for trout
and grayling in England : that I have lately built a
little fishing house upon it, dedicated to anglers, over
the door of which you will see the two first letters
of my father Walton's name and mine twisted in
cypher : that you shall lie in the same bed he has
sometimes been contented with, and have such
country entertainment as my friends sometimes ac-
cept, and be as welcome too, as the best friend of
them all."

That little fishing-house, of which a sketch is here
reproduced, is still standing, reverently preserved, a
monument to the friendship of the two most celebrated
of all the Fathers of Angling.

How true a sportsman Charles Cotton was, may be
gathered from the following extract, which is only one
of many passages in his treatise on the " Art of Fly-
fishing" that show him in the same light. Piscator
is giving the novice Viator his first lesson in casting a
fly for trout :

" Viator. There's one ! I have him.

Piscator. And a precious catch you have of him :

52 IRfngs of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anb (Bun

pull him out ! I see you have a tender hand : this
is a diminutive gentleman, e'en throw him in again and
let him grow till he be more worthy your anger.

Viat. Pardon me, Sir, all's fish that comes to the
hook with me now. — Another !

Pise. And of the same standing.

Viat. I see I shall have good sport now : another !
and a Grayling. Why, you fish here at will.

Pise. Come, come, cross the bridge and go down
the other side lower, where you will find finer stream
and better sport I hope than this. Look you, Sir,
here is a fine stream now, you have length enough,
stand a little further off, let me entreat you, and do
but fish the stream like an artist and peradventure a
good fish may fall to your share. — How now ! What !
is all gone ?

Viat. No, I but touch'd him : but that was a fish
worth taking.

Pise. Why now, let me tell you, you lost that fish
by your own fault : for you are never to offer to strike
a good fish, if he do not strike himself, till first you see
him turn his head after he has taken your fly, and then
you can never strain your tackle in the striking, if you
strike with any manner of moderation. Come, throw
in once again and fish me this stream by inches : for
I assure you here are very good fish : both trout and
grayling lie here : and at that great stone on the
other side, it is ten to one a good trout gives you the
meeting."

In his " Ode to". Poverty " Charles Cotton gives a
pathetic picture of the miseries of his life.

COTTON'S FISHING-HOUSE.

?3aafe Tfflialton anfc Gbarlcs Cotton 53

Obstrep'rous creditors besiege my door,
And my whole house clamorous echoes fill ;
From these there can be no retirement free,
From room to room, they hunt, and follow me ;
They will not let me eat, nor sleep, nor pray,

But persecute me night and day ;

Torment my body, and my mind,

Nay, if I take my heels and fly,

They follow me with open cry,
At home no rest, abroad no refuge can I find.

And yet, if tradition speak true, he might have been in
affluent circumstances had he not deliberately thrown
away a fortune. It is said that a near relative of his, a
Miss Cokayne, had made him the heir of her large
property, but he deeply offended her by the following
lines in his " Scarronides " :

And then there is a fair great ruff
Made of a pure and costly stuff
To wear about her Highness' neck
Like Mistress Cokayne's in the Peak.

Miss Cokayne wore a ruff of unusual dimensions to
conceal the deformity of her neck and shoulders, and
the reference to her was, to say the least of it, in the
grossest bad taste. But when Cotton was remonstrated
with and asked to strike out the allusion to the lady in
his next edition, he coarsely refused. " I will not," he
said, " spoil my joke for any hump-backed bitch in
Christendom." And so Miss Cokayne, not unnaturally
indignant at the insult, altered her will, and Charles lost
a fortune.

It is also said, however, that the deformed Miss Cokayne
died before the publication of the " Scarronides," and

54 Ikings of tbe IRofc, TCtfle, an& 6un

had no fortune to leave. In that case, one may dismiss
the story, so far as it relates to the lost fortune, as false.
But the reference to the lady, even supposing she were
dead, could not have failed to give offence to the family,
and it is very probable that in this way Cotton may
have paid dearly for his reckless satire.

Anglers both, how different were the lives of Walton
and Cotton ! The one had all that sweet content and
quiet which he claims as the peculiar heritage of brothers
of the angle ; the other, to use his own words :

Though he had wherewithal to eat,

His bread did yet
Taste of affliction, and his cares
His purest wine mix'd and allay'd with tears.

The one, blest with ample health and wealth, enjoyed a
green old age ; the other, broken in body and estate,
died when he was four years short of three score.

Whether Cotton added gambling to his other follies
is not certain, but in his " Compleat Gamester " he
discourses of billiards, cards, horse-racing, cock-fighting,
and bowling, in the language of one who was experienced
in all those modes of gaming and had paid for his
experience. A more innocent recreation which he
loved almost as much as angling was gardening, of
which he writes learnedly and pleasantly in his " Planter's
Manual." There could not, I take it, have been much
inherent vice in a man who was so devoted a fisherman
and gardener. One of the Children of the Open Air he
was at heart, and so long as he was in his native element
his life was cleanly and sweet,

33aafe HOalton anfc Cbarles Cotton 55

Of the sincerity of the friendship between Walton and
Cotton there can be no doubt, although, as I have
shown, there was much in the character and habits of
the younger man of which the elder could not have
approved. But, doubtless, Charles showed only the
best side of himself to his " father," and I think he
loved the old man so dearly that he would have been
loth to do or say anything to hurt or offend him. We
know that Cotton, in deference to the tastes of his
" father," even pretended to like smoking, though when
the fear of offending the beloved Master was not before
his eyes he denounced tobacco as " that pernicious and
stinking weed." And I daresay he was always on his
good behaviour in the presence of the venerable and
pious Izaak. Each had lovable qualities which won
the heart of the other, and the thought of their friendship
calls up a picture altogether pleasant to contemplate.

Colonel Thomas Thornton

WHEN the late Dr. James Bowstead, sometime Bishop
of Lichfield, was first raised to the Episcopal Bench as
Bishop of Sodor and Man, he described his reception in
his diocese in the words of St. Luke after the shipwreck
of himself and St. Paul at Melita, " The barbarous people
showed us no little kindness." That was but sixty
years ago, yet so little was the Isle of Man then
known to most persons in England that Dr. Bowstead's
English friends condoled with him on his banishment
to that " savage island," which they supposed to be
inhabited only by smugglers, fugitives from justice,
and half-civilised kernes. And the Bishop humoured
them in the idea — though I doubt whether the Manx
clergy and gentry would have appreciated the joke.

It was with much the same feelings that Colonel
Thomas Thornton's friends and brother-sportsmen . in
England regarded his departure on a sporting tour
through the Highlands of Scotland in the year 1786.
It was but ten years since Samuel Johnson had pub-
lished his "Journey through the Western Islands of
Scotland," a record of adventurous travel which excited

56

Colonel ftbomas Uboruton 57

more wonder and admiration then than a peregrination
through Thibet would excite now. There were numbers
of English people who still remembered the appearance
of Prince Charlie's wild Highlanders as, with unkempt
locks, and filthy tartan plaids, jabbering an un-
known tongue, they marched through the streets of
Carlisle, Preston, and Derby; and most folks thought
that all Scotland was a barbarous country inhabited
solely by these ferocious savages. For the picturesque
kilt of to-day had not yet been invented by an English
tailor, and no Walter Scott had yet arisen to throw
the glamour of romance over the men and mountains
of " Caledonia stern and wild."

Colonel Thornton was not, indeed, the first English-
man to visit Scotland in search of sport, for that honour
belongs, as I have already shown, to that good fisherman
but most affected writer Richard Franck, sometime
Captain in Cromwell's Ironsides. But the Puritan
angler dealt only with one branch of sport, whilst the
convivial Colonel gives us a medley of shooting, fishing,
hawking, and hunting.

It is probably only as the author of "A Sporting
Tour through the Northern Parts of England and
Great Part of the Highlands of Scotland " that Colonel
Thornton is now known. The book has become a
sporting classic, but the famous " Tour " was only one
of many notable sporting episodes in a life full of racy
incident. The Colonel's career was not in every respect
what moralists call edifying; but he was the greatest
all-round sportsman of his day, and for that reason
this brief biography will, I am sure, be of interest to

58 Ikings of tbe 1Rofc, 1Riflet anfc (Bun

his brother-sportsmen. Not only was he supreme with
rod, rifle, and gun, but he was also a first-rate horseman
both with hounds and on the race-course, a keen fox-
hunter, a past-master in falconry, a fine athlete, a
generous and intelligent patron of the fine arts, and
a bon vivant of the first water.

For three generations the Thorntons had been dis-
tinguished both as soldiers and politicians. The
grandfather of the subject of my sketch, William
Thornton, was a staunch supporter of the Revolution
of 1688, and was selected by the Yorkshire Whigs to
present their congratulatory address to Queen Anne
on the Union of England and Scotland, on which
occasion Her Majesty conferred on him the honour
of knighthood. The son of this worthy knight followed
in his father's steps. For nearly twenty years he
represented the city of York in Parliament, and was
Colonel of the West Riding Militia. When the Jacobite
rising of 'Forty-five broke out, he equipped a troop of
yeomanry and a company of infantry from his own
tenantry, entirely at his own expense, and they
were almost the only portion of General Hawley's
army at Falkirk which did not disgrace itself. Three-
fourths of them were slain, and their commander, with
a price of £1,000 on his head, only escaped capture
by the skin of his teeth. For three days he lay hid
in a disused cellar, up to his ankles in slime, and
contracted malarial fever, from which he suffered to
the end of his days. He owed his life and freedom
to a kindly and loyal Scotswoman, the owner of the
cellar, who kept him supplied with food, and put

Colonel ZCbomas ZTbornton 59

Prince Charlie's men, who were hunting for him, on
a wrong scent. He had his revenge at Culloden ; and
when he returned to England he showed his gratitude
to his preserver by settling upon her a handsome
annuity.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1758 I find an en-
thusiastic Yorkshire bard addressing verses to William
Thornton, of Thornville, which commence :

In arts and arms O thou so lately try'd,
Scourge of the rebels and thy country's pride,

and end with :

See Rome's lov'd Brutus live again in thee !

This might seem to intimate that William Thornton
was a man of considerable note, but possibly some
allowance must be made for poetic fervour and local
patriotism.

In 1756 this same William Thornton, of Thornville,
married the daughter of John Myster, Esq., of Epsom,
a lady of remarkable beauty, who, in the following
year, bore him a son in London — Thomas, the great
sportsman with whom I am now concerned. The
boy was sent to school at the Charterhouse, and
thence, at the age of fourteen, to the University of
Glasgow to complete his education. He had been two
years at Glasgow when his father died suddenly
at the age of fifty, but he continued his university
studies for three years longer. Young Thornton was,
even at this early period of his life, distinguished for
his zealous and enthusiastic pursuit of field sports,

60 iftfnss of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc Gun

and especially falconry, on which he expended much
time and money. When he left Glasgow and took up
his residence at his father's Yorkshire estate, Thorn-
ville, he at once busied himself about creating a
sporting establishment which had not its equal in the
three kingdoms. His hawks and his dogs were trained
to perfection. He founded the famous Falconers'
Club which met at Barton Mills ; and there is now in
the possession of the Earl of Orford the magnificent
silver-gilt urn presented to Thornton by the members of
the club in recognition of his strenuous and successful
efforts to revive the fine old sport of hawking.

On coming of age Thomas Thornton joined his
father's old regiment, the West Yorkshire Militia, of
which he subsequently became Colonel.

I have said that Thornton was an excellent athlete.
Among his recorded exploits are the following. He
once, for a wager of £100, cleared his own height,
5 ft. 9 in., twice in succession. On another occasion
he cleared six five-barred gates on foot and repeated
the feat on horseback all within the space of six
minutes. He is also said to have walked four miles
in thirty-two minutes, but I am sceptical as to the
genuineness of that record. The old-time " dockers"
are never to be trusted, and " walking " was an elastic
phrase in those days, embracing any sort of "go-as-
you-please" style of progression. Half of Captain
Barclay's so-called walking exploits were of this
description.

But it is more especially with Thomas Thornton's
prowess with rod and gun that I am here concerned,

Colonel ZEbomae ttbornton 61

and I shall select some notable illustrations thereof
from his famous sporting tour in the Highlands.

The most elaborate preparations were made for this
great expedition. A sloop of considerable size was
laden with stores and ammunition ; and carrying, besides
the skipper, two mariners and a boy, two keepers to
take charge of the dogs (a dozen in number), the
falconer with as many hawks, and " a female house-
keeper and cook," sailed from Hull to Forres, the
nearest port to Raits, in Strathspey, where the Colonel
had taken a shooting-box. Some idea of the extent
of the stores carried by the Falcon may be gathered
from the fact that forty-nine carts were required to
convey them from Forres to Raits, besides the sledges,
each drawn by four horses, by which the boats to be
used on the lochs were transported. But then the
Colonel did everything en grand seigneur. He had
not only a perfect armoury of guns and rifles, with
fishing-tackle and hawking-apparatus on a scale to
match, but he had provided himself with a great stock
of wines, spirits, and comestibles. For he had no
mind to rough it so far as eating and drinking were
concerned, and the frequent bills of fare he gives show
how, even in the wild Highlands, this jovial sportsman
and his comrades lived like fighting-cocks, washing
down their trout and char, their roast mutton and
brandered chickens, their game and sweets, with ex-
cellent port and claret, the finest Jamaica rum in
the form of punch, and " incomparable porter from
Calvert's," then the leading brewer in London.

Whilst the Falcon was slowly making her way by sea

62 Ikinss of tbe 1Rot>, IRifle, an& 0un

to Forres, the Colonel proceeded leisurely by land to
Edinburgh, accompanied by Mr. Garrard, a young artist
of repute, destined to make a name for himself as an
animal-painter, whose spirited illustrations added greatly
to the attractions of Colonel Thornton's record of his
journey. At Edinburgh they were joined by the rest
of their party, Messrs. Parkhouse, Serle, and Stewart.
After laying in a further supply of stores to be
forwarded by waggon, and paying his devoirs to Mrs.
Siddons, who was then creating a huge sensation among
Edinburgh play-goers, the Colonel started off, driving
in a tandem, for Stirling. He fished and shot and
hawked as he travelled. And his sport with the rod
was phenomenal, for big fish swarmed then in every
loch and stream. The Colonel tells us that it was no
uncommon thing on Loch Bardowie, in Stirlingshire,
to kill forty large pike in a day. It was on this loch
that Colonel Thornton first tried " fishing with fox-
hounds ! " " The Fox-hounds," he writes in his diary,
" were now got ready, and after a short time they killed
nine very fine pike." And again : " We baited the fox-
hounds, and Merlin soon got a view." This is rather
puzzling, but the Colonel in a note condescends to give
the following explanation :

"In order to describe this mode of fishing, it may
be necessary to say that I make use of pieces of cork
of a conical form, and having several of these differently
coloured, and named after favourite hounds, trifling
wagers are made on their success, which adds to the
spirit of the sport. The mode of baiting them is by
placing a live bait, which hangs at the end of a line

Colonel ZTfoomas ftbornton ^

a. yard and a half long, fastened only so slightly that
on the pike's striking, two or three yards more may
run off to enable him to gorge his bait. If more line
is used it will prevent the sport which attends his
diving, and carrying under water the hound ; which
being pursued in a boat down wind (which they always
take), affords excellent amusement ; and where pike,
or large perch, or even trout are in plenty, before the
hunters, if I may so term these fishers, have run down
the first pike, others are seen coming towards them
with a velocity proportionable to the fish that is at
them.

In a fine summer's evening, with a pleasant party,

have had excellent diversion, and it is, in fact, the
most adapted of any, for ladies, whose company gives
a gusto to all parties."

Despite this explanation, there was a common belief
that Colonel Thornton claimed to have trained fox-
hounds to fish for pike ! And a reviewer in the Annals
of Sporting, commenting on the above passage, says :
" What sort of burst was to be found in a dog's diving
or being dragged along, remains an Euclidian problem."
Was ever critic gifted with greater density ! And yet
one of the chief grounds for the charge of unveracity
alleged against the Colonel was this alleged Munchausen
story of fishing with fox-hounds !

It was in Loch Lomond that the Colonel, however,
made his first sensational capture. The perch which
he landed there is historic, and here is his own account
of the taking of this monumental monster :

" I felt a fish strike and ordered the boat to stop : I

64 Ifctnss of tbe 1Rofc, Iftifle, anfc Gun

perceived that my bait had sunk deep, but, not re-
collecting the additional force the fish acquired thereby,
imagined him of very great magnitude. My tackle
was not to be surpassed, I had plenty of water to work
him and no trees or roots to trouble me, but he made
the rod at every exertion bend to the water. After
much trouble he was secured in the landing-net and
proved to be a perch of about seven and a half pounds.
I never saw so fine a fed fellow, and what had given
him additional power and had deceived me was, as I
found, his being hooked by the belly part, which gave
him the full strength of his head and tail. Fish so
hooked have deceived me and no doubt many brother
anglers before."

The precise weight of the fish is subsequently given
as 7 Ibs. 3 ozs., and I need hardly say that the annals
of angling cannot show many bigger perch than that.
It is not however, the largest on record. Pennant, in
his " Survey of London," tells of an 8-lb. perch
taken in the Serpentine. And there are also two other
authenticated instances of perch of 8 Ibs. being taken
in England, one in the Wiltshire Avon and the other
in Dagenham Reach, Essex. A 6-lb. perch was taken
by Mr. Hunt, of Brades, Staffordshire, out of the
Birmingham Canal, and I have heard of one of 5 Ibs.
which fell to the rod of an angler in Bala Lake. After
such monsters the sJ-lb. perch which the present writer
took forty years ago out of a private lake near Halifax,
in Yorkshire, seems but " small pertaters " ; it is the largest
however, that has ever come under my own experience.
Izaak Walton, indeed, declares that he knew of one

Colonel ICbomas TTbornton 65

taken by a friend of his which was two feet in length !
But he draws the line at that measurement and mercifully
spares us the weight, knowing that human credulity has
its limits.

Scotland was then the fisherman's paradise — the lochs
and rivers teemed with big fish, strangers for the most
part to the angler's lure, for the gentle craft had few
followers in the far north, and consequently the expert
angler had such a time as he will never know again in
any home waters. The Colonel tells us with great gusto
how on June 3<Dth he slipped away from his sleeping
friends at 5 a.m., and before 8 a.m. killed five salmon in
the Leven at Balloch, the largest weighing 41 Ibs., the
others ranging from 22 Ibs. to 9 Ibs. " Perfectly satisfied
with my success," he writes, " I returned home." Per-
fectly satisfied, indeed ! What would not any angler of
to-day give for such a three hours' sport ! He certainly
would seek in vain for it in the Leven at Balloch, though
Colonel Thornton's account of the size and number of
the fish there is borne out by that given by his prede-
cessor Captain Richard Franck.

But it was among the pike that our sporting Colonel
won his greatest triumphs. The first of these was the
great pike of Loch Petullich, a monster which had long
defied all efforts to capture him. He had been shot at
half a dozen times, and had been hooked but had carried
off tackle and hooks as easily as Samson carried off the
gates of Gaza. Now, at last, however, his hour was
come. The Colonel was assured that the instant he
threw in any living animal, even a dog, this prodigious
fish would take it. " I adjusted a strong trimmer hook,"

5

66 ifcfnss of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, anfc (Bun

writes the Colonel, " with a very moderate swivel : and
accordingly threw in a live bait : the instant the stream
carried it down a pike came at me with infinite eagerness,
making the whole water foam, and ran me across the
stream into his hold about forty feet. I gave him time
to gorge, and then began to play him, having excellent
sport with him for ten minutes." But just as the landing-
net was being got ready, the fish broke his hold. Again
the pike took, the bait and again broke away. As a last re-
source the Colonel tried " a very tempting silver-coloured
trout with a pair of snap hooks." A third time the big
fish was struck, and after a desperate tussle, during which
he twice ran out the whole of the Colonel's line, eighty
yards, the great pike of Loch Petullich was vanquished
and landed. His weight was 36 Ibs., but big as he was, he
was eclipsed by the still greater pike of Loch Alvie,
the thrilling story of whose capture I shall allow the
Colonel to tell in his own words, premising that he had
struck the fish once but had, to his intense chagrin,
lost him.

" As soon as we had recovered from the consternation
this accident occasioned, I ordered the boat to cruise
about, for the chance of his taking me again, which I
have known frequently to happen with pike, who are
wonderfully bold and voracious : on the second trip I
saw a very large fish come at me, and, collecting my line,
I felt that 1 had him fairly hooked ; but I feared that he
had run himself tight round some root, his weight seemed
so dead : we rowed up therefore to the spot when he
soon convinced me he was at liberty, by running so far
into the lake that I had not one inch of line more to give

Colonel ZTbomas Vbornton 67

him. The servants, foreseeing the consequences of my
situation, rowed with great expedition towards the fish,
which now rose about fifty yards from us, an absolute
wonder ! I relied on my tackle, which I knew was in
every respect excellent, as I had, in consequence of the
large pike killed the day before, put on hooks and gimp
adjusted with great care ; a precaution which would
have been thought superfluous in London, as it certainly
was for most lakes, though here barely equal to my fish.
After playing him for some time I gave the rod to
Captain Waller, that he might have the honour of landing
him, for I thought him quite exhausted, when to our
surprise, we were again constrained to follow the monster
nearly across this great lake, having the wind too, much
against us. . . . Frequently he flew out of the water to such
a height that, though I knew the uncommon strength of
my tackle, I dreaded losing such an extraordinary fish,
and the anxiety of our little crew was equal to mine.
After about an hour and a quarter's play, however, we
thought we might safely attempt to land him, which was
done in the following manner ; Newmarket, a lad so
called from the place of his nativity, who had now come
to assist, I ordered, with another servant, to strip and
wade in as far as possible, which they readily did. In
the meantime I took the landing-net, while Captain
Waller, judiciously ascending the hill above, drew him
gently towards us. He approached the shore very
quietly, and we thought him quite safe, when, seeing
himself surrounded by his enemies, he in an instant made
a last desperate effort, shot into the deep again, and, in
the exertion, threw one of the men on his back. His

68 Ifctnss of tbe 1Rofc, IRtde, an& Gun

immense size was now very apparent ; we proceeded
with all due caution, and, being once more drawn
towards land, I tried to get his head into the net, upon
effecting which, the servants were ordered to seize his
tail and slide him on shore. I took all imaginable pains
to accomplish this, but in vain, and began to think
myself strangely awkward, when at length, having got
his snout in, I discovered that the hoop of the net,
though adapted to very large pike, would admit no more
than that part. He was, however, completely spent,
and in a few moments we landed him, a perfect monster !
He was stabbed by my directions in the spinal marrow,
with a large knife, which appeared to be the most
humane method of killing him, and I then ordered all
the signals, with the sky scrapers to be hoisted ; and the
whoop re-echoed through the whole range of the
Grampians. On opening his jaws to endeavour to take
the hooks from him, which were both fast in his gorge,
so dreadful a forest of teeth, or tusks, I think I never
beheld : if I had not had a double link of gimp, with two
swivels, the depth between his stomach and mouth
would have made the former quite useless. His measure-
ment, accurately taken, was five feet four inches from
eye to fork.

On examining him attentively, I perceived that a
very large bag hung deep below his belly, and, thinking
it was lower down than usual with other pike, I con-
cluded that this was deeply fed but a short time
before he was taken. After exhibiting him, there-
fore, to several gentlemen, I ordered that my house-
keeper on whom I could depend, should have him

Colonel ftbomas ZTbornton 69

carefully opened, and the contents of his stomach be
reserved for inspection, . . . which to our surprise consisted
of part of another pike half digested. The tumour or
bag arose from his having, no doubt many years since,
gorged a hook, which seemed to us better calculated for
sea than for fresh-water fishing. It was wonderfully
honey-combed, but free from rust, so that I cannot doubt
its having been at least ten years in his belly. . . .

The weight of this fish, judging by the trones we had
with us, which only weigh twenty-nine pounds, made
us, according to our best opinions, estimate him at
between forty-seven and forty-eight pounds. I had
before this seen pike of thirty-six pounds, and have had
them at Thornville of above thirty ; but the addition of
seventeen pounds and a half made this quite a different
fish. There may be larger pike, but I cannot readily
credit the accounts of such until I receive more authentic
information."

The Colonel would no doubt have been surprised
to learn that his 4/-lb. pike was after all but an
infant compared with the celebrated Kenmure pike,
taken in Loch Ken, Galloway, the head of which is
still preserved at Kenmure Castle ; the weight of
this leviathan was 72 Ibs. But this, again, takes a
back seat by comparison with two captured in Ireland :
one on the Broad Wood Lake, Killaloe, weighing
96 Ibs.; the other in the Shannon, weighing 90 Ibs.
Beyond that limit one would have thought that no pike
that romance ever conceived could have passed. Yet
Sir John Hawkins, a credible person, and as the
author of " The General History of Music " entitled to

70 ifcfnss of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, anb Gun

respect, gravely tells us, in his Introduction to Izaak
Walton's " The Compleat Angler," of a pike taken in
1765 in a pool at Lilleshall Lime-works that weighed
170 Ibs., and had to be drawn out by several men with
stout ropes fastened round its gills. I am thankful to
say that no one has yet attempted to go one better
than that!

With respect to the contents of the pike's stomach, I
find in The County Chronicle of June, 1822, the
following statement : " An enormous pike, caught at
Chillington Pool, in Brewood, Staffordshire, the seat
of Mr. C. F. Gifford, weighed 46 Ibs. and measured
from head to tail 4 ft. 3 in. In its belly was found
a trout weighing 4^ Ibs., and a mole with which the fish
was caught when devouring it."

Sir Samuel Montagu, when presiding last spring at
the annual dinner of the Fly-Fisher's Club, laid it down
as an axiom that in estimating the veracity of angler's
tales as to the weight and size of fish landed or lost, one-
third of both size and weight should be subtracted.
And as no dissent was offered by any angler present to
this proposition, I presume that everyone felt that the
subtraction was moderate and reasonable. Yet strange
to say, although Colonel Thornton was in his own day
considered rather a tall shooter with the long bow, modern
writers on angling give him credit for veracity in his
statements of the dimensions of these pike, and do not
even make Sir Samuel Montagu's reduction either in
these cases or in that of the 7 J-lb. perch which he caught
in Loch Lomond. And, indeed, I am inclined to agree
with them, for Colonel Thornton, though some of his

Colonel TTbomas Gbornton 71

statements are reckless exaggerations, does not usually
write like a braggart but like an honest sportsman, and
his failures are set down as conscientiously as his
successes.

With the gun Colonel Thornton achieved nothing
phenomenal during his famous tour. But then game,
though plentiful to his notions, was nothing like as
numerous as it now is, when moors and forests are so
carefully preserved, and breeding so scientifically stimu-
lated. And, moreover, the fowling-pieces of that day
were but very primitive weapons compared with the
splendid engines of destruction now in use. The flints
of Thornton's day must have sorely tried the sports-
man's patience. On one occasion, says the Colonel,
" at eight good shots my gun missed fire, though I put
in five different flints." Then, it was but very rarely
that he ventured on a double shot. Like most sports-
men of his day, he preferred a single gun. " I look upon
all double barrels," he says, " as trifles, rather knick-knacks
than useful." His two favourite guns, " Death " and
" Destruction," however, he considered to be marvels of
the gunmaker's art. With the latter he won a great
match against Mr. Baird, who backed his gun to shot
closer and harder than any other in England. The
Colonel thus describes the winning performance of his
own gun : " She drove in thirty-seven grains ; every shot
through fifteen quarter sheets of small brown paper,
cut to the size of a quarter of a sheet of gilt, and ex-
ceedingly regular ; and in three parts the shots came
through so close that they had the effect of small balls
but could only be ascertained as one shot." The

72 1Rfn0s of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anb (Bun

distance, however, is not given, so that one is left rather
in the dark, after all, as to the real penetrating power
of this wonderful gun.

With the companion piece, " Death," the Colonel made
some very remarkable shooting. Here is a specimen :
" My last shot was, I am convinced, at. the distance of 115
yards on horseback and at the trot. I hit my bird, which
had her wing broke, and was otherwise so much cut about
that she could not fly." As I read that statement I
think of Sir Samuel Montagu's reduction in the case of
angler's stories, and I feel that even more than a third
must be subtracted from that distance to bring it
within the bounds of credibility.

I cannot find that on any occasion the Colonel's
bag of grouse exceeded fifteen brace in one day, and
the best day's partridge-shooting he had with the
Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton House only resulted
in four and a half brace of birds, three hares, and
a woodcock. With his hawks, however, the Colonel
had some remarkable sport. In the glens around Loch
Lomond they killed forty-nine woodcock in one week.
Hawking was occasionally combined with shooting.
"The hawks," he writes on one occasion, "drove the
game into the junipers below us, by which means we
had the sport without the fatigue." The grouse, of
course, lay very close whilst their natural enemies were
hovering in the air above them, and when flushed
afforded easy shots. But I will do the Colonel the
justice to say that it was not often he practised this
lazy and not very sportsmanlike mode of shooting
grouse. He preferred killing his game over dogs. " I

Colonel Ubomas ZTbornton 73

conceive," he says, " the great pleasure and elegance
of shooting depends on the good order in which the
dogs are kept." His own were perfectly broken, and
it must have been a treat to shoot over them. Some-
times the Colonel combined fishing, shooting, and
hawking in one day's sport. One entry in his diary
records twenty-two moor-game to the gun, three to
the hawks, and eighteen brace of trout.

Soon after his return from this famous sporting tour
in the north, which, however, was only one of many,
Colonel Thornton sold his paternal estate of Thornville,
and purchased from H.R.H. the Duke of York Allerton
Maulevcrer, which he rechristened Thornville Royal.
There was a tradition that the Colonel won this estate
from the Duke at cards, but that was not the case,
The covenant of purchase is extant by which Colonel
Thornton agrees to pay H.R.H. the Duke of York
£110,000 for Allerton Mauleverer — £10,000 down on
signing the covenant, £20,000 ten days later on enter-
ing into possession, £30,000 on New Michaelmas Day.
and £50,000 any time within the year. The Duke
behaved very shabbily, and tried to trick the vendee
out of £5,000 ; but the spirited Yorkshire sportsman
would not submit to be swindled even by a Prince of
the Blood. H.R.H. was ignominiously worsted, and
never again did he enjoy the hospitality of the master
of Thornville Royal.

But the Duke had his revenge some three years
later, when Colonel Thornton was court-martialled for
allowing himself to be drawn in his carriage into camp
by the soldiers of his regiment, with whom he was

74 Ifcfnss ot tfoe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc Gun

immensely popular. Colonel Thornton was convinced
that the Duke, then Commander-in-Chief, instigated
the court-martial out of spite, and that the officers
backed him up out of toadyism. In a pamphlet en-
titled " An Elucidation of a Mutinous Conspiracy
entered into by the Officers of the West York Regiment
of Militia against their Commanding Officer in the
year 1794. Dedicated (sans permission) to H.R.H.
the Duke of York," he gave a full report of the pro-
ceedings, with his own indignant defence. I think the
final passage, descriptive of the delivery of the sentence
of the court-martial, is worth quoting :

" On the day appointed by Lieutenant-General Sloper
and the other Generals, Lieutenant-Colonel Thornton
proceeded to camp at eleven o'clock. The West York
regiment, after some consultation, were formed into a
mathematical figure somewhat resembling a square, by
Lord Downe, their newly-appointed Colonel ; the men
were directed to order their arms ; a profound and
solemn silence ensued ; and (the officers being uncovered)

Lieutenant-General Sloper read the charges, and
then pronounced the Sentence of the Court Martial,
nearly in the following words :

1 Lieutenant-Colonel Thornton, it is my duty to
inform you that the Court have found you GUILTY on
both the charges exhibited against you, and its sentence
is that you be publicly reprimanded ; and I do hereby,
in obedience to its orders, reprimand you accordingly.'

After which, Lieutenant-Colonel Thornton, with
equal solemnity spoke to the following effect — ' Sir,
the very elegant and graceful manner in which you

Colonel ZTbomas Tlbornton 75

have delivered my sentence compels me in gratitude
to assure you that I have the highest sense of the
honour done me on this occasion : — entertaining the
highest esteem and veneration for your professional
knowledge, permit me, Sir, to ask you what steps you
would advise me to take, should the soldiers of the
York regiment, or of any other, from their zeal, be
prompted at any future time to pay me a similar
compliment, by huzzaing and drawing me into camp
or elsewhere ? '

' Was it to happen to me, Sir,' replied General
Sloper, ' I would break my neck ! ' — or (agreeable to
some present) the reply was, * I would break their
necks,' meaning the necks of the soldiers.

' Excuse me, Sir/ replied Colonel Thornton, ' I
think that would be carrying the joke a little too far.'

' Parturiunt Monies nascitur ridiculus Mus?

Thus ended a process which afforded full proof that
men of illustrious birth, exalted stations, and splendid
fortunes are not the less subject to the rancorous
passions, — the atrocious principles and vile subserviency
which induce the most heinous and detestable crimes, —
than the lowest of mankind."

It is not surprising to learn that the indignant Colonel
promptly sent in his resignation.

Thenceforward Colonel Thornton devoted himself
solely to sport and conviviality. The new Thornville
Royal surpassed the old in the magnificence of its
sporting establishment. The Colonel's horses, hawks,
pointers, setters, and spaniels became celebrated as the

76 1Kin0s of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, a^ 6un

finest in England. The best guns, rods, and tackle to
be had for money were his, and he was the inventor
of many practical improvements in the sportsman's
equipment both for field and flood. The hospitality
at Thornville Royal was princely. Colonel Thornton
boasted that he had the largest and finest stock of
old port in the kingdom. He was himself a six-bottle
man till after he was sixty. Yet so strong was his
head, and so sound his constitution, that he could sit
out the most valiant topers of his day ; and when he
had seen the last of them under the table, usually
about three o'clock in the morning, he would take a
short stroll in the grounds, come back refreshed by
the cool morning air, sit down to write letters and
overhaul accounts for a couple of hours, and turn up
at breakfast as fresh as a daisy. When or how he
slept his guests never could ascertain ; and, indeed,
there was a tradition that he never went to bed. But,
depend upon it, he found some time for sleep, and
probably, one way or another, had as much of it as
was necessary for health.

When he was in London he ruffled it with the fastest of
the men about town. He was a member of the S avoir
Vivre Club, probably the wildest, maddest, rowdiest club
that ever existed. " The wicked Lord Lyttelton," whose
death was said to have been foretold him in a dream,
Charles James Fox, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan were
prominent members of this coterie of reckless farceurs and
bon viveurs. The play was of the highest, the wagering
and practical joking went beyond all bounds of decency.
Fox, perhaps to show his contempt for his club-mates,

Colonel ZTfoomas ZIbornton 77

fleeced them out of £20,000 one night by the dirtiest
wager I have ever heard of. Hut I do not think the
Colonel was much of a gambler. At any rate, like
Colonel O'Kelly of Eclipse fame, who, though he had
made his fortune by betting and gambling, would allow
no gaming in his own house, Thornton would permit no
high play at Thornville Royal, albeit in other respects
it was as veritable a Liberty Hall as Rabelais' Abbey of
Thelema. Nor would he sanction catch-bets made when
the wine was in and the wit was out. Over the chimney-
piece of the library at Thornville Royal was a marble
slab bearing this inscription :

" Utinam, hanc verts amisic impleam !

By the established rule of this house all bets are
considered to be off if either of the parties, by letter or
otherwise, pay into the hands of the landlord by five
o'clock the next day the sum of one guinea."

At a time when the craze for wagering verged upon
mania, and gentlemen were ready to back their opinions
on the most ridiculous trifles for thousands, especially
after dinner, such a rule showed both courage and sense
in the framer.

No sketch of Colonel Thornton would be complete
without some notice of the notorious " Mrs." Thornton,
whose equestrian feats created an immense sensation in
her day. This lady is constantly referred to as if she
had been the legal wife of the Master of Thornville
Royal. Even the " Dictionary of National Biography,"
usually correct in its information, has fallen into this
error, and alludes to this " expert equestrienne " as the

78 Iktnas of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& Gun

Colonel's first wife, " whose maiden name cannot be
traced." I am able, however, partly from private
sources, partly from a pamphlet by a friend of the
Colonel's entitled " Calumny Combated," to throw some
light on the history of " the celebrated Mrs. Thornton "
who for eight years reigned as mistress at Thornville
Royal.

Her name was Alicia Massingham, and she was the
daughter of a Norwich watchmaker. The Colonel, I
believe, first made her acquaintance when he was march-
ing with his regiment through East Anglia. His brother-
officer and Yorkshire neighbour Captain William Flint,
one of the boldest riders to hounds in England, and a
good all-round sportsman to boot, became at the same
time enamoured of Alicia's sister Amelia, and the two
girls left home together in company with their lovers.

When they set up their respective establishments in
Yorkshire, the two sisters vied with one another in the
extravagant splendour of their dress and equipage, and
each tried to outshine the other. In beauty they were
pretty evenly matched, but Alicia possessed one accom-
plishment which enabled her to triumph over her sister —
she was a splendid horsewoman. Good judges declared
that she had no equal in the saddle among the women of
her day. Knowing her gift, Alicia was not the sort of
woman to hide her light under a bushel, and as she had
the pick of Colonel Thornton's large stud of thorough-
breds, she had plenty of opportunities of displaying her
horsemanship. The first time she did so in public was
at the York August meeting of 1804, when she rode a
four-mile match for 1,500 guineas over the Knavesmire

Colonel TTbomas Ubornton 79

course against Captain Flint. There was such an enor-
mous crowd to witness the match that a squadron of the
6th Light Dragoons was requisitioned to keep the ground.
It was the first time in the annals of the Turf that a
woman had ever been matched to ride a race in public,
and there was a general belief that " the sporting Mrs.
Thornton " would ride, man-fashion, in buckskin breeches
with jockey's cap and jacket. When, therefore, Alicia
appeared on her horse Zingrello, led by Colonel Thornton,
it was with considerable disappointment that the excited
spectators discovered that she was wearing a lady's habit
(leopard-coloured body with blue sleeves and buff skirt),
whilst her luxuriant curls were confined beneath a close-
fitting cap of blue velvet. She was a very handsome
blonde, with a remarkably fine figure which her riding-
dress set off to perfection. Captain Flint was attired
entirely in white. Alicia took the lead and kept it for
three miles, but then her horse unfortunately fell lame.
The Captain, who was many lengths behind, came up
hand over hand, and, passing his fair rival, cantered in an
easy winner. Alicia was furious. She declared that
Captain Flint had behaved in the most ungallant and
discourteous manner. Apparently she thought that he, as
a gentleman, was bound to pull up when he found that
her horse had fallen lame. But this was a little too much
to expect in a match for 1,500 guineas, with thousands
of pounds in bets depending on the result. Alicia
challenged her conqueror to a second encounter, but
he was so annoyed by the remarks in her published
letter that he declined to have anything more to say
to her.

8o ifcinas of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, ant> Gun

Having once tasted notoriety, Alicia could not live
without it. She astonished the Londoners by driving
through their streets in an extraordinary vehicle shaped
like a Thames wherry, drawn by four horses, and so
high that she could only reach the box by a step-
ladder.

But her crowning feat of sportsmanship was at the
York August meeting of 1805, when she was engaged
in two matches. In the first, for which the stakes
were 2,000 guineas and four hogsheads of claret, her
opponent did not appear, and she had a walk over.
In the second, for a cup valued at 700 guineas, she
rode the Colonel's brown mare Louisa against Mr.
Blomfield's chestnut mare Allegra, ridden by the
veteran Frank Buckle, the finest jockey of his day.
Buckle carried 13 st. 6 Ibs., " Mrs." Thornton 9 st. 6 Ibs.
Alicia, in purple jacket and cap, nankeen skirts, purple
sleeves, and embroidered stockings, held the lead for
the first mile, when Buckle passed her. Then ensued
a splendid race. The two were never more than half
a length apart till, within a hundred yards of home,
Alicia challenged Buckle in good earnest. The prince
of jockeys tried all he knew, but in vain ; and after
a magnificent struggle Alicia landed Louisa a winner
by half a length. The excitement over this race was
extraordinary, and when " Mrs." Thornton and Louisa
were led back to scale by the jubilant Colonel, they
received a tremendous ovation. Unfortunately Alicia's
triumph, the greatest of her life, was marred by a
fracas between Colonel Thornton and Captain Flint,
who had not been on speaking terms since the match

Colonel Ubomas ZEbornton 81

between the Captain and the lady in the previous year.
The Colonel happened to overhear Flint make some
disparaging remarks upon " Mrs. " Thornton, and
strongly resented them. High words passed ; the
Captain flew into a rage and fiercely flogged the
Colonel with his horsewhip. This dastardly assault
on a man far older than himself so exasperated the
bystanders that they were with difficulty prevented
from lynching the assailant on the spot ; as it was,
even the nobility and gentry present joined in hooting
him from the course. He was cut by all his acquaint-
ances, and ended a miserable life a few years later
by poison.

Previously to these exploits in the saddle, Alicia, who
appears to have been a person of varied accomplish-
ments, with artistic as well as sporting tastes, accom-
panied the Colonel on a sporting tour through France.
This expedition was undertaken in 1802, after the Peace
of Amiens, and was on a scarcely less imposing scale
than the Scottish tour, for the Master of Thornville
Royal took with him an artist, two valets, a game-
keeper, a huntsman, and six couples of fox-hounds.
A special carriage of the Colonel's own designing was
constructed for the journey. " It was," he says,
"remarkably commodious," and enabled him to trans-
port a dozen dogs in boxes upon springs at the front
and back of the carriage, whilst the interior of the
vehicle contained a secret repository of guns and
fishing-tackle. The dickie on which the servants sat
could be placed behind or in front at pleasure, whilst
a specially constructed light circular box, " placed under

6

82 ifcfngs of tbe IRob, IRifle, attf> Gun

the windows, so as not to derange the symmetrical
appearance of the carriage, was designed to preclude
those unpleasant bickerings which frequently arise in
journies from the multiplicity of the ladies' band-
boxes ; necessary indeed to the softer sex, but which
generally prove very objectionable to gentlemen when
travelling."

From a sporting point of view the record of this
tour presents little of interest. The sport was of a
very mongrel kind. The hounds were laid on to
wolves, foxes, boars, and deer indiscriminately, and the
quarry was shot down by the sportsmen when hounds
were in full cry ! Every Frenchman was provided
with a huge horn, and the hideous din they made
on these instruments to celebrate the death of the
game was maddening.

The Colonel distinguished himself as a shot both
with gun and rifle, and his wonderful seven-barrelled
guns created a sensation. Apropos of these marvel-
lous weapons I may quote the following passage :

"Joseph Manton, the gunsmith, was of opinion that
he could make a double-rifle gun sufficiently stout to
carry seven balls each barrel and that they would do
more execution than one of my seven-barrelled guns,
which were only stout enough to carry three balls each,
/.£., twenty-one from the seven barrels. This piece
carried very small balls, about the size of what is
called buck-shot.

Great pains were taken in hammering the barrel
of the new gun, and when it was finished, I went to
witness its execution, and resigned to Manton the

Colonel Ubomas TEbornton 83

honour of making the first experiment, which was to
take place in a narrow passage adjoining his shop.
He loaded the piece with the utmost exactness, and,
by his appearance, he would cheerfully have re-
linquished the honour to me ; but I thought it no
more than justice that the inventor should be first
gratified. Accordingly he placed himself, and took
exact aim ; but the subsequent concussion was so
great, and so very different from the firing of any
other gun, that I thought the whole shop was blown
up, and fully expected, when the smoke dispersed, to
find that the piece had burst. This, however, was
not the case ; it appeared that the whole force of the
powder, being insufficient to drive the balls, had come
out through the touch-holes, and, what was very
extraordinary, the gun was uninjured.

This circumstance affording an indisputable proof of
the excellency of the metal, and the firmness of the
touch-holes, we took out the breech, and then gently
forced the balls, which had only moved six inches.
It was now, therefore, sufficiently obvious that to use
this in competition with a seven-barrelled gun was
quite out of the question."

When subsequently bored for shot, however, this gun
proved very effective, and the Colonel states that one
kill he made with it "was supposed to have been upwards
of a hundred yards"! Had any of those who "sup-
posed " ever stepped out a hundred paces, I wonder ?

The Colonel was introduced to Napoleon, then First
Consul, who was as affable to him as he had been a
month before to Assheton Smith, whom he presented

84 IRfngs of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& Gun

to his staff with admiration as "le premier chasseur
d'Angleterre." The First Consul deigned to accept
from the English sportsman a brace of very handsome
pistols, and in return showed the Colonel a beautiful
fowling-piece which had been made for him at Versailles
at a cost of 800 guineas, or nearly double the price which
the Marquis of Rockingham paid for a gun which he
presented to Colonel Thornton, after seeing him pick
off with a single bullet a sparrow which had perched
on the top of Wentworth House. I do not know
that there is much else worth noting in the Colonel's
sporting tour through France, except that he was
shocked by the " undress of the French ladies " and
the " lasciviousness " of the waltz, to which Byron had
an equally strong objection. Colonel Thornton was
sure it would never be tolerated in England, the home
of domestic purity. This, from a member of the Savoir
Vivre Club and th? " protector " of at least half a dozen
ladies of the Alicia Massingham type, is an amusing
example of that British prudery which our Continental
neighbours are rude enough to call hypocrisy. He
notes, too, that skittles was then the favourite pastime of
French officers ; do they still, I wonder, patronise that
plebeian but vigorous pastime?

Towards the close of 1805 the Colonel found himself
in " Queer Street," as a natural consequence of his lavish
expenditure. He parted with Thornville Royal to Lord
Stourton for £226,450. His collection of pictures,
valued at £30,000, his choice wines, his horses, his
hounds, his deer, his guns, were all sold. But he kept
his hawks, the finest in the world. The fair Alicia had

Colonel ZTfoomas Cborntou 85

already been taken off his hands by a dashing young
naval officer who had come into a fortune. In a certain
law-suit, in which a heavy claim of the Colonel's against
a foolish young man of property in the neighbourhood
was resisted on the ground that the defendant had been
cheated, Alicia took a prominent part, and, in letters
addressed to the newspapers, reviled her old protector
like a very vixen. On reading these effusions the
Colonel, I think, must have been thankful that he was
well quit of the " Nymph of Norwich."

But Thornton still had his place at Boythorpe,
which he had bought from Mr. Bilby in 1791. He
had built there, at a cost of £10,000, a handsome house,
which he christened Falconer's Hall, with fine stabling,
and accommodation for his famous hawks. Situated
among the wolds of the East Riding, about twelve
miles from Scarborough, Boythorpe afforded excellent
scope for coursing and hawking. And there the Colonel
held high revel with his friends, varying the sport and
festivities by annual sporting excursions to Scotland and
occasional visits to London.

In 1806 the Colonel at last took to himself a lawful
wife in the person of Miss Eliza Cawston, the daughter
of a gentleman farmer of Munden, in Essex. This lady
bore him in 1807 a son, William Thomas Thornton, his
only legitimate offspring. In the following year Colonel
Thornton let Falconer's Hall, and leaving Yorkshire,
where the farmers were breaking up the wolds for corn
crops, and thus spoiling them for hawking, betook himself
to Wiltshire, where he leased Spye Park. Traditions still
linger there of the wonderful sport he had with his hawks

86 ikings of tbe IRob, TCifle, anb (Bun

During the next five or six years the Colonel appears
to have been under a cloud. Robbed by rascally bailiffs,
pestered by duns, plagued with writs, the gallant old
sportsman nevertheless contrived to live merrily. He
sold his house " The Boudoir," in Westminster Road,
for fourteen hogsheads of claret, which he removed to
a villa in the Edgware Road. There he barricaded
himself and stood a siege of nearly two years against
an army of bailiffs, still entertaining his friends on
Sundays in right royal style.

In 1814, he was over in France again, astonishing the
natives with his hounds and hunting establishment.
Thenceforward Colonel Thornton lived entirely abroad.
In 1817 he obtained a Royal Ordinance permitting him
to establish his domicile in France, and securing him
the enjoyment of all civil rights so long as he should
continue to reside there. He took on lease the chateau
of Chambord and bought an estate at Pont-Sur- Seine,
which carried with it the title of Marquis, and he used
sometimes to sign himself Marquis de Pont. In 1821
he sold this estate to the famous statesman Casimir
Perier, and passed the rest of his life in hired apartments
in Paris, where the " Falconers' Club," which he had
established there, dined every week. A correspondent
gives the following sketch of the old sportsman's later
years :

"You ask me what I know of old Thornton. I
first became acquainted with him in Paris in October,
1822, when I became a member of a club (of which he
was the head) who dined together at the Shakespeare—
a tavern kept by an old private servant of Colonel T.'s,

Colonel TEbomas Zlbornton 87

one Tillbrook — every Wednesday, when we had a plain
English dinner, roast beef, vegetables, and plum pudding,
to say nothing of a good sea-coal fire in an iron grate.
Two of the most constant attendants were the gallant
Sir Sidney Smith and the great (in every sense of the
word) traveller Belzoni. Colonel Thornton, though no
longer a master of fox-hounds, always dined in a scarlet,
straight-cut coat, of the whipper-in style, and his first
toast was invariably ' Success to Fox-hunting.' Then
came Merlin, a celebrated fox-hound of his, and the
blood of old Conqueror ; and then, in honour of the
pastime of which he was passionately fond, * Lord
Orford and Falconry.' Towards the close of the
evening he would give us, in a style to be remembered
by many a man of half his age, some hunting songs
that transported his listeners into Leicestershire at
once."

The same gentleman goes on to defend the
Colonel against the charge of what is euphemistically
called romancing. Certainly Thornton used to tell
some marvellous stories at times, — his friends said he
did this merely out of playful humour, to test the
credulity of his hearers. Be that as it may, when
Charles Mathews, the elder, introduced into one of
his entertainments a character by the name of Major
Longbow, whose catch phrase was, " Ton my soul, it
ain't a lie, I'll bet a thousand," everyone instantly
recognised a lifelike portrait of the veracious Colonel.

Towards the close of the year 1821 the following
paragraph made its appearance in the London news-
papers : " Lately, after a few days' illness, died the

88 Ifcfngs of tbe 1Rob, IRffle, anfc (Bun

celebrated Colonel Thornton, of Thornville Royal, in
the county of York. * He was not only a great sporting
celebrity, but was also conspicuous in the field of
literature," with further complimentary remarks on the
subject of the obituary notice.

His old friend George Hawkins wrote a letter of
condolence to Mrs. Thornton, and was considerably
astonished at receiving the following reply :

11 PARIS, RUE DE LA PAIX.

December 2$tht 1821.

MY HONEST BROTHER SPORTSMAN,—

This is Christmas Day, dedicated by me from
my youth to gaiety and reasonable hospitality, en-
deavouring to make all happy according to the situation
in which Providence has placed me. In health no man
can be more hearty ; but not quite stout in my knees
and feet ; stomach invincible ; always an appetite ;
eat three times a day — tea, muffins and grated hung-
beef at nine ; at two, roasted game or cock's combs,
and about a pint of the finest white Burgundy ; dinner
at five, and then a bottle of wine and three or four
glasses of spirits, rather weak — then to bed ; sleep
better than ever I did in my life. Pretty well you will
say for a dead man. Rise at eight, breakfast at nine ;
and so we go on. Every night the finest dreams. I
expect some wild boar ; if it comes, our friend B. may
be sure of a part.

P.S.— December 2§th. " I find by the papers that I
died after a short illness, much lamented, etc., etc., at
Paris. However that may be, I gave a dinner yesterday

Colonel TTbomas ftbornton 89

to a dozen sportmen. We had roast beef, plum pudding,
Yorkshire goose-pie, and sat up singing most gaily till
two this morning. At twelve we had two boiled fowls,
etc., and finished a bottle of old rum in punch. No
intoxication, for I went to bed well, and never rose
better."

It has been unkindly hinted that the Colonel himself
circulated the report of his own death in order to see
what the newspapers: would say of him. Lord Brougham
was said by his spiteful detractors to have done the
same thing. In Thornton's case the libel emanates
from persons who brand him as a humbug and a
fraud — an estimate of his character against which I
most emphatically protest.

Colonel Thornton lived for nearly two years after the
newspapers had killed him, and died at last at his
rooms in Paris on March 23rd, 1823. His end was
sudden, for, but a couple of hours before the fatal
seizure, he had ordered out his hounds, and the horse
which he was to have mounted was at the door when
he breathed his last. He was sixty-six years of age,
and had lived every hour of his life.

By his will he left the whole of his property in trust
for Thornvillia Diana Rockingham, his natural daughter
by his last mistress Priscilla Duins. An attempt was
made to upset the will in the English courts on the
ground that Colonel Thornton, as a domiciled French-
man, was subject to the law of France, which did
not allow a man to will away the whole of his property
from his lawful widow and children, or bequeath " an

90 frtngs of tbe IRofc, IRifle, ant)

hereditary portion " to his illegitimate offspring. The
lawful widow had been successful in establishing her
claim in the French courts, but she failed in the
English courts. So Thornvillia Diana Rockingham
Thornton, who afterwards married Admiral the Hon.
E. T. Wodehouse, inherited all her father's property,
to the exclusion of his lawful son. Such is British
justice !

I have devoted a considerable amount of space in
these pages to Colonel Thornton because I think that,
as a sportsman, he has had few equals. There was
not a single field sport in which he did not excel.
Whatever he did was done royally. Whether he
hunted, hawked, fished, coursed, or played the host
at Thornville Royal, there was always the grand style
about everything. And he threw himself heart and
soul into all that he undertook. Let us deal tenderly,
then, with the less heroic phases of his life, and
remember him only as the lavish entertainer, the jovial
comrade, above all, the devoted sportsman who —

Put so much of his heart into his act
That his example had a magnet's force.

Joe Manton

WITH SOME NOTES ON His RIVALS

"THE King of Gunmakers "•— I suppose no one will
deny the claim of Joseph Manton to that title.
Doubtless there are gunmakers now who can turn out
as fine workmanship as Manton's, but there is no one
maker who stands out pre-eminently, a head and
shoulders above all rivals, as Joseph Manton did for
forty years. For a long while it was a case of
" Eclipse first and the rest nowhere." No sportsman
thought himself properly equipped without at least
one of Manton's guns. He charged what he pleased,
and sportsmen paid the price without a murmur, fully
satisfied that, whatever the charge might be, they were
certain to get their money's worth. That fine all-round
sportsman Edward Hayward Budd once heard Manton
say, " I shall continue annually to increase my charges
five guineas, and still no gentleman will be without a
'Joe Manton.'" Seventy guineas was his charge for
a double gun at the height of his fame, and I have
never heard of one costing less than fifty guineas.
A pair of his patent flint-locks alone cost seven
guineas.

91

92 fdngs of tbe 1RoJ>, 1Rtne, ant> (Bun

Manton may almost be styled the inventor of the
double-barrelled gun, for before his time sportsmen
invariably shot with single barrels, and regarded the
double guns in the same light as Colonel Thornton,
" as trifles, rather knick-knacks than useful." Strangely
enough, we seem on the eve of coming back to the
single barrel ; for there can be little doubt, I think,
that the double gun will eventually be superseded by
the single magazine gun, which will give the sportsman
a rapidity and accuracy of fire far in advance of anything
the annals of shooting have hitherto recorded.

I have more than once in these pages referred to
the Diary of Nicholas Assheton, of Downham, a typical
sporting Lancashire squire of the early part of the
seventeenth century. And on looking over his Journal
I find one or two entries which prove how terribly
cumbersome the firearms of his day were, and what
poor sport shooting must have been before the weapons
were handy enough to allow of a man's killing his
game on the wing :

" November 14^/2. — Shott at a moorcock, struck feathers
off and missed.

November 2^th. — Had some sport at moor game with
my piece, but killed not."

Once, however, he chronicles with evident pride the
fact that he "shott two young hinds." The long-bow
was a far deadlier weapon in the hands of a skilled
archer, both in sport and war, than the clumsy firelock ;
and it is a remarkable fact that for accuracy and
rapidity of shooting, no military firearm could compare
with the old long-bow of Crecy and Agincourt and

3oe /IDantcm 93

Flodden until the breech-loading rifle was introduced
into modern warfare forty years ago.

One would like to know at what period the fowling-
piece became sufficiently light and handy to allow of
a sportsman shooting game upon the wing. But I can
find no data to enable me to fix the commencement
of this notable epoch in the history of sport. There
can, however, as I have said, be no doubt that Joe
Manton was the first gunmaker to make the double
barrel popular. Some of his flint-lock doubles which
I have seen are marvels of finished and elegant
workmanship, and come as readily to the shoulder as
any gun I have ever handled. But seventy guineas
seems a long price to have paid for them, good as
they are. Rich sportsmen, however, were willing to
give fancy prices for guns in those days, and Colonel
Thornton tells us that a gun which the Marquis of
Rockingham presented to him cost 450 guineas !
Perhaps, like the rifle which the Duke of York once
ordered, the pan and touch-hole were of gold \ What
His Royal Highness paid for that costly toy I do not
know, but it fetched fifty guineas at the sale of his
effects.

At what date Joe Manton started business in London
I have been unable to discover, but his first patent is
dated April, 1792, and he was then established at No. 25
Davies Street, Berkeley Square, where his shop, familiar
to every sportsman as the dome of St. Paul's, remained
till 1825, when he removed to 11, Hanover Square.
During this time his brother John, whom some good
judges considered little, if at all, inferior to Joseph,

94 ftfnas of tbe 1Rofc, TCtfle, anb (Bun

also flourished as a gunmaker at No. 6, Dover Street,
Piccadilly. The establishments were entirely indepen-
dent of one another ; and though John enjoyed nothing
like the celebrity of his brother, I am inclined to think
that in the long run he was the more successful of
the two. For, despite his extraordinary fame and his
equally extraordinary prices, Joe Manton failed to make
his business pay, and in January, 1826, he was gazetted
a bankrupt. In those days bankruptcy was looked upon
as a disgrace. Insolvents could not pass through the
court in the gay and light-hearted manner in which
the thing is now done — sometimes half a dozen times
in a lifetime. Bankruptcy was a very serious mis-
fortune ; and Joe Manton, though there was nothing
dishonourable about his failure, never recovered from
the blow. He still carried on his business, indeed,
migrating to New Road, thence to Burwood Place,
and thence to No. 6, Hollis Street, where he finally
anchored, and where, after his death, his sons continued
the business till 1840, when it was purchased by the two
well-known gunmakers Charles and Henry Egg.

Joe Manton died at Maida Vale on June 2Qth, 1835,
and his death is thus referred to by his lifelong friend
Colonel Peter Hawker in his Diary :

" Poor Joe Manton — the life and soul of the trade —
died and was buried in the cemetery at Kensington.
Several epitaphs to his memory were prepared at the
request of his family and sporting friends. The one
chosen was that which I wrote, and it shall be inserted
here — not as an essay with pretensions to merit, but
a memorial of justice to departed talent : —

Joe /I&anton 95

' In memory of Mr. Joseph Manton, who died,
universally regretted, on the 2Qth day of June, 1835,
aged 69. This humble tablet is placed here by his
afflicted family, merely to mark where are deposited
his mortal remains. But an everlasting monument to
his unrivalled genius is already established in every
quarter of the globe by his celebrity as the greatest
artist in fire-arms that ever the world produced, as
the founder and the father of the modern gun-trade,
and as a scientific inventor in other departments, not
only for the benefit of his friends and the sporting
world, but for the good of his king and country.'

For some years before his death, poor Joe made
many attempts to re-establish himself in business, and
such was the esprit de corps among his fine army of
workmen, that they rallied round him till the last, rather
than serve under any director in whose abilities they
had less confidence, and who, perhaps, knew not half
so much as themselves. His leading man, poor old
Asell, the father of the working trade, died in Mary-
le-bone hospital ; and some time after, his unrivalled
barrel-borer, John Hussey, died in distress. Penn,
the prince of lock-finishers, died in 1843. But Green-
field, the emperor of mechanics, is in greater force
than ever, with a son as clever as himself. He has
opened a large factory as an engineer, at No. 10, Broad
Street, Golden Square, where he works not only for
the trade in general, but also for Her Majesty's service.
And his son lately came home from Turin, where he
has been putting the Sardinians on their legs by taking
out to them the machinery for making copper caps."

96 ifcfnas of tbe TCofc, IRffle, an& (Bun

A propos of copper caps, the credit of inventing them
has been claimed for Joe Manton. How far that claim
can be sustained will appear from a passage I shall
quote from Colonel Hawker presently. But the dis-
covery of a fulminate by which the percussion principle
could be applied to firearms — a discovery which created
a revolution in the whole craft of gunmaking — was
made, not by a gunmaker, but by an eminent minister
of the Scottish Church, the Rev. Alexander John
Forsyth. He announced his discovery to the world
in 1803, and patented his invention in 1807. But it
was not till 1818 that the percussion cap began to
come into use among sportsmen ; and it was not till
two-and-twenty years later that our sleepy old War
Office awoke to the fact that the flint-lock had every-
where, except in the army, been long superseded by
the percussion. Colonel Hawker tells us that Joe
Manton, previously to 'his failure, had shown him " a
new patent self-priming detonator," which had cost
him £200. The Colonel, as a practical sportsman,
told Manton it would never answer, and he adds :
" As some proof that I was right I need only state
that this gun was bought at the sale for a mere nothing
(Lancaster told me £14), and then, I believe, was dis-
carded by the purchaser." Whether this failure was
Manton's first contribution to the solution of the problem
how best to utilise Dr. Forsyth's discovery in practical
gunmaking, I do not know. But in the ninth edition
of his " Instructions to Young Sportsmen," published
in 1844, Colonel Hawker gives the following interesting
particulars in further discussion of the subject:

3oe dDantott 97

"The copper cap is now in general use all over the
world ; and therefore many gunmakcrs attempt to
claim the invention as their own.

I do not mean to say that I was the inventor of
it — probably not : but this I must beg leave to state : —
when Joe first brought out his detonators, in Davies-
street (those which were discarded from giving so much
trouble), he made me the most perfect gun I ever saw ;
and doubting whether such another could be got, I set
my wits to work in order to simplify the invention.
At last the plan of a perforated nipple, and the de-
tonating powder in the crown of a small cap occurred
to me. I made a drawing of it, which I took to Joe.
After having this explained, he said he would show
me something in a few weeks' time ; when, lo and
behold ! there was a rough gun altered precisely on
my own plan ! His factotum, poor old Asell, assured
me that the whole job was done from my drawing.
Thus Joe, who led the fashion for all the world, sent
out a few copper-cap guns, and I know, with some
degree of reluctance. The trade, finding that he had
then deviated from his own patent, adopted this plan ;
and it proved to answer so well that we now see it
in general circulation. So much, and no more, have
I to say about the wished-for discovery of the copper-
cap inventor. But if Mr. This and Mr. That have any
fancy to claim the invention they may safely fire their
ammunition into all the periodicals they please, as I
shall not indulge them with any paper war on the
subject."

And yet, oddly enough, Colonel Hawker, the best

7

98 Ifcinss of tbc 1Rot>, IRifle, an& (Bun

sportsman of his day, regarded the introduction of the
detonator as ruinous to the gunmakers' trade. Take
the following passage :

"As I before recorded, another celebrated man, old
Egg has been some time dead, and is succeeded by
his son John, who now lives in the Colonnade, Pall Mall.
Instead, however, of his " cutting up fat," as was ex-
pected, he died like a man of genius ; or, in other
words, with his balance on the shady side of the book !
The gunmakers, in short, still remain as I left them—
like the frogs without a king ; and as before, com-
plaining bitterly about the dullness of trade. But for
this they have to thank their introduction of the
detonating system, by which they got caught them-
selves in the very trap that was laid for their customers.
When flint guns were the order of the day, few sport-
ing gentlemen ever thought of using anything but the
gun of a firstrate maker, for the simple reason that —
on the goodness of the work depended the quickness in
firing, and consequently the filling of the bag. But,
nowadays, every common fellow in a market town can
detonate an old musket and make it shoot as quick
as can be wished ; insomuch that all scientific calcula-
tions in shooting, at moderate distances, are now so
simplified that we, every day, meet with jackanapes
apprentice boys who can shoot flying and knock down
their eight birds out of ten. Formerly shooting re-
quired art and nerve — now, for tolerable shooting (at
all events for the use of one barrel) nerve alone is
sufficient. Formerly a first rate gun was a sine qua
non ; now the most that we can call it is a desideratum ;

Joe /IDanton 99

since all guns are now made to fire with nearly equal
velocity. Still, however, fortunately for the leading
gun makers, there are yet left many requisites which
induce good sportsmen to go to the heads of the trade,
viz. (i) soundness and perfect safety in guns; (2) the
barrels being correctly put together for accurate shoot-
ing ; (3) the elevation being mathematically true, and
raised strictly in proportion to the length of tJte barrel ;
and (4) the stock being properly cast off to the eye,
and well fitted to the hand and shoulder. I say nothing
of the balance, because any good carpenter, with some
lead and a centre-bit, can regulate this to the shooter's
fancy."

These remarks were written when the detonator was
comparatively new — that is to say, in the year 1822. I
gather, however, from the following passage that the
Colonel had considerably modified his ideas twenty
years later, despite his half-hearted assertion to the
contrary, " Though like the rest of the world," he
writes in the ninth edition of his " Instructions to Young
Sportsmen," " I have long been kidnapped into the
constant use of detonators, still I have no reason to
alter the opinion I gave in 1822: and were my time
to come over again, I might probably be content with
the flint, though I have, of course, as everyone does,
shot more accurately and missed fewer quick shots
with the detonator."

It seems odd to us of this generation that any
sane human being could possibly prefer a flint to a
percussion gun. But your middle-aged sportsman is
the most conservative of mortals: he abhors every

ioo Ifcfns of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc 6un

innovation; and I have known many good sportsmen,
who, having been used all their lives to muzzle-loaders,
could not or would not see the superiority of the
breech-loader, but maintained with their dying breath
that the good old muzzle-loader shot straighter and
harder than the best breech-loader that ever had been
or ever would be invented.

Colonel Hawker, as I have said, was on intimate
terms with Joe Manton, who was a good sportsman
and an excellent shot, and I cull the following extract
from the Colonel's Diary, descriptive of one of Joe's
many visits to Longparish :

"September i$thy 1827. — Mr. Childe the artist arrived
at Longparish, and Mr. Joseph Manton, preparative to
a painting being made of our partie de chasse.

1 7th. — Assembled my myrmidons for one more grand
field day, in order to have some of their likenesses.
Mr. Childe attended as a strict observer, and Mr.
Joseph Manton shot with me. Our united bag was
48 partridges and i hare, and we returned some time
before the day was over in order that Mr. Childe
might complete, by good daylight, the necessary
sketches of the group. My share of the bag was 28
partridges, but had I shot entirely by myself, and been
able to waive the usual ceremony of shooting in com-
pany, and galloped up to all my birds, as heretofore,
I am confident I should have killed 30 brace of birds.
I therefore calculate that by taking out another sports-
man the larder fell 6 brace short; because, to follow
birds up, as I ought in this wild country, I must do
that which in company would be unsportsmanlike and

Joe fflanton 101

ungentlemanlike to whoever was my companion ; and
Joe Manton not being one of the quickest movers,
either on horseback or on foot, doubly retarded several
of the necessary attacks.

i8///. — Stayed at home with Mr. Childe to arrange for
the disposition of the picture, etc., while a friend and Joe
Manton went off shooting. Nothing in ' Hudibras,' or
'Quixote' could be more ludicrously crisp than the
result of their day. They were to beat us all by going in
a quiet way, and meant to astonish us by showing what
could be done by one dog, and a little poaching on
our neighbours. But, (yes, but) as the kitchenmaiti
(and the devil) would have it, the aforesaid dog un-
happily fell foul of a tub of buttermilk just before
starting, with which he so preposterously blew out his
paunch that he was pointing all day, not at birds, but to
open both his ports, in order to be relieved of what he
had taken in ; and before he was sufficiently in trim to
do anything but make his deposits from one port, and
cast up his accounts from the other, it was time to
come home for dinner, and the finale was a deluge of
rain. So much for buttermilk. Joe Manton suspected
I had played this trick as a punishment for his
challenge ; but I was as innocent of the hoax as they
were of the murder of game, they having got but seven
birds all day.

\gtli. — Fifty partridges and 4 hares, besides lost
and divided birds, to my own gun and exclusive share
in six hours' shooting with Mr. Henry Fellowes, who
is one of the quickest, coolest and best sportsmen I
ever entered a field with. He had a rascally gun

102 ftinss of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc Gun

that quite spoiled his shooting, though I could see
he was a good shot. Had it not been for this, I
daresay we should have killed 100 birds in the
six hours, notwithstanding we had a very wild windy
day, and a pelting storm just in our best shooting,
which spoiled the ground for at least an hour after
it had ceased. We had only one gun each. Joe
Manton, Mr. Childe, and L - hung on our leeward
flank, and got u brace and i hare.

2Otk. — Joe Manton left us to-day for town highly
delighted and astonished with what he had seen."

The illustration here reproduced represents Colonel
Hawker and his guests on their return from the day's
shooting. The centre figure is the Colonel, and Manton
stands in front of him slightly to the left.

That Colonel Hawker was an enthusiastic admirer
of Joe Manton as a gun maker is apparent from the
epitaph I have already quoted. He never changed his
opinion, but to the last declared that if anyone would
look "(not with the naked eye but with a magnifying
glass) at the work in every part of Joseph Manton's
guns and at those of most other makers, he will discover
about the same difference that there is between one
of our best new town-built coaches and that Gothic
vehicle which among our moderns is yclept a Jarvey."

The number of patents which Joe Manton took out
for improvements in firearms was so large that I
have no space to enumerate them. There was one
notable invention of his, however, which deserves a word
of mention, if only for the scurvy treatment he received
from the War Office in connection with it It was

Joe flDanton 103

a patent for the rifling and improved loading of cannon.
A cup made of alder, or any very soft wood, so turned
as partially to receive the ball, kept it steady in its
passage through the calibre of the piece, acting also
as a circular wedge which stopped the windage. Into the
soft wood of the cup the threads of the rifling were
indented, and the iron ball was thus prevented from
injuring the sides of a brass gun by grazing them, and
the thick bottom of the cup also served as a wadding
to the cartridge. The experiments, made at the
inventor's expense, were so successful that the Duke
of Richmond, then Master of the Ordnance, publicly
announced that the Government intended to purchase
the invention, and by that announcement prevented
Joe from taking out his patent in the usual way. And
what do you suppose they offered the inventor for
the invention of which they thought so highly ? The
munificent sum of £500, about half of what Manton
had expended in perfecting and testing his invention ! !
Needless to say, Joseph declined the generous offer.
" Very well," said the Duke of Richmond, " if you don't
choose to take the sum we offer, you may get out your
patent as you can." And, remember, Manton was
expected to give up his secret, stock, lock, and barrel,
to the authorities at Woolwich, and forgo any
further profit for that absurd remuneration ! Of all
the many shabby acts of which the War Office has
been guilty towards inventors, that, I think, is about
the shabbiest.

Before I part from Joe Manton there is one good
story of which he is the hero worth telling. When Joe

io4 Ifctnas of tbe 1Rofc, TCifle, anb <3un

was crossing Hounslow Heath in a chaise late one
winter's afternoon, he was stopped by a highwayman.
On hearing the summons to " stand and deliver,"
Manton looked hastily out of the window and recognised
a pistol of his own make levelled at his head. " Why
damn it, you rascal," cried the indignant gunmaker,
" I'm Joe Manton, and that's one of my pistols you've
got. How dare you try to rob me ! "

" Oh ! you're Joe Manton, are you ? " said the highway-
man coolly. "Well, you charged me ten guineas for
this brace of pistols, which I call a damned swindle,
though I admit they're a good pair of barkers. Now
I mean to be quits with you. Hand me over ten
guineas, and I'll let you go because you're Joe Manton,
though I know you've got fifty pounds at least about
you!'

Joseph swallowed his wrath and promptly paid
the ten guineas. But he never forgave the highway-
man for getting a brace of his best pistols for nix, and
he made himself a special double gun, with barrels
barely two feet long, which he always carried about
with him afterwards when travelling, and christened
"The Highwayman's Master." With this weapon
I have heard that he subsequently shot a highwayman
who stopped his chaise and mortally wounded him.

I have mentioned in passing one or two of Joe
Manton's rivals in the gun-trade, but there was one who
deserves a more extended notice.

When Colonel Hawker once asked Manton who was
the next best maker to himself, Joe's reply was, " Purdey
gets up the best work next to mine." And no doubt

3oe Aanton 105

that was the general opinion. But Birmingham thought
otherwise, and ranked her Westley Richards as second
to none. That famous maker had as his London
representative in Bond Street a man whose name was
familiar as a household word in the mouths of all
the sportsmen of the metropolis, but especially such
as patronised " The Fancy." " Uncle Bishop," or " The
Bishop of Bond Street," as he was humorously dubbed,
was one of the best-known men in London. The Prize
Ring was his pet hobby, and pugilism had no more
liberal and ardent patron than this jovial gunmaker.
When Corinthians wanted to see a " merry mill " they
were glad to put themselves under " the Bishop's " wing,
for not only were they safe from robbery, but they were
sure to be generously catered for. " The Bishop's "
hampers on these occasions were always carefully packed
and contained the choicest wines and comestibles. And
he had his reward. For it soon became an acknow-
ledged fact that the best man in London to supply
a good gun at a few hours' notice was Bishop, and in
this way the guns of Westley Richards found their way
into the hands of some of the most aristocratic sports-
men in the West End. I do not know when Bishop
died, but I think he lived to see the ignominious death
of the Prize Ring and a change in London life
which must have saddened his jolly spirit. It was a
peculiarity of Bishop that he always wore an apron
in his shop and was never seen without it on his own
premises. And no one would have guessed from his
deferential manner to his customers that he had been
up roystering with swells of the first water till long after

106 ftfns of tbe 1Rofct TCifle, an& 6un

cockcrow, nor did he ever suffer any allusion to these
pastimes of his leisure to escape him in his shop, even
when his customer happened to be one of the late
companions of his revels. There may have been just the
suspicion of a humorous gleam in the corner of his eye,
but no more, and his customers always respected his
wish that nothing but business should be talked in the
shop, so that there should be none of the familiarity
which breeds contempt.

In the portrait given herewith William Bishop is
represented in the act of selling a Westley Richards
to one of his old patrons. The hat, with its sporting
cock, was the symbol of his independence as the apron
was of his business. He always wore both in the shop
to let the world know that a tradesman could be civil
without being servile.

Like all true sportsmen, William Bishop detested
carelessness in the handling of firearms. The constant
accidents attributable to such carelessness provoked
him to issue in 1856 a pamphlet entitled "Caution as
to the use of Firearms," in which he pointed out
forcibly and sensibly the sins of some so-called
sportsmen in this respect, and urged the compulsory
usage of certain simple rules in all shooting parties
which would render accidents almost impossible. His
comments on the Cockney boobies who lark with
fire arms loaded or unloaded were severe and caustic,
and are as applicable now as then to certain " bounders "
who should be entrusted with no weapon more lethal
than a pop-gun.

The jovial gunmaker was also a recognised authority

THE BISHOP OF BOND STREET."

Joe flDanton 107

on all canine matters. He had probably no superior as
a dog-fancier, and, to quote a sporting paper of the
time, " his canine levies are always attended by the
elite of the sporting world." It was mainly through
the indefatigable exertions of "the Bishop of Bond
Street " that an important Act for the legal protection
of dogs was passed, still known, I believe, as " Bishop's
Act." At the time when Bishop took the matter up,
dog-stealing had reached such a pitch that no one could
keep a valuable dog without having it constantly stolen
and being the chronic victim of an impudent system of
blackmailing. But "Bishop's Act" put an effectual
check on these nefarious practices, for it hit both the
thief and the receiver, and the jolly gunsmith thereby
earned the gratitude of every dog-owner in the
kingdom.

The Rev. William Barker Daniel

LAYMEN have ever had a kindly feeling for the sporting
parson, though, if the truth must be told, he has not
always been a credit to his cloth or an ornament to
society. The jolly, shovel -hatted rector who loved
port wine and a good dinner, who was not ashamed to
patronise a prize-fight or a cocking match, and was
more at home on the racecourse or in the hunting-
field than at a religious meeting or a clerical conference,
who could swear, if need be, a good, round, honest oath,
and whose wife wrote his sermons for him, was a popular
personage a hundred years ago and less. Thackeray
has drawn his portrait in the Rev. Bute Crawley, and
one likes the man, at any rate, far better than that
evangelical prig his nephew, the correct and loathsomely
respectable Mr. Pitt Crawley. In an age when manners
were coarse and morals lax, it soothed the consciences of
easy-going folks to have clerical countenance for their
pet vices, to feel that their spiritual pastors were —

creatures not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,

but full-blooded mortals who could eat and drink and
shoot and hunt and fish and fight and swear with the

108

tRev\ TKHtlliam :JBarfecr Daniel 109

best, or worst, of the laity. I am not sure that the
parson who could hold his own at all these pastimes
with the doughtiest was not regarded with more
reverence and respect than he could have commanded
by the most blameless and saintly life.

In that wonderfully graphic picture of the fox-hunters'
orgies which James Thomson gives in " The Seasons,"
the hero of those drunken revels, when all the rest are
stretched upon the floor " drench' d in potent sleep till
morn," is the sporting parson :

Perhaps some Doctor of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,
Outlives them all: and from his buried flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these later times.

Not a creditable triumph, you will say. Well, perhaps
not ; but still, in an age when manliness was measured
by the standard of capacity for liquor, the man, cleric
or lay, who could put away more than his fellows
without losing his reason was a man looked up to
with respect, not to say reverence ; and Thomson's
reverend doctor may have utilised the influence
thus gained to work out some good purposes of his
own. Who knows ? Let us, at any rate, give him the
benefit of the suggestion.

For my own part, I confess that I find it difficult
to feel any tolerance for sporting parsons of the type
of Bate Dudley, the fighting editor of the Morning Post,
though he was a baronet to boot ; or Parson Ambrose,
the rector of Bletchley, who never missed a prize-fight ;
or the notorious " Billy Butler," rector of Frampton, in

no frtngs of tbe 1Rofc, raffle, an& 6un

Dorset, who went cub-hunting on Sunday mornings,
and rode up breathless to the church door just in time
for Matins, who fought mains of cocks at the Rectory
directly divine service was over, and trotted about
on his old nag with a retriever at his heels, poaching
his neighbours' pheasants in a way which I can only
call blackguardly. Parson Griff Lloyd, Fellow of All
Souls' and rector of Christleton, was not very much
better, though the " Druid " has thrown the aegis of
his eulogy over him. Griff would put off christening,
marriage, or burial rather than miss his favourite
sport, when —

A southerly wind and a cloudy sky
Proclaimed it a hunting morning;

and if the meet were a distant one on a Monday
morning, he would calmly dispense with evening
service on the Sunday. The best one can say of him
is that he was a good sportsman but a bad parson.

But it is men like " Jack " Russell, of Devon, that
reconcile us to the idea of the sporting parson. For
that great " king of the hunting-field " was ever mindful
of the claims of his calling and never let his sport
interfere with his duty. No one ever heard an oath
pass his lips, nor any expression at variance with his
sacred vocation. He set a grand example of manners
morals, and religion to his parishioners, and showed the
world at large how it was possible for a beneficed
clergyman to be an enthusiastic follower of sport
without compromising his character as a devout and
zealous Christian minister.

ZTbe TCcv. Mtlliam Barker Daniel in

Then, again, who but the most intolerant of Puritans
could find fault with Charles Kingsley for his love of
sport ? What sportsman is there who has read " My
Winter Garden " or " Chalk Stream Studies " and not
felt that the sports he loves have derived a fresh dignity
from the fact that a man so good and earnest as Charles
Kingsley loved them and praised them ?

Some of the best and kindliest men I have ever met
have been sport-loving parsons. I shall always cherish
a grateful memory of one tall, grave, iron-armed York-
shire clergyman, who taught me the art of fly-fishing,
and who could throw a fly with a delicacy and dexterity
which I have never seen surpassed. Another of the cloth,
too, I shall ever remember with affection and respect — a
grand old Manx giant, as noble a specimen of stalwart
manhood as I have ever seen, the very type and model
of a country parson, homely and gentle and strong,
the beloved guide and comforter of all his widely scattered
flock. A true sportsman, too ! How his eye would
brighten and his honest, ruddy, kindly face light up
with interest as we " boys " showed him the snipe or
woodcock we had shot ! And when he was tramping
across marsh and moor to visit the sick among the
mountains, how he would delight to meet us, take one
of our guns for a brief spell, and show us that his right
hand had not forgotten its cunning, nor his eye lost its
quickness by knocking over a snipe or two, or maybe
a cock, in a style that made us feel that we had yet
much to learn in the art of shooting !

These discursive remarks on sporting parsons in
general will, I hope, be tolerated as an introduction to

of tbe 1Rot>, Iftffle, anfc (Bun

the one sporting parson in particular whose knowledge
of sport and great experience with dog and gun entitle
him to a place in these pages— to wit, the Reverend
William Barker Daniel, author of " Rural Sports." I
am afraid that I cannot rank the Reverend William
Barker Daniel among those sporting parsons who
were models of clerical propriety as well as experts
with rod and gun. But as he was never a beneficed
clergyman, his orders sat lightly on him, and he, at
any rate, did nothing, so far as I can discover, to dis-
grace them.

Mr. John Sargeaunt, in his admirable little history
of the famous Essex Grammar School, Felsted, devotes
the following paragraph to Parson Daniel, who was
educated there :

" If Felsted can claim, in Dr. Townson, one of the
most learned of English Divines, we must not from any
fear of the contrast omit the name of one of the most
eccentric of clerics. Whence Daniel came we do not
know, but as a precocious schoolboy of ten summers or
thereabouts, he recited an English copy of verses at the
Felsted Speech Day in 1763. He left school some time
later, and went no man knows whither. He was nearly
thirty when he appeared at Cambridge, where he
graduated in 1787. It is probable that he had been on
sporting bent, and when he took orders he did not lay
aside his gun. He held no benefice, and the only
recorded occasion whereon he preached is the Felsted
Feast Day in 1792. Nine years later he published the
work on which his reputation rests. He called it ' Rural
Sports,' and it ran through several editions in a short

THE REV. WILLIAM BARKER DANIEL.

ZTbe 1Rex>. TKUIliam JSarfecr Daniel 113

time. Old sportsmen are still to be found in whose
eyes there are but two books, the Bible and ' Rural
Sports.' However, the profits of the work were not large
enough to recoup the cost whereby the writer had gained
his experience. Daniel found it necessary to confine
himself to the limits of the King's Bench. Stung with
the charge that he was but a Nimrod in prunella, or
hopeful of more gains from a fresh venture, he published
from his prison some ' Thoughts on the Lord's Prayer.'
His training had not fitted him for religious literature,
and none but a biographer could now read his discourses.
He died in 1833, being as was supposed four-score years
of age."

I am able, however, from researches elsewhere, to
supply some additional information which had evidently
not been brought to Mr. Sargeaunt's knowledge. Daniel
was born at Colchester in the year 1753, and was the
son of William Daniel, Esquire, presumably a gentleman
of some position and property. On leaving Felsted in
1771, William Barker was entered at Christ College,
Cambridge, as a pensioner, being then eighteen years
of age. His name appears to have been removed from
the books of the college after two years of residence, for
what reason is not stated. But he was readmitted on
September 6th, 1785, took his B.A. degree in 1787 and
his M.A. in 1790. He was then ordained, but as his
name does not appear among the list of beneficed
clergy in Gilbert's Ecclesiastical Directory, published in
1829, it has been conjectured that he never held any
cure. In a letter addressed to the editor of the
Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1802, he is made the

8

H4 ftfnas of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, ant) (3un

subject of the following scathing remarks by an
anonymous correspondent :

" Among the attachments to your cover is an advertise-
ment of 'Rural Sports/ by W. B. [William Barker]
Daniel. This author is a clergyman, and if I mistake
not, M.A. of Christ College, Cambridge, though he seems
unwilling to own his title to either character. Perhaps
there is a peculiar propriety in such renunciation ; for
where is the consistency between being a fisher of men
and a hunter of beasts ? Whether he has attained to
a benefice, or ever performed the duties of his clerical
function, let him answer to the fathers of the Church.
I cannot help thinking he is fitter to act the character
of Nimrod than that of a dignitary in the Church of
England ; for in the Church of Christ there are no
dignitaries."

The editor, however, who probably knew Daniel, did
not wholly endorse this view of his character, for he
appends the following note : " Our correspondent will
here, perhaps, be thought a little too fastidious."

Beyond what is to be gleaned from his personal
experiences given in "Rural Sports," which show that
among the most eminent sportsmen of his day he was
held in high esteem, there is no record of any event in
Daniel's life. But I find the following among the
deaths in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1833 :
"In Garden Row, within the rules of the King's Bench,
where he had resided for the last twenty years, the
Rev. William Barker Daniel, the author of 'Rural
Sports.' He was of Christ's College, Cambridge, B.A.
1787, M.A. 1790."

ZTbc 1Rex>. William Barker Daniel us

Mr. Sargeaunt, it will be noted, attributes Daniel's
insolvency to losses incurred over the publication of
" Rural Sports " ; but the Sporting Magazine in its obituary
notice states that the Rev. Mr. Daniel's confinement
within the rules of the King's Bench Prison was owing
to his litigious propensities, which involved him in costs
which he either could not or would not pay. No doubt
he was able to secure a " day rule " pretty frequently
during the shooting season, which would permit him to
enjoy his favourite sport and get back to Garden Row
before midnight.

That Parson Daniel was a first-rate sportsman and
was highly esteemed among his contemporaries as an
authority, especially on all matters connected with
shooting and the dogs used in that sport, is manifest
from the internal evidence afforded by his great book
"Rural Sports." Published in 1807, it was the first
work of its kind, and all that binder, printer, and engraver
could do to turn it out handsomely was done. The
illustrations are for the most part excellent, and the
three volumes are a very creditable monument to
the publisher's taste and the printer's craftsmanship.

The Dedication, to J. Holden Strutt, Esq., runs thus :
" Two motives impel me to dedicate to you the following
pages : the remembrance of that steady friendship with
which you have honoured me, and the satisfaction
derived from the many days in which you promoted,
and wherein we have together enjoyed, the pleasures of
the Chase." Whilst frankly acknowledging that a large
portion of the contents is compiled from various publica-
tions, he adds : " It can safely be asserted, however, that

n6 mins of tbe 1Rot>, IRifle, an& ©un

the fresh matter is considerable, and that the whole is
arranged on a novel and distinct system."

Of fishing in its higher branches I do not think that
Daniel had much personal experience. He evidently
had a partiality for net-fishing, a thing abborrent to
your true angler, for he states with pride that few
men have seen more of practical net-fishing than
himself, and discourses most learnedly on the various
kinds of nets to be used. Amongst the coarser fish he
seems to be at home, for he tells us of his bream-fishing
at New Hall Pond, Essex, where, on a cloudy day with
the wind brisk, he and four friends took " some hundred
weight, averaging 2 Ibs., the bait used being large red
worm." He also records the wonderful success he had
with tench by adopting the plan of dipping the worm
in tar. Has any modern angler, I wonder, tried that
singular bait which Daniel says he found the tench
take eagerly?

One comes across some curious bits of angling lore
in his pages. Thus we are told that in Malham Water,
near Settle, in Yorkshire, the perch reach the weight of
5 Ibs. and upwards, " all blind of one or both eyes'.' The
trout in Driffield Beck, in the East Riding, are not
only numerous, but " the fish seldom weigh less than
2 Ibs., and frequently five or six'' Of the Thames
we read that it "produces salmon (though not in
abundance), which are generally taken about Isleworth :
these bear a most extravagant price in the London
markets, having been sold at twelve shillings per pound :
eight shillings and half a guinea are frequently given ;
five shillings is the average, because being caught so

Ube 1Rev\ Militant ftarfter S)anfel 117

near London they do not lose their flavour by carriage."
Does any Londoner nowadays know what the flavour
of salmon or any other fish — turbot, say — really is ? I
doubt it. For no fish retains its true flavour after it
has been half a dozen hours out of the water, whether
salt or fresh.

But it is when he comes to treat of shooting that
Parson Daniel is most at home. Take, for example, the
following remarks on spaniels, based on the author's
personal experience :

" Upon no account accept or keep a Spaniel (it is
needless to tell a sportsman not to breed from) which
has any taint of the hound in his pedigree, although for
generations back ; they will be sure to hunt hare in
preference to winged game, and the stock may be
crossed everlastingly, may attain beauty, strength,
symmetry ; yet this latent spark of the harrier will never
be extinguished, and they will always show their pre-
dilection for hare, whenever they have an opportunity, —
and this generally happens when their goodness is most
required, namely in coverts where the winged game is
preserved, and there, for the most part, hares are also
in the greatest plenty. A stronger instance could not
well be exhibited than in the spaniels of Lord Waltham
and Mr. Hoare : a road only parted the seats of those
two gentlemen, and their gamekeepers frequently shot
in the woods together ; their dogs were equally hand-
some, but those of the former would drive hares the
day through, and consequently sprung everything that
accidentally lay in their course ; whilst those of the
latter no more ran hares than they did sheep ; they

us ifctngs of tbe TCofc, TCtfle, anb (Bun

would indeed find the hares but follow no farther than
they saw them : they were always in their places,
twisting around every stub with that agility, and
possessed such fineness of nose that neither woodcock
nor pheasant could escape their search. Lord Waltham's
Spaniel Bitches had originally a cross of the beagle, and
although this was tried to be remedied by resorting to
the best dogs, the tendency to hare could never be
subdued."

The Compiler's spaniels were so very excellent that
he was once desired to fix his own price upon six brace
and a half, after being offered one hundred and fifty
guineas for them. He had, many years previous, pur-
chased at various times, at least four score spaniels, all
with the best of characters, but which, with the exception
of four brace, were regularly consigned to the halter
for incorrigible hare-hunting ; nor would he ever have
got them to his wish, but by procuring Mr. Hoare's
after that gentleman's decease : those with an increased
attention to obtain any cross that could improve them,
had rendered them superior to most. Amidst a great
abundance of hares in all the manors he preserved, he
had at one time in his possession six brace of spaniels
that would not individually or collectively run a hare
thirty yards ; it will readily be supposed with such dogs
he could not fail of finding all the game that any covert
contained ; he seldom lost a wounded bird, nor (unless in
the pursuit of a winged pheasant, when they sometimes
laid hold of his tail feathers, which, from his rapid
running he left in their mouths) did his spaniels ever
break or rumple their game."

TTbe 1Ret> 'William JBarfeer Daniel 119

Of the intelligence of the dogs broken in by himself,
he gives the following instance :

" I once had a pointer that would always go round
close to the hedges of a field before he would quarter his
ground : the dog was sensible that he most frequently
found his game in the course of this circuit, and there-
fore very naturally took the readiest road to discover it.
A setter to whom I had shot for three seasons once left
me when shooting in a country distant from home, and
returned to the inn which we had set out from that
morning. I had fired seven or eight times without
dropping a bird, and have no doubt but my want of
skill occasioned Sancho's distaste, for after riding back
to the inn, to which he had returned, and again taking
him into the field, he soon gave me an opportunity of
regaining his confidence, and for seventeen successive
shots not a bird was missed. A perfect reconciliation
was the consequence."

But the most extraordinary incident in connection
with shooting which Daniel gives is the following
account of a pig which was trained to point. I give the
remarkable story in full :

" Of this most extraordinary animal, will be here
stated a short history, to the veracity of which there
are hundreds of living witnesses. SLUT was bred in, and
was of that sort which maintain themselves in the New
Forest without regular feeding, except when they have
young, and then but for a few weeks, and was given
when but about three months old, to be a breeding sow>
by Mr. Thomas, to Mr. Richard Toomer, both at that
time keepers in the Forest. From having no young she

120 ifcfnss of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc 6un

was not fed, or taken very little notice of, until about
eighteen months old, was seldom observed near the
lodge, but chanced to be seen one day when Mr.
Edward Toomer was there. The brothers were con-
cerned together in breaking pointers and setters, some
of their own breeding, and others which were sent to be
broke by different gentlemen ; of the latter, although
they would stand and back, many were so indifferent
that they would neither hunt nor express any satisfac-
tion when birds were killed and put before them. The
slackness in these dogs first suggested the idea that any
other animal might be made to stand, and do as well as
one of those huntless and inactive pointers. At this
instant the sow passed by, and was remarked as being
extremely handsome. R. Toomer threw her a piece or
two of oatmeal roll, for which she appeared grateful, and
approached very near ; from that time they were deter-
mined to make a Sporting Pig of her. The first step
was to give her a name, and that of SLUT (given in
consequence of soiling herself in a bog) she acknow-
ledged in the course of the day, and never afterwards
forgot. Within a fortnight she would find and point
partridges and rabbits ; and her training was much for-
warded by the abundance of both which were near the
lodge; she daily improved, and in a few weeks would
retrieve birds that had ran, as well as the best pointer ;
nay, her nose was superior to any pointer they ever
possessed, and no two men in England had better.
They hunted her principally on the moors and heaths.
Slut had stood Partridges, Black Game, Pheasants, Snipes
and Rabbits in the same day, but was never known to

ZTbe 1Rev>. Mflltam Barker Daniel 121

point a hare. She was seldom taken by choice more
than a mile or two from the Lodge, but has frequently
joined them when out with their pointers, and continued
with them several hours. She has sometimes stood
a jack-snipe when all the pointers had passed it by ;
she would back the dogs when they pointed, but the
dogs refused to back her until spoke to, their dogs being
all trained to make a general halt when the word was
given, whether any dog pointed or not ; so that she has
been frequently standing in the midst of a field of
pointers. In consequence of the dogs not liking to
hunt when she was with them, (for they dropped their
sterns, and showed symptoms of jealousy), she did not
very often accompany them, except for the novelty ; or
when she accidentally joined them in the forest. Her
pace was mostly a trot, was seldom known to gallop,
except when called to go out shooting, she would then
come home off the forest at full stretch (for she was
never shut up, but to prevent her being out of the
sound of the call or whistle, when a party of gentlemen
had appointed to see her out the next day, and which
call she obeyed as readily as a dog), and be as much
elevated as a dog upon being shown the gun. She
always expressed great pleasure when game, either dead
or alive, was placed before her. She has frequently
stood a single partridge at forty yards' distance, her nose
in a direct line to the bird ; after standing some con-
siderable time she would drop like a setter, still keeping
her nose in an exact line, and would continue in that
position until the game moved : if it took wing, she
would come up to the place and put her nose down two

122 lifngs of tbe 1Rot>, Iftifle, anfc Gun

or three times ; but if a bird ran off she would get up
and go to the place, and draw slowly after it, and when
the bird stopped she would stand it as before."

The most interesting and valuable portion of Daniel's
observations on shooting is undoubtedly that which
treats of wild-fowling — a branch of the sport to which
no writer before his time had devoted anything like
the attention it deserves. It will interest even modern
wild -fowlers to read the following sketch of a famous
master of the art to whom Daniel was indebted for
much of his knowledge of the subject :

" Should any Cambridge man who was a fen-shooter)
thirty years ago, honour this book with his perusal, he
will not wonder at seeing the name of Old Merry, of
Stretham Ferry, mentioned as a truly scientific conductor
of this kind of sporting.

In his knowledge of the haunts of the different
species of birds which visited the fens, he was most
precise ; and in the navigation of his punt (a small
boat) along the ditches, which are in fact the only
roads through the fens, his judgment and assiduity were
alike conspicuous : he knew if a drought had lowered
the water where he could make good his point ; and
frequently, whilst shooting parties with other guides
were wearying themselves with towing, or from the
noise occasioned by being towed all the birds in
the vicinity were disturbed, Old Merry was steering
his punt silently to the scene of action ; and in the
fogs, which are so thick as to exclude objects at the
smallest distance, or in the dark, he was equally
collected, and knew how to proceed in the morning*

Ubc TCcv. Militant JBarftcr S)aniet 123

or return at night, in spite of all obstacles. As a
marksman he was extraordinarily expert ; with a gun
upwards of six feet in the barrel, and that placed in
its stock by the village carpenter, and altogether of a
weight which none but the most powerful arm could
extend and elevate, would he kill a snipe flying.
Before exhibiting this proof of dexterity he usually
requested to be supplied with a fresh charge, in lieu
of what he threw away (as he termed it) after so
worthless a bird : the charge of this demi-culverin
was two pipes and a half of powder and three of
shot, and the wadding was a little dry sedge, of which
he always took a whisp in the punt. At wild fowl,
either single or in trips, he was a fatal shot ; from
long habit his eye and ear were both singularly keen
at the approach of wild fowl in their flight, and his
gun generally verified the truth of this observation,
when fired at them in the twilight, or in the fogs ;
and for the most part his caution to look out at the
coming of the birds was so exact, that no person
could well complain of want of shots, if they obeyed
his directions ; his knowledge (either from the wind, or
from some other cause) in seeing the wild-fowl fly, to
what particular spot they would direct their course, was
accurate, and his punt was certain to be either in a
direction to intercept them in their flight, or to be
concealed in the reeds close to where they assembled
to feed at eve or morning. Old Merry had not been
much troubled with education ; rude as the country
in which his occupation lay, he possessed, perhaps
like that, materials which would have received and

124 Ifcinas of tbe 1Rot>, IRifie, anb (Sun

well requited the labour of cultivation ; he had an
innate civility and evenness of temper, which very
few could ruffle, always preserving the most unassuming
behaviour ; and whilst reciting a fund of fen-shooting
anecdotes was ever indefatigable in procuring amuse-
ment for his employers.

One circumstance happened in the course of our
shooting acquaintance, which, however it may evince
Old Merry's attachment to his dog, might have been
attended with serious consequences. This favourite dog
was of the old English water-spaniel kind, and con-
stantly went with his master, to whom he used to
bring coots and wild-ducks when moulting, or the
young flappers in astonishing quantities. One afternoon
the dog showed symptoms of being unwell, refused the
food offered him, took no notice of the birds as usual
and scarcely roused himself at the discharge of the
guns. Upon our return, the dog was at one end of
the punt, and the howl it almost incessantly uttered*
added to the darkness of the evening, and the reflections
upon the cause by which these howlings were produced,
rendered it as unpleasant a voyage as was ever made ;
for Merry made no doubt but that the dog was going
mad, and meant to secure and administer some never-
failing remedy as soon as he got him home ; the dog»
however, frustrated his intention, for when landed at
the house, he directly set off, and what became of him
was never discovered."

Mr. Stuart- Wortley and other expert gunners of the
present day maintain that pigeon-shooting now is very
different from what it used to be, that the birds are far

ZTbc 1Rex>. William JBarfcer Daniel 125

wilder and more difficult to hit, and that the modern
pigeon-shot is far superior to his predecessors. But
even he, I think, will be a little staggered by the
following remarkable exploits chronicled by Parson
Daniel :

"In pigeon shooting, the most wonderful performance
was by Mr. Richard Toomer (the person before men-
tioned as having broke a sow to stand game), who for
a considerable wager shot six pigeons out of ten with
a single ball.

Of this extraordinary man's, and his brother
Edward's excellence in shooting, the following facts
are most decisive evidence : — They have been known
to shoot at pigeons from the trap with their rifles and
a single ball, and to kill eight birds out of twelve,
shooting alternately, and one of the pigeons that did
not drop had its leg carried off by the ball. They
have likewise with a single shot struck twice out of
four shots, a cricket-ball thrown into the air ; and
Mr. R. Toomer, near Hartford Bridge, with his gun
loaded with shot, hit the ball twelve times between
the wickets, when bowled by Harris, one of the sharpest
bowlers in England. This he himself considered a very
good performance. So thoroughly was shooting both
with gun and pistols reduced to a science by the two
brothers, that numbers of gentlemen became their pupils,
and received instruction from them : nor was their
knowledge confined merely to the use and effect of
the gun ; in hunting and fishing they were equally
well experienced. To Mr. R. Toomer's activity and
resolution in securing some of the most desperate

i26 ifcfnas ot tbe TCofc, IRffle, an& (Bun

deer-stealers and poachers that infested the New Forest,
the noblemen and gentlemen concerned in the preserva-
tion of the Deer and Game in that district, can bear
abundant Testimony.

The exploits which Mr. R. Toomer performed in
shooting with such apparent ease soon convinced the
persons who saw them that they were done methodically ;
and this was completely ascertained, by his frequently
suffering himself to be blinded with a double hand-
kerchief over his eyes, after having taken his aim, and
then to fire and hit a small object. Some little time
previous to his death, he went to Moyles Court, near
Ringwood, for a day's rook-shooting ; he made some
trifling bet with Mr. Mist that he killed more birds
with his rifle and a single ball than Mr. Mist did with
his fowling-piece and shot. The number of shots was
limited to twenty. Mr. T. killed every shot, Mr. M.
nineteen ; the latter expressed his surprise at the event,
remarking that as the trees were very lofty, Mr. T.'s
eyesight must be superior to that of others. Mr.
T.'s answer was, ' I will convince you, my friend, there
is not such extraordinary eyesight required, and that
what you have seen is not so difficult as you imagine ' :
he selected a rook, levelled his rifle, and then desired
Mr. Mist to tie a handkerchief over his eyes, so that
he was in perfect darkness. After this was done, he
fired and brought down the bird ; he reloaded and
repeated this a second time with the same effect, to
the astonishment of many spectators. Mr. T. was
satisfied that birds might be readily killed flying with
a single ball, if the lock of the gun was not too large,

tRex>. William JBarfeer Daniel 127

and the spring so tempered that the main-spring and
that of the hammer acted in concert, and that the fire
was emitted freely, and the explosion of course be
instantaneous at the stroke of the flint. In improving
gunpowder as to its quickness in firing, Mr. Toomer,
after visiting different powder-mills, and trying ex-
periments in various parts of the process whilst making,
had completely succeeded ; the secret now remains in
the family, and a considerable advantage is made of
the sale of the powder so prepared ; but it was not
firearms exclusively that Mr. T. was so expertly versed
in ; the air-gun had from him received many improve-
ments ; he has killed fifty brace of bucks in one season
with his air-gun, and was busied in adding to its further
utility at the time when he died, which was at the
early age of thirty-seven years, extremely lamented by
all who knew him.

A singular proof of skill in pigeon-shooting was
effected by Mr. Elliott, at Rudgwick in Sussex, who
undertook to kill fifty pigeons at fifty shots ; it was
decided at Tillington near Petworth, and, notwith-
standing the wind was high, he killed forty-five : it
was allowed he hit every bird, and that he would have
succeeded but for the above circumstance. He had
but one gun, the touch-hole of which fairly melted."

Scarcely less remarkable are two instances which
Daniel gives of the performances of a couple of crack
game-shots, both of which feats he witnessed. A
Mr. Jenkins, of Petworth, killed twenty brace of birds
in forty shots, and in four days' shooting never missed
once. Cottingham, Lord Rous's keeper, when out with

128 ifcfnas of tfee 1Rofc, IRffle, an& (Bun

Daniel, killed with forty-three consecutive shots at
partridge, pheasant, woodcock, and hare.

The parson also tells us that in November, 1801,
Sir Wilfrid Lawson's keeper "killed sixteen woodcock
at a shoty and to make the miracle still stranger, one
of the unfortunate birds was of a light yellow colour
with yellow legs " ! This is a feat of which one would
have liked to learn some further particulars. As it
stands in that bald statement, one may be permitted
to doubt its veracity, despite the circumstantial detail
of the yellow legs. I can believe the statement that
the Duke of Maryborough's keeper once killed twenty-
two snipe at a single shot, because I have done some
execution myself upon a big whisp of snipe, rising
suddenly like a flock of starlings, but sixteen woodcock
at a shot - ! ! !

As a set-off to these miraculous feats of shooting,
take the following instances of almost equally remark-
able bad shooting. In 1806 four gentlemen of Camber-
well competed in a five-guinea pigeon sweepstake, twelve
birds apiece. Each man fancied himself as a shot, and
there was heavy betting on the issue of the match. But
not a single bird was killed by any one of the four ! For
the absolutely worst shoot on record, however, commend
me to the following, which took place in 1788 :

" On the day before one of the annual parties at
Clumber broke up, two sets went out, each consisting
of three persons, and a bet was laid which should kill
most game. It was computed that, on an average, each
man of the six got sixty shots : total, 360. The winning
Triumvirate killed THREE birds! The shooters were,

1Rev>. Militant £arfeer Bantel 129

Lord Lincoln, General Philips, Captain (afterwards
General) Lascelles, Rev. Mr. Lascelles, Mr. Cotton,
and Lieut-Colonel Strickland. Here the Game had a
complete Triumph over their Adversaries."

On the subject of " big bags " Parson Daniel held
strong views, but he shows by some very interesting
statistics that foreigners were in his day far worse sinners
in this respect than English sportsmen. At Chantilly,
under the regime of the Prince de Cond£, who kept
an enormous establishment of 500 servants, 500 horses,
and 80 couples of sporting dogs, 54,878 head of game
were killed in a single season. It is also stated that
twelve guns on the Prince Lichtenstein's estate killed in
fourteen hours on an October day in 1777 " 39,000 (sic)
head of game, chiefly hares and partridges." Of course
an " o " too many has slipped in there, but even with
that important alteration the figures are remarkable
for days of flint-locks and single barrels.

"In 1801," writes Mr. Daniel, "Mr. Coke, who is
perhaps the very best shot in England, killed in five days
726 partridges : surely the number of discharges must
deafen the operator, putting the destruction out of the
question : and Mr. Coke is so expert a marksman that
as he inflicts death whenever he pulls the trigger, he
should in mercy forbear such terrible examples of his
skill." What would our excellent parson have thought
of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, who killed 740
partridges to his own gun in a single September
day ! I am sure, however, that no sportsman of to-day,
however insatiable his lust for slaughter, would be guilty
of such revolting barbarity as the butcher, if so gentle a

9

130 Ikinss of tbe TCofc, IRifle, an& 6un

term be not more than he deserves, of whom Daniel tells
the following story :

" It is a fact well authenticated, that one Gentleman
who used to boast that he never killed less than twenty-
jive brace of partridges on the first of September^ has
been known to take the late hatched birds, that could
scarcely fly above the stubble, from before the noses
of his pointers, tie their legs together, hang them up,
and so shoot them, that he might not fall short of
his favourite number."

This is an awful example of the demoralising effects of
the lust for big bags, and it conveys a not unseason-
able warning.

In 1813 Daniel published a supplement to his " Rural
Sports," dedicated to the Marquis of Blandford, a
sumptuous volume for which the compiler obtained 700
subscribers. A sorrier piece of book-making I have
seldom seen. It is a mere scrap-book of odds and ends
without any coherence. Two items of information, how-
ever, I gleaned from it which are not without interest.
The one is that Daniel Lambert, the man-mountain, was
famous for his breed of setters and pointers ; four couples,
sold in 1806, fetched 218 guineas. The other item is the
following anecdote of the Duke of Richmond's hunts-
man. Hounds were out at the end of spring, 1783,
and coming to a check, the Duke asked the huntsman
the reason. " Why, my lord," was the reply, " it must
be owing to them damned stinking violets, I think."
There, then, we have the original of John Leech's
famous picture in Punch — a veritable chestnut indeed,
served up fresh at seventy years of age !

TCev. Kntllfam JSarfeer Daniel 131

And here I take my leave of Parson Daniel. His
" Rural Sports " has been superseded by other and
doubtless better works of a similar kind, but he was
the first in the field, and I can assure any sportsman
who may chance to light upon a copy of the book that
he will do well to open it, for he will find much enter-
taining matter in its pages.

Colonel Peter Hawker

I TAKE off my hat, metaphorically, to Colonel Peter
Hawker as one of the very best sportsmen that ever
lived. Neither in my reading nor in my experience
have I met with any man who followed sport for its
own sake with more genuine enthusiasm. Nothing
daunted him in his pursuit of it. He faced cold,
hunger, hardship of every kind with really heroic
fortitude and cheerfulness. As long as he was able
to stand, or even hobble on crutches, he would not
let either the pain of old Peninsular wounds or the
constant attacks of fever and rheumatism to which
he was subject keep him indoors when there was
shooting to be had.

His favourite form of the sport was wild-fowl shoot-
ing, than which there is no severer test of a man's
sportsmanship. For, to succeed in that difficult and
arduous but most fascinating pursuit, there is required
an amount of endurance, hardihood, and patience, a
contempt for discomfort, and a capability of standing
exposure and fatigue which you will find in none but
the most thorough-going enthusiast. To those, how-

COLONEL PETER HAWKER.

Colonel peter Ibawfter 133

ever, who can and will undergo the hardships it entail ,
wild-fowl shooting is the finest and most exciting sport
the British Isles afford. Colonel Hawker is universally
admitted to be the " Father of Wild-fowling," and
assuredly none ever followed the sport with greater
skill or warmer ardour. In these respects he has never
been surpassed, and I know only one man whom I
would bracket with him as an equal — to wit, Sir Ralph
Payne-Gallwey, the greatest practical exponent of
wild-fowl shooting now living, and a sportsman of
the same heroic type as Hawker.

But Colonel Hawker was more than a sportsman —
he was a gallant soldier, a cultured gentleman, and a
most accomplished musician. It is odd to find the
author of " Instructions to Young Sportsmen " — the
most popular and valuable handbook of sport ever
written — also figuring as the author of " Instructions
for the Best Position on the Piano-forte," and the
patentee of very ingenious hand-moulds for that instru-
ment. It is true that while the sporting " Instructions "
have run into eleven editions, the musical " Instructions "
have never got beyond the first modest edition. But
the Colonel was just as enthusiastic about the piano
as about the gun, and could finger the keys of the
one as skilfully as the trigger of the other.

Peter Hawker was the son of Colonel Peter Ryves
Hawker, of Longparish, Hants, by Mary Wilson
Yonge, a lady of Irish family. Born on December
24th, 1786, he entered the army as a cornet in
the ist Dragoons in 1801, being then only fifteen
years of age. His Diaries of sport, which he kept

134 Ifctngs of tbe 1Rofct IRffle, an& Gun

regularly for fifty years, commence with 1802, when
he was sixteen. How precocious a sportsman he was
may be gathered from the fact that his bag for the
month of September in that year amounted to three
hundred head, and he killed his first thirteen jack-
snipe without a miss ! He was, indeed, ever a deadly
shot at snipe. In one of his best seasons he killed
forty in succession without a miss, and it was by no
means an uncommon thing with him to kill eleven
out of twelve. Sixty shots in succession at various
game without missing he chronicles in one entry in
his "Diaries," and seventy-seven partridges out of
seventy-eight in another. He must have been in-
comparably the best game-shot of his time, and I
should doubt whether he has ever been surpassed.
That he was a lively and frolicsome young sportsman,
too, is proved by many entries in his " Diaries." Here
is one as a specimen, under date October 3rd, 1808,
when his regiment was quartered at Ipswich :

" ^rd. — Went from Ipswich, with a party amounting
to near twenty, besides markers and beaters, to storm
a preserved cover belonging to a Parson Bond, because
he never allowed anybody a day's shooting, and had
man-traps and dog-guns all over his wood. I had made
out a regular plan of attack and line of march, but our
precision was frustrated by the first man we saw on
reaching the ground, who was the keeper ; we there-
fore had no time to hold a council of war, but rushed
into cover like a pack of foxhounds, before his face.
Away he went, naming every one he could, and we all
joined him in the hue and cry of ( Where is Parson Bond ? '

Colonel ipctcr tmwfeer 135

In the meantime our feu de joie was going on most
rapidly. At last up came the parson, almost choked
with rage. The two first persons he warned off were
Pearson and myself; having been served with notices
we kept him in tow, while the others rallied his covers,
and serenaded him with an incessant bombardment
in every direction. The confused rector did not know
which way to run. The scene of confusion was ridiculous
beyond anything, and the invasion of an army could
scarcely exceed the noise. Not a word could be heard
for the cries of ' Mark ! ' < Dead ! ' and ' Well done ! '
interspersed every moment with bang — bang, and the
yelping of barrack curs. The parson at last mustered
his whole establishment to act as patriots against the
marauders, footboys running one way, ploughmen
mounted on cart-horses galloping the other, and every
one from the village that could be mustered was
collected to repel the mighty shock. At last we re-
treated, and about half-past four those who had escaped
being entered in his doomsday book renewed the attack.
The parson having eased himself by a vomit, began to
speak more coherently, and addressed himself to those
who, being liable to an action of trespass, were obliged
to stand in the footpath, and take the birds as they
flew over ; at last so many were caught that the battle
ceased. Though a large number of pheasants were
destroyed, the chase did not end in such aggregate
slaughter as we expected, and not more than one-
third of those brought down were bagged, in consequence
of our being afraid to turn off our best dogs ; we brought
away some of the parson's traps, one of which was a

136 Ikfnss of tbe 1Rofct IRtfle, an& Gun

most terrific engine, and now hangs in the mess-room
for public exhibition. Only one dog was caught the
whole day, and whose should that be but Parson
Bond's ! "

In 1803 Cornet Hawker exchanged into the I4th
Light Dragoons, and got his troop in the following
year, for which step he paid £3,990 ; but he sub-
sequently notes as an instance of the iniquity of the
old purchase system that when he was, to use his own
words, "driven out of the service by the Colonel and
Lieutenant-Colonel for no other reason than what ought
to have been a recommendation — namely, the very
severe wounds with which I had till lately been dis-
abled from doing my duty," he only received £1,785 for
his troop. His steps altogether from Cornet to Captain
cost him £5,805, and he lost £2,622 by the bargain.

In 1809 Hawker's regiment was ordered to join the
expeditionary force which sailed under the command
of Sir Arthur Wellesley for Portugal. The horrors of
transit in a filthy old collier, with a drunken master,
Colonel Hawker has graphically depicted in his " Journal
of a Regimental Officer during the recent Campaign
in Portugal and Spain," which was published anony-
mously. There are some soldiers, I believe, who
grumble at the transport accommodation of to-day.
I would recommend such grumblers to get Colonel
Hawker's book, and read his narrative of the sickening
and hideous tortures to which not only the wounded
and invalided but the hale and sound had to submit
in his day on board the floating hells which they called
transports.

Colonel peter Ibawfeer >.w

Young Hawker first smelt powder in a skirmish on
May loth, when the I4th Light Dragoons charged
the French cavalry and inflicted some loss. On
May 1 2th his regiment was engaged in the memor-
able Passage of the Douro, and on crossing the river
was ordered to advance and support the infantry. A
squadron of the I4th formed up in threes, and passing
along the whole British line, which cheered them lustily,
rode straight for the enemy. The first troop, which
numbered but two-and-fifty men, bore the brunt of the
charge, and lost ten killed and twenty wounded, whilst
three out of five officers were put hors de combat.
Hawker had his horse shot under him the moment
after a ball had grazed his upper lip ; but he fought his
way on foot out of the melee, and regained the British
lines unhurt. The little band of survivors drove before
them nearly three hundred prisoners, and altogether the
affair was a most brilliant one. The I4th were publicly
complimented by the Commander-in-Chief on their
gallantry ; but the highest tribute to their prowess was
that paid by the general in command of the French,
who said that they must have been drunk or mad,
as the brigade they attacked was nearly two thousand
strong.

This feat of arms entitled the I4th to have the word
" Douro " inscribed on the regimental colours, and thirty
years afterwards Colonel Hawker was agreeably re-
minded of the part which he had played in that dashing
affair. His old regiment gave a picnic at Hampton
Court, to which he was invited. The reception awarded
him was such as to bring the tears to his eyes. None of

138 Ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, ant> 6un

the officers, indeed, had been among his contemporaries,
but there were veteran troopers who had served under
him. "Brown the bandmaster," writes the Colonel in
his Diary, " Healby the trumpet-major (a piccolo boy in
the band in my time), and Fitzhenry, an old mungo and
pupil of mine on the tambourin, soon proclaimed me as
the officer whose squadron won the trophy of the Douro
(which they were wearing), and the respect shown to me
by ' all hands ' was such as I could not but feel." A still
further honour was paid him when the Colonel of the
regiment proposed his health in a stirring speech, re-
capitulating the gallant deeds of their distinguished guest.

At the fierce battle of Talavera, fought on July 2/th
and 28th, 1809, Hawker was very badly wounded,
and was left for hours in agony in the street where he
had fallen. When he was at last picked up he did not
fare much better. " The hip-bone," he writes, " which a
rifle-ball had gone through and shattered, and the
muscles of my back, where it was then lodged, were
bumped with the greatest violence against the hard sides
of the carriage." The consequence was that inflammation
set in and he narrowly escaped death. He was invalided
home, but as soon as he thought himself well enough for
service he set out to rejoin his regiment. Three times
he sailed, and three times, either from stress of weather
or other mishap, the ship which carried him put back to
England. Thus, after travelling a thousand miles, and
spending upwards of £200 in outfit and passage money,
he was after all baulked of taking any further part in the
perils and glories of the campaign.

In 1813 Captain Hawker retired from active service

Colonel peter tbawfeer 139

under the circumstances to which I have already referred.
But in 1815, at the recommendation of the Duke of
Clarence, he was promoted to the rank of Major, and in
1821 was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the North
Hants Militia.

So much for his soldiering ; now let me get back to his
career as a sportsman. Even in the midst of war he did
not lose sight of sport, and both in Spain and Portugal
he pursued his shooting with indefatigable zeal, though
with little success. Portugal he found almost destitute of
game ; but in Spain there were wood-pigeons, red-legged
partridges, and " curious foreign birds " in plenty, which
afforded some pastime.

In his Diary for 1809-10 I find this entry: "Only
returned from Spain September 28th, and had very little
shooting this season owing to severe wound received at
Talavera last July 28th." What shooting he did was
done from a phaeton, for every movement of his leg
caused him great pain. Yet so indefatigable was his
zeal for sport that he hobbled out on crutches on
February 27th to have a try for trout, and, though
compelled to support himself with a stick whilst he
threw a fly, brought five brace to hand.

Hawker was indeed one of those " hard Englishmen "
whom Kingsley says our " hard, grey weather " breeds,
and even serious illness could not keep him from follow-
ing the sport he loved. Here is an instance, taken at
random from his Diary for September, 1822 :

" \Wi. — The difficulty of killing birds put me on my
metal, and my friends, defying me to get even 3 or
4 brace, made me desperate. I therefore quacked

140 ffcfngs of tbe TCofc, TCifle, an& Oun

myself up with tincture of bark, sal volatile, and spirits
of lavender, to give me artificial strength for a grand
field day, and, aided by markers of cavalry and infantry,
I attacked the birds in right earnest (and when I do this

1 never yet failed), and in spite of an execrably bad
scent, and a gale of wind from the east, I bagged 15
partridges (and another shot dead and lost) and I
hare, without missing a shot. Though I shook like an
old man of seventy I never shot more brilliantly. I, of
course, suffered no other gun to interfere with me, and
therefore went alone, so that I could follow up the game
at speed when the markers gave the signal, and do as I
please, whereas, if I have friends, I always lose two-
thirds of my shooting by wishing to accommodate them
with the cream of the sport.

2ist. — Being sadly in want of game, and seeing every-
one beat by the birds, I quacked myself up again with
sal volatile, bark and lavender, and, aided by the same
good markers, I bagged 12 partridges, 2 snipes, and I
jack snipe, without missing a shot.

26th. — Was prevented going out or doing anything
till this day through illness in the house, and also being
unwell myself. I went out merely to try for a brace of
birds for the doctor, who had been a repeated attendant,
and in an hour and three quarters brought home 6
partridges, 3 snipes, and 2 jack snipes.

Game, etc., killed up to the end of September, 1 822 :
1 08 partridges, 3 hares, I rabbit, n snipes, 2 wild ducks,

2 teal. Total, 127 head."

On another occasion he thus accounts for what he
considered bad shooting : " Was nearly tortured to death

Colonel peter 1ba\vfeer 141

by a relay of three dentists who failed in drawing a
tremendous tooth and finished with breaking my jaw-
bone and complimenting me for the sang-froid with
which I braved their infernal operations." Instances of
his hardihood I might quote by the score, from the
record of his experiences in wild-fowl shooting. On one
occasion he was out for eighteen hours in his punt in
weather so severe that his cap was frozen to his head
and his hands were so frost-bitten that he could hardly
load, yet he thought himself amply compensated for
his discomforts by bagging 53 wigeon, 2 mallards, and
a coot. He frequently buried himself in an old sugar-
cask in the mud on the great sea-lagoons, and waited
there for hours for the flight of the ducks.

Here is a specimen of the sport he met with among
the wild fowl at Lymington :

" 28//z. — My swan that I shot yesterday, having died
and been picked up, there remained 7 of these magnifi-
cent birds, and they were seen off Keyhaven sitting
among what little ice was left, about nine o'clock in
the morning, and every corner of the creeks or on
shore contained a gunner anxiously hoping that they
might possibly swim or fly near enough for a random
shot. Having to contend with all this impediment,
and the wildest birds in existence to cope with, I had
recourse to a manoeuvre which struck me as the only
chance. I dressed myself and Reade in a clean white
shirt, white neck-cloth, and clean white night-cap, and
in my white punt went all the way round to windward
through a pretty heavy sea ; and after getting to where
the hill called ' Mount ' became a background to the

142 frtnas of tbe 1Rcto, 1Riflet anfc Gun

view, in which we appeared, we, dressed thus in milk-
white with a very white punt, drifted among the floating
pieces of white ice till we got within about 180 yards
of these monstrous fowls, when I let drive at their
necks, and knocked down and brought home 2 wild
swans or hoopers. I had to finish one of them with
an old musket, or he might probably have escaped ;
and I wounded a third severely, as three were fairly
laid in the water to the discharge of my swivel gun.
As this attack was in full view of the village, I had
several people anxiously looking on, and among them
my children and all the house with their hearts in
their mouths, and in a gale of wind and rain eagerly
watching our proceedings.

Towards the afternoon I was not a little surprised
to see 1 6 more swans. They were, however, very far
off, and near to a dangerous sea, and therefore, of
course determined to run no risk, I dare only to
venture to within 220 yards of them ; I consequently
fired at this distance, and fairly laid 5 of them down
on the water, till the others had flown above a gunshot ;
and notwithstanding this they all recovered, and, I
suppose, joined the company. The 2 that I killed
were of equal weight (18 Ibs. each), one milk-white,
the other of a dusky colour ; the latter the largest ;
got also this day 10 geese and 5 wigeon. The birds
here being so incessantly popped at, I am obliged to
use large mould shot (called ' S.S.G.') by day. Of this
my gun carries i lb., with an equal measure of treble
strong, coarse-grained powder, made on purpose, as a
common gun or common shot afloat here would rarely

Colonel peter fmwfeer 143

if ever hit a bird so as to kill him. As usual gunners
afloat all day out of number ; and, I dare to say, not
a little jealous of our invariable success."

The vicissitudes of wild-fowling, its irritating and
gratifying incidents, may be gathered from the follow-
ing entries :

" 24th. — A very hard frost, but the wind more
moderate. The birds were frozen out of harbour, and
not even in at night. I went outside for the day, but
found them wild and much scattered, as the moderate
weather had drawn forth the gentleman gunners, who
generally perform the part of excellent ' gallibaggers,'
a term used by the clods for anything to frighten
away birds. All, therefore, I could do to-day was to
bring home 18 wigeon, 2 brent geese, 2 curlews. My
best shot was 14 wigeon bagged. Thus ended the
best week's wild-fowl shooting I had ever enjoyed,
or ever heard of. It is worthy of being summed up
together, being as follows :

Monday. — 22 wigeon 22

Tuesday. — 24 wigeon, I curre, I pintail ... 26
Wednesday (night included). — 101 wigeon, 4 ducks,

6 plover, I coot . . . . . . .112

Thursday.— 5 wigeon, i curre, 5 ducks, I goose,

3 hoopers, 3 curlews 18

Friday. — 28 wigeon, I duck, i curlew ... 30
Saturday. — 18 wigeon, 2 geese, 2 curlews, I plover . 23
Making in all 198 wigeon, 2 curres, 10 ducks, I pintail,

3 geese, 3 hoopers, 6 curlews, 7 plover, i coot ;

which is, 217 wild-fowl and 14 waders.

Grand Total . . .231 head."

Colonel Hawker on one occasion killed in the Solent
100 brent geese with one discharge of his big double-

144 Ifcings of tfoe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& (Bun

barrelled swivel-gun. This is, I believe, a record for
geese, but 1 27 wigeon have been bagged at one shot ;
and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey has frequently killed
50 or 60, and sometimes as many as 60 or 70 wigeon
at a single discharge. The last-named great sports-
man holds the record for a season's wild-fowl shooting —
viz., 1,500 geese and duck. This feat was accomplished
in the hard winter of 1 880-81. It has never been even
approached, and I suppose never will be, now that
wild-fowl shooting is becoming every year harder to
obtain.

Occasionally the Colonel indulged in some fancy
shooting. For example, he has this entry in his
Diary : " Made a droll trial of a new-stocked gun.
I knocked down in seven shots 6 bats and a moth."
And again : " Mr. Cadmore, never having seen a bird
killed flying, I took him out to see me fire 10 shots
at swifts and swallows, 2 at moorhens, 2 at sparrows,
and one at a halfpenny thrown up. I killed every bird
and handsomely marked the halfpenny."

But the most stupendous destruction he ever wrought
with a single shot was the following in September,
1825:

" 26tk. — Tried some experiments on the lake (accom-
panied by Reade, who came to me on purpose) for the
amusement of the officers and a large concourse of
spectators assembled from all parts, and astonished
my lookers-on by some excellent shots at coots, the
only fowl upon the pond. Previously to this, by the
bye, I turned out at five in the morning — after being
up till near three — in order to storm an enormous

Colonel peter Ibawfeer 145

army of starlings, into which I blew off the great
double gun, with 30 ounces of small shot, just before
sunrise. What I killed it is impossible to say, but
from the appearance of the huge hole blown through
the phalanx of birds, my spectators guessed at least
500, though I could get but a mere share of those
which fell, as nearly all of them dropped in the reeds
or on quagmires. What I bagged at the time, however,
was 243 starlings at one shot. The feathers which the
wind blew over and towards us after the shot, I could
compare to nothing but a heavy fall of black snow.

P.S. Dec. 27 tk. — My man Charles came home from
Alresford and brought back word that the reeds were
cut, and the workmen found between 200 and 300
more starlings. If so, I was right in guessing that I
killed 500 at a shot."

One more curious incident in Colonel Hawker's \vild-
fowling experiences let me quote before I leave them.
Under date February I7th, 1826, I find the following
in his Diary : —

" Reade ran out in the rain and ' lowered a parson '
[shot a cormorant]. This bird made some fun for us.
He had thirty shot through his skin ; three flat fish
and an eel were taken out of him, and three shot
through the flat fish, also through undigested stuff like
meat. So that Reade had shot fish flesh and fowl
flying ; and in spite of this the nine-lived glutton led
us a chase for twenty minutes before he got sick enough
to be caught, although shot at, within 40 yards, by a
shoulder duck gun. He was disposed of as follows :
the skin to make a dandy collar for a coat ; the feathers

10

146 1ktn0s of tbe 1Rcto, IRtfle, an& Gun

to make me drawing pens; and his carcase begged by
my boatman Williams, who engaged two friends to
partake of him for a delicate Sunday dinner."

And now let me glance at some of the Colonel's
performances among the "birds." On September 4th,
1826, he writes :

"4^/2. — My first day. The weather mended con-
siderably ; but the country was so extremely barren
as scarcely to afford a vestige of covert for the birds.
The stubbles were all trod down by sheep and ' leasers,'
and, owing to the previous dry weather there were no
turnips large enough to shelter the game. The birds
were plentiful, but much wilder than ever I knew them
in September ; insomuch that scarcely one covey in
ten would allow even the dogs to come within gunshot.
I, however, by means of mustering a good army of
markers and harassing the birds by repeated charges
of cavalry, so completely tired them down at last, that
I performed this day the most that ever was done by
me, or anyone in the annals of Longparish sporting.
I bagged 56 partridges and (for our country, in one
day, a miracle) 7 hares in nine hours ; never lost a
bird the whole day. Owing to the extreme wildness
of the birds, I was, of course, obliged to fire many
random shots ; but notwithstanding I was so weak
from having been unwell, I did not lose a bird by bad
shooting the whole day, as the only two fair shots I
missed were at single birds, both of which I secured
with my second barrel. Taking everything into con-
sideration, this is the greatest day I ever had in my
life.' He adds : « I believe I beat all England. This

Colonel peter fbawfeet 147

was posted as a miracle in all the papers because the
birds were never known to be so wild : considering all
things I shot famously."

But this was eclipsed by the sport he had in the
following September. His bag on the first day was
1 02 birds and I hare, besides three brace shot and
lost ; on the second day 50 birds and 2 hares ; on
the third day 56 birds and 3 hares.

" Having now," he writes, " done what I believe never
was done here before, and what may possibly never be
done here again, and supplied all the farmers and my
friends with game, I shall here terminate the war against
the partridges, and at all events leave them to others
till I want game again and can have proper scenting
weather to kill a few birds in a quiet way." There
speaks the true sportsman, a very different creature
from the mere game-slaughterer.

" In our opinion," says Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey,
the greatest living authority on shooting, "it is a sure
mark of a true sportsman to be contented with a
small and hardly earned bag of wild birds." He is
referring there more particularly to wild-fowl shooting
on shore, but the remark applies generally, and no man
ever stood this test of a true sportsman more triumphantly
than Colonel Hawker. There is one bone, however, I
have to pick with him, and that is in respect of his want
of sympathy with the shore-shooter. Like all punt-
shooters, he regarded the shore-shooter as a nuisance.
Now, I have been a shore-shooter, and I maintain that
the stalking of wild-fowl from the shore requires every
whit as much craft and sportsmanship as punt-shooting

148 1ktn0s of tbe 1Rot>t IRtfle, au& (Bun

demands. I am not underrating the skill and patience
and cunning displayed by the punt-shooter — I admire
and appreciate those qualities, and admit that the
successful punt-shooter possesses them in a remarkable
degree ; but I ask any man who has ever stalked, say,
curlews, whether the craft and wariness and patience
required are not as great as the punt-shooter exhibits.
To my thinking, the man who can fairly stalk and
bag half a dozen curlews in a day has performed a
greater feat of sportsmanship than the man who has
killed fifty wigeon from a punt or a hundred driven
grouse from behind a butt.

Colonel Hawker's grand total of game shot in fifty-
one seasons was as follows :

7,035 partridges.

575 pheasants.

4,488 wild fowl, swans, ducks, and geese.
1,821 riverside and seashore birds.

68 woodcocks.
2,116 snipe.

35 1 plover, grey, green, and golden.

181 various.

17,753

But he tells us that many hundreds of shore birds
and wild-fowl were unrecorded.

It must be remembered that Colonel Hawker was
limited in the extent of ground he had to shoot over,
and, suffering constantly from ill-health, was severely
handicapped. It was his boast that he never knew
an absolutely blank day ; but in some seasons birds
were so wild and scarce that a single shot was all he
obtained in a day. And as for wild-fowl, there were

Colonel peter tbawfcer 149

seasons when they were conspicuous by their absence.
For example, of the season 1842-43 he writes in his
Diary : " No shooting for anyone on the coast this
season." And of 1838-39: "The worst season in the
memory of man, both on the coast for wild fowl and
inland for game. I never even launched a punt (it
was not worth while) this winter, and did not fire a
shot after November 26th."

Of 1851-52 he writes: "Illness nearly the whole
season prevented my shooting, and at one time my
life was in danger."

Taking these drawbacks into consideration, the
Colonel's record of sport, indefatigably pursued for
fifty years, is a fine one. I note, by the way, that
he attributes the falling off in the wild-fowl shooting
about Keyham and Lymington largely to the establish-
ment of Mr. Alexander Baring's bird sanctuary at
Grange Park, where he " feeds and monopolises, merely
to ornament his water and tickle his fancy, half the
fowl in Hampshire. I drove there expressly to see
his collection, and I am confident I saw not less than
8,000 fowl in the water before his house." But there
are two sides to every question, and perhaps Mr. Baring
was actuated by worthier motives than the irate sports-
man assigns to him.

In reading Colonel Hawker's Journals, in which, as I
have shown, he sets down the plain, unvarnished tale of
an enthusiastic sportsman's daily life for fifty years, I
have been struck by the constant reference he makes to
the sport enjoyed while travelling by coach. Delightful
old leisurely days those were when a man could beguile

150 Ifcinss of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, anfc <3un

the tedium of a long journey by shooting on the way !
Take the following entry, for example, descriptive of
a journey by mail-coach to Exeter in 1811 : " We were
a delightfully jolly party, and it not being post-day, the
mail stopped whenever we saw game, and during the
journey I killed four brace of partridges. When it was
too dark to shoot our party mounted the roof and sang
choruses (which I joined in and drove) and in which
the guard and coachman took a very able part." Happy
old days indeed when a sportsman could hop off the
coach and bag a brace whenever he saw a covey, without
troubling his head as to whether he were trespassing or
not ! Though possibly landowners and game-preservers
might not altogether have relished the random visits of
these peripatetic gunners.

As illustrative of the non-sporting phases of the
Colonel's character, let me quote these two entries oddly
sandwiched between two fishing items.

" March i %th. — London. I was till now, an invalid, but
being this day a little better, I went (wrapped up) in
the evening to Covent Garden Theatre in order to hear
my favourite overture of ' Der Freischiitz ' conducted
by the immortal composer himself, Carl Maria von
Weber. Nothing could be more sublimely beautiful,
and the applause that was drawn forth by the appear-
ance of this great composer was no less flattering than
just.

igth. — Sunday. The best sermon (for explanation of
the Scripture, analogy, metaphor, language, logic, and
energetic delivery) that I have ever yet heard, was this
day preached at St. Mary's, Bryanstone Square, by the

Colonel Iteter fmwfeer 151

rector, the Rev. Mr. Dibdin, on the subject of St. Paul's
shipwreck."

The Mr. Dibdin here referred to was the Rev.
Thomas Frognall Dibdin, a noted bibliographer, author
of " Bibliomania," one of the founders of the Roxburghe
Club, and a nephew of the famous song-writer.

Besides being a musical amateur of the first class,
Colonel Hawker was also an amateur actor of exceptional
ability. He used to enliven his tedious journeys by
coach by assuming different characters for the deception
of each batch of fresh passengers on the short stages,
to the mingled bewilderment and amusement of the
coachman and guard.

At the Great Exhibition of 1851 the Colonel exhibited
some very ingenious improvements in firearms of his
own invention which attracted considerable attention
both among sportsmen and military men. He hoped
that the War Office would have adopted some of them ;
but when did any inventor ever succeed in convincing
Red Tape ? His hopes, of course, were disappointed.

Colonel Hawker's last shooting season was that of
1852-53. "Not a shot at wild fowl this season," he
writes ; " but I beat all the neighbours at partridge-
shooting in September, killing 164 birds."

The final entries are the following in 1853 :

"June 2gtk. — Sunday. Being too weak to walk, I
went in a donkey chaise to morning church at Milford
(where, as well as at Longparish, Mrs. Hawker had me
prayed for when not expected to recover), to return
thanks to God for my escape from death in my long and
dangerous illness, through which I had not been in

152 Ifcinas of tbe 1Rot>, IRifle, an& Gun

church since the early part of last January, and never
expected to be in church again, except on my way to
the grave.

July. — Longparish. From the ist I have been so
dreadfully ill that I could do nothing. My nights have
been as awful as before.

jth. — The thunder and lightning all night caused
such oppressive heat that no one could rest in bed. My
sufferings could scarcely be conceived.

%tk to \^th. — Too ill to get about save by quiet easy
drives in the carriage, and to crawl out to look at all the
grand repairs outside the house, which are now done.
Attended by Dr. Hempsted twice a day, as my sufferings
are alarming. We have had incessant wet weather ever
since I returned to Longparish, and consequently the
heavy water-meadow fogs oppressed me even more than
those of London, from which I had retreated on the
score of health. To-day, the I4th, Dr. Hempsted went
from me to his other patient, the Earl of Portsmouth,
for whom he had no hope, and who died this day at
one o'clock. Peace to his soul ! "

Twenty-four days later the Colonel's summons came,
and the sufferings so bravely endured were at an end.
He died on August 7th, in the sixty-seventh year of his
age. Colonel Hawker was twice married : first in 1811
at Lisbon to Julia, daughter of Mr. Hooker Bartellot, by
whom he had a son Peter William Lanoe, who, like his
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, entered the
army and rose to the rank of colonel. He also had some
of his father's sporting tastes, and edited the tenth and
eleventh editions of the " Instructions to Young Sports-

Colonel peter Ifoawfeer 153

men." Colonel Hawker's second marriage took place in
1844 to Helen Susan, widow of Captain John Symonds,
R.N., and daughter of Major Chatterton. The great
sportsman's grandson Captain Peter Hawker, R.N., is
now in possession of Longparish House, and his grand-
daughter Miss M. E. Hawker, who writes under the
the pseudonym of " L. Falconer," is the authoress of
"Mademoiselle Ixe," a novel of considerable merit.

In personal appearance Colonel Hawker was strikingly
handsome. He stood six feet, and to the end of his
days was as straight as a lance, with the unmistakable
carriage of a soldier. In his manners he was a gentleman
to the finger-tips. What he was as a practical sportsman
the reader will have gathered from the foregoing pages,
though I must not omit to add that he was an accom-
plished fly-fisher, as the trout of the Test had reason to
know, for, at the lowest computation, he must have killed
some twenty thousand of them. His " Instructions to
Young Sportsmen " is still the best book on wild-fowl
shooting in our language. " It is a book," says Sir
Ralph Payne-Gallwey, the greatest living authority on
the subject, " which for terseness, accuracy, and original
information is without an equal. . . . With a few slight
alterations, such as the substitution of breech-loaders for
muzzle-loaders, it is in many respects as useful for refer-
ence to this generation as it was to the last, and especially
so with regard to the habits and shooting of wild-fowl."

"Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise
indeed." And any eulogy of mine after such a tribute
from such a sportsman would be not only superfluous but
impertinent.

John Holt, of Tottenham

I MADE the acquaintance of John Holt under curious
circumstances. I had reached that momentous epoch
in a young sportsman's life when he is permitted to
have a brand-new gun made for his own special use.
Hitherto I had shot with an old single gun, the stub-
twist barrel of which was worn so thin that in ramming
down the wad I often cut my finger. But it was a
rare good gun for shooting, and I remember with pride
to this day how I killed my first woodcock with it — a
long and difficult shot — and thereby " wiped the eyes "
of two veteran sportsmen who had missed clean. Con-
ceive the ecstasy of a boy of fifteen at accomplishing
such a feat !

In choosing a new gun I had been advised to
consult a well-known old sportsman living at Stone, in
Staffordshire, where I was then staying on a visit. This
veteran votary of sport was a miller, renowned
round all that country-side for his prowess with gun
and rifle. When I went to call on him, I found him
sitting on a bench in his back garden with a pea-rifle
on one side of him and a double-barrelled gun on the

154

JOHN HOLT.

3obn 1bolt, of ZTottcnbam 155

other. He was a tall, robust, rubicund man, about sixty-
five years of age I should judge, and wore spectacles.
On my introducing myself to him, he said :

" And so you're the young gentleman that wants to
buy a new gun, eh ! Well, can you shoot ? "

I modestly said that I thought I could, a little. He
handed me the pea-rifle, and pointing to a tree in the
far corner of the garden, with a high railway embank-
ment rising behind it, he said :

" Now, d'ye see that oyster shell stuck in the fork of
the branch ? Tis just a hundred paces from where you
stand. I've measured it. Let's see if you can hit it."

I fired and missed.

" Ha ! " said he, " now let me see what I can do."
With that he reloaded the rifle, fired, and the oyster
shell fell shattered.

" Now let's see what you can do with a gun," said
this terrible old man.

He handed me the double barrel, picked up a pebble
about the size of a golf-ball, and flung it into the air.
I fired and missed.

" Ha ! " said he, with precisely the same formula,
"now let me see what I can do."

I picked up a pebble, flung it into the air, and the
old man struck it so fair and square that it was split
into fragments. The gun was eighteen-gauge, and shot
very close and hard.

I felt rather small after my own humiliating failure ;
but the miller's wife, a fine, big, comely, buxom woman,
came up to me, and clapping her hand on my shoulder,
said cheerily :

156 Ikinss of tfoe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc <3un

" Don't you be down-hearted, young gentleman. My
sons are took just the same way when their father's
lookin' on, but they can shoot straight enough when
he's away. And I do say that it's enough to frighten
any young gentleman to see an old man like him
shootin' in that fashion when he ought to be thinkin'
of the other world as he's a-goin' to, where there ain't
no such nonsense as shootin'."

The stalwart miller only laughed and said :

" Well, I dunno about that, missis ; but I daresay this
young gentleman will shoot well enough one of these
days ; and now I reckon he'll come indoors and have
a bit of refreshment and a talk about getting this new
gun."

When I went into the parlour, the first thing I saw
was the portrait of John Holt which accompanies this
article, hanging up framed, in a conspicuous place on
the wall. I stepped up and looked at it.

" Ah ! " said my host, seeing me thus engaged, " that's
the likeness of the best sportsman I ever knew — John
Holt, of Tottenham, one of the good old sort that's
pretty nigh died out. He was my wife's uncle, and
many a day's sport he and I have had together."

My sporting Mentor then gave me some examples
of his friend Holt's prowess with the gun.

" I reckon myself a good shot," he added, " but I
don't think I was ever quite the equal of John Holt
with the gun, though I won't say as I was so very
far behind him. I pride myself now on killing all
my birds dead. I can't a-bear to wing 'em, and that's
why I use such a small bore. And that I learnt from

3obn fbolt, of ZTottenbam 157

John Holt. But with a rifle I could beat him — ay !
and every other man I've ever come across. I've hit
five penny pieces running at fifty yards for a match
of .£50 a side, and I've never found my master at
that game."

From what I had already seen of the miller's skill
I could readily believe this. He was without doubt
a remarkable shot.

It must have been quite twenty years later that I
came across John Holt for the second time. I was
looking over the contents of an old bookstall in Holborn,
and on picking up a stray volume of the Sporting
Magazine for 1835, I lighted upon the portrait of John
Holt, with the accompanying biographical sketch, which
I give intact as an interesting record of a genuine
sportsman of the good old school, whose memory is
worthy of preservation.

"The subject of this plate, John Holt, Esq., of
Tottenham, who departed this life on the 26th of
December, 1831, having nearly completed his 8 5th
year, was an excellent shot of the Old School ; and
so true a lover of fair play, that he scorned to take
the field with a double gun ; and as to battues, he held
them in utter abhorrence ; he considered the former
unfair ; but the latter he deemed a crime little less
than sacrilege. He was not fond of new-fangled
innovations, and repudiated detonators — ' flint and steel,
and straight powder (he was wont to say), were all
that a fair sportsman required.'

Woodcocks were his favourite quarry — indeed he
preferred it to any other kind of shooting — and in

158 ifctngs of tfoe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& (Bun

bringing them to bag was deemed nulli secundus.
From an account which he kept for a number of years,
it appears that upwards of six hundred couple fell to
his single barrel. The coverts which afforded him this
his favourite sport were, Enfield Chase (before it was
enclosed) ; Hollick and Betstyle Woods, near Colney
Hatch ; Lords' Grove, Southgate ; the Larks and the
Hawk Hills, Essex.

Mr. Holt shot wild fowl and snipe equally well, which
at times he met with in great numbers in Tottenham
and Edmonton Marshes. The most inclement weather
did not deter him from going out in pursuit of them ;
and though not a fast walker, no day was ever too
long for him. In all his shooting excursions he was
attended by Joseph Ratford up to the close of a
lengthened and faithful servitude of forty-three years,
when in April, 1817, Death laid this attached follower
low, deservedly lamented by Mr. Holt and his family.
This speaks volumes for both master and man.

In his early days Mr. Holt shot with a gun made
by Lett, and afterwards with one by Nock, the barrels
of each three feet three inches ; but for the last twenty
years of his shooting with one by E. Baker, of White-
chapel Road, the barrel two feet ten inches, a gun he
highly prized, and with which he killed very many
long shots."

The writer then proceeds to give a pretty long list of
John Holt's feats with the gun, which I shall not quote
because many of the exploits considered phenomenal
then would seem of little account to the modern sports-
man. To kill eleven pigeons out of twelve, as Holt

Jobn Ifoolt, of ZTottenbam 159

did on more than one occasion at the Old Hats Club
at Ealing, will not strike the pigeon-slayer of to-day
as an extraordinary performance, though it was con-
sidered at the time a notable feat for a man shooting
with a single-barrel flint-lock.

But even the best game-shot of to-day will admit
that to kill four brace and a half of cock-pheasants,
seven brace of partridges, and a leash of hares — twenty-
six head of game— in twenty-seven shots (no double
shots, remember) was a great performance. And this
John Holt did in a day's shooting near Cromer.

Another good day of Holt's was at Wheathampstead,
in Hertfordshire, when in twenty-nine shots at partridges
he bagged thirteen and a half brace. And scarcely less
successful was his day's shoot at Hadham, when in
twenty-five shots he killed eleven and a half brace
of birds. And as for woodcocks, it was seldom indeed
that one escaped him. In one season he killed twenty-
two in succession without a miss, and in another twenty-
three out of twenty-five.

" From these brief memoranda," says the Sporting
Magazine in conclusion, " it will be seen that no shot
came amiss to Mr. Holt, whether on wing or on
foot.

In vain the startled hare from covert hies —

In vain the whirring covey mount the skies —

The watchful gunner, with unerring sight,

Points his dread tube, and death o'ertakes their flight.

A fairer sportsman than Mr. Holt both as regards
game, and consideration for the farmers' crops and
fences never drew trigger ; and if by any chance any

of tbe 1Rofc, 1Riflet anfc (Bun

one suffered from his enthusiasm in pursuit of sport,
he was always ready to make due reparation.

He was English, sir, from top to toe."

I have given John Holt a place in these pages because
I regard him as a typical sportsman of the old school.
And when one bears in mind that he invariably shot
with a single barrel, his " bags " were phenomenal for
those days. As a game-shot, he could have had few,
if any, superiors among his contemporaries. It was well
that he died before the new style of shooting came in,
for he was one of those to whom " driving " would have
been an abomination, and a battue synonymous with
butchery. I confess that my sympathies are with the old
race of sportsmen, of which John Holt was so excellent
a representative. But, though I began my career as
a sportsman under the conditions and traditions of
the old school, I do not join in indiscriminate abuse
of the new school. My earliest and pleasantest
recollections of shooting are associated, with muzzle-
loaders and well-broken pointers and setters, when
the finding of your game was held to afford quite as
much sport as the killing of it. And I still maintain
that the test of a true sportsman is his capacity for
appreciating and enjoying the science of woodcraft —
the study of the habits and habitats of the game
of which he goes in quest. The modern " drive "
has developed a race of splendid shots, but sports-
manship has been sacrificed to marksmanship.

I will admit that the close farming of the present
day has rendered shooting over dogs after the old style

3obn 1bolt, of TTottenbam 161

almost impossible. I grant, too, that the skill required
in shooting driven game is far greater than was
demanded of the old-time sportsman — for a rocketing
pheasant or a grouse, coming down the wind at the
rate of sixty miles an hour, is a hundred times harder
to hit than birds flushed within twenty or thirty yards
of the shooter over a steady brace of pointers or setters.
But where does the sport come in at these big shoots ?
The craze for enormous bags is a thing I cannot
reconcile with the spirit of true sportsmanship. To
me it seems a piece of vulgar brag — a show got up
to advertise the prowess of individual shooters and the
head of game bred by big preservers. The lust for
slaughter and the pride in mere straight shooting
seem to me significant marks of a degeneracy in the
ideals of sport. But there is a " remnant " left who
have not bowed the knee to this modern Baal. You
will find good and true sportsmen among the new
school ; you may note their sober presence and work-
manlike air among the " smart " and dandy marksmen
at big shoots. But it is hardly there that I should
advise the sporting Diogenes to go in search of them.
He would need his lantern there ; he might dispense
with it, I think, if he went among the class to which
John Holt belonged, and to those remote and quiet
paradises of England where the old homely ideas of
sport still linger.

'Christopher North '
(Professor John Wilson)

THERE still lingers a glamour round the name of
Christopher North, though to the present generation
he is little more than a name — " the Shade of that which
once was great." Fainter and more shadowy that Shade
will grow as, " glimmering through the dreams of things
that were," it flits across the path of the future student
of English literature, but it will never quite vanish.
Scotsmen will take care that the fame of the author
of the " Noctes " does not wholly die, for they are a
loyal and clannish race, not prone to forget their national
worthies, and there will always be some true sportsmen
left, I hope, both Scotch and English, who will read with
relish the breezy rhapsodies of the " Recreations."

Perhaps John Wilson's contemporaries who were
under the spell of his commanding and extraordinary
individuality did more than justice to his fine intellect.
But if so, posterity, I think, is likely to go to the other
extreme and do him less than justice. For when a man
is gifted, as John Wilson was, with a captivating person-
ality, in which mental and physical endowments had an

almost equal share, it is only his contemporaries who

163

" Cbristopber IRortb" 163

can appreciate his full worth ; just as it is only those
who have heard the voice of a great orator, seen his eyes
(lash, watched the changing expressions on his mobile
face, who can judge of the true power of his eloquence.
The writings of Christopher North to one who never
knew him in the flesh must necessarily convey as
inadequate an idea of the real force and greatness of
the man as the printed speech, bereft of the kindling
accessories of voice and eye and gesture, conveys of
the fire and spirit of the orator.

Yet there are many, especially among those who set
up to be literary critics, who will not allow that John
Wilson deserved his contemporary fame, because the
written words he has left behind him fail to satisfy the
superfine, critical taste of a generation whose literary
standards and methods are wholly different from those
in vogue when the " Noctes Ambrosianae " took
Edinburgh by storm. I do not assert that John
Wilson has any claim to a posthumous fame equal
to that which he enjoyed in his lifetime. But I do
assert that the fame which his contemporaries awarded
him was no more than his due. For, in apportioning
that fame, they took into consideration his glorious
manhood, his splendid enthusiasm, his infectious animal
spirits, his hearty, bracing, health-inspiring love of
Nature, his vigorous hatred of humbug and cant, his
keen sense of the beautiful in literature and art, the
eagle-like sweep of his strong intellect, the torrent-like
rush of his fervid eloquence, the deep poetic feeling that
runs through his lofty and glowing rhapsodies. If not
the greatest of our prose-poets, John Wilson stands at

164 Ikfnas of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, an& (Bun

any rate in the very front rank ; and, though I confess
to but a lukewarm admiration for the " Noctes," I can
never read the " Recreations " without a feeling of exal-
tation and delight, as if I were treading the heather
beside Christopher in his sporting-jacket, with the free
breezes of the Highlands tingling in my cheeks.

But it is as a sportsman that I am chiefly concerned
with him here, and, indeed, it is in this phase of his
character that John Wilson is seen at his best. Never
is his pen more eloquent or his imagination more fervent
than when he pictures himself casting a fly in the rocky
pools or striding, Manton in hand, over the moors. He
loved both fishing and shooting, but the gun was
always second to the rod in his affections. Angling
was a passion with him, I may almost say from the
cradle to the grave. When he was but three years
old he is said to have strayed away from his nurse and
to have been discovered fishing in the burn with a bit
of string and a crooked pin. Possibly this may be a
myth, but that he showed his angling enthusiasm very
early may be gathered from this glowing passage in
the " Recreations " :

" The new-breeched urchin stands on the low bridge
of the little bit burnie ! and with crooked pin, baited
with one unwrithing ring of a dead worm, and attached
to a yarn-thread — for he is not yet got into hair, and
is years off gut — his rod of the mere willow or hazel
wand, there will he stand during all his play-hours, as
forgetful of his primer as if the weary art of printing
had never been invented, day after day, week after
week, month after month, in mute, deep, earnest,

" Cbrtstopber ttortb" 165

passionate, heart-mind-and-soul engrossing hope of some
time or other catching a minnow or a beardie ! A tug —
a tug ! With a face ten times flushed and pale by turns
ere you could count ten, he at last has strength in the
agitation of his fear and joy, to pull away at the
monster — and there he lies in his beauty amongst the
gowans and the greensward, for he has whapped him
right over his head and far away, a fish a quarter of an
ounce in weight, and, at the very least, two inches long !
Off he flies, on wings of wind, to his father, mother, and
sisters and brothers, and cousins, and all the neighbour-
hood, holding the fish aloft in both hands, still fearful of
its escape, and, like a genuine child of corruption, his
eyes brighten at the first blush of cold blood on his
small fumy fingers. He carries about with him, up-
stairs and down-stairs, his prey upon a plate ; he will
not wash his hands before dinner, for he exults in the
silver scales adhering to the thumb-nail that scooped the
pin out of baggy's maw — and at night, ' cabin'd, cribb'd,
confin'd/ he is overheard murmuring in his sleep —
a thief, a robber, and a murderer, in his yet infant
dreams ! "

But to trace things back for a moment to their
source. John Wilson was born at Paisley on May i8th,
1785. His lather was a wealthy gauze manufacturer who
had raised himself to that eminence from very humble
beginnings. His mother claimed descent, it is said,
from James Graham, the " Great Marquis " of Montrose,
but her son never, either in his writings or in his con-
versation, made the slightest allusion to this distinguished
ancestry. From his mother John Wilson derived his

t66 ifctncjs of tbe 1Rofct Itiifle, an&

grand physique, for she was a woman of stately beauty,
which was reproduced in a greater or less degree in all
her children. The boy was sent for his early education
to the old Manse of Mearns, and there, too, his sporting
instincts were stimulated.

" There had been," he writes in the " Recreations,"
" from time immemorial, it was understood, in the Manse,
a duck-gun of very great length, and a musket that,
according to an old tradition, had been out both in the
Fifteen and Forty-five. There were ten boys of us,
and we succeeded by rotation to gun or musket, each
boy retaining possession for a single day only ; but then
the shooting season continued all the year. They must
have been of admirable materials and workmanship, for
neither of them so much as once burst during the Seven
Years' War. The musket, who, we have often since
thought, must surely rather have been a blunderbuss in
disguise, was a perfect devil for kicking when she
received her discharge ; so much so indeed, that it was
reckoned creditable for the smaller boys not to be
knocked down by the recoil. She had a very wide
mouth, and was thought by us * an awful scatterer ' ; a
qualification which we considered of the very highest
merit. She carried anything we chose to put into her —
balls, buttons, chucky-stanes, slugs or hail. She had
but two faults — she had got addicted, probably in early
life, to one habit of burning priming, and to another of
hanging fire ; habits of which it was impossible, for us at
least, to break her by the most assiduous hammering of
many a new flint ; but such was the high place she
justly occupied in the affection and admiration of us all,

44 Cbrtstopbcr IKortb" 167

that faults like these did not in the least detract from
her general character. Our delight, when she did
absolutely, and positively, and bona fide go off, was in
proportion to the comparative rarity of that occurrence ;
and as to hanging fire — why we used to let her take her
own time, contriving to keep her at the level as long as
our strength sufficed, eyes shut perhaps, teeth clenched,
face girning, and head slightly averted over the right
shoulder, till Muckle-mou'd Meg, who like most other
Scottish females, took things leisurely, went off at last
with an explosion like the blowing up of a rock."

From the Manse John Wilson went to Glasgow
University. There is a portrait of him by Raeburn at
this period of his life in the Scottish National Gallery at
Edinburgh, which represents him as a slender youth
with something of the dandy in his dress and air. It
seems almost incredible that this neatly garbed stripling
in the faultless coat and natty top boots could ever have
developed into the big, careless, slovenly Christopher —
picturesque indeed in his slovenliness, but, as Mrs.
Oliphant says, " the very impersonation of irregularity,
careless prodigality of strength, and want of system."
His contemporaries at Glasgow describe him as a model
of method and tidiness. Those virtues he seems to have
sloughed at Oxford and come out in his true skin of the
real Bohemian hue.

By the death of his father he was left master of an
unencumbered fortune of £50,000, and was therefore
able to cut a dashing figure as gentleman-commoner of
Magdalen. Legends of his athletic prowess are still
preserved. As leaper, boxer, and pedestrian he had no

1 68 Ikin0s of tbe 1Rob, IRifle, an& (Bun

equal among his contemporaries. His great jump of
23 feet across the Cherwell, in the presence of many
spectators, remained unbeaten until Mr. C. B. Fry
eclipsed it six years ago. At the time he made that
famous jump, Wilson tells us he was 21 years of age,
5 feet 1 1 inches in height, and 1 1 stone in weight. With
the exception of Ireland, the professional, who, with
weights in his hand and leaping from a spring-board, is
credited with 29 feet, there was no one in the three
kingdoms who could approach Wilson as a jumper.
And later, in his essay on " Gymnastics," he offered to
wager " a hundred sovereigns to five against any man in
England doing 23 feet on a dead level with a run or a
leap on a slightly inclined plane, perhaps an inch to a
yard." It was a safe bet to make then and for sixty
years afterwards; but so greatly has athletic skill
developed since Wilson's time, especially during the last
decade, that it would be scarcely safe now to lay these
odds against the accomplishment of 25 feet, for the
record already stands at 24 feet /J inches.

As a boxer Wilson was one of the best amateurs of
his day. No undergraduate of his time could take a
diploma in boxing unless Wilson had tried him and
awarded him a certificate of merit. On one occasion
a professional pugilist of some note obstructed Wilson's
passage across a bridge. " Will you fight me?" exclaimed
the angry undergraduate. "You'd better not try that
game on, mister. I'm Tom So-and-So." " I don't care
who you are ; come on." Then each put up his fists, and
at it they went. The professional was licked, and, as he
surlily gave in, said, "You must either be the devil

" Christopher Tttortb" 169

or Jack Wilson of Magdalen." "The latter, at your
service," quoth the victor ; and the pair of them adjourned
to a neighbouring tavern and quaffed a friendly pot of
porter together.

Among his pedestrian feats was a night walk from
London to Oxford in nine hours. He had been dining
in Grosvenor Square, and on his way home was insulted
by an impertinent fellow, whom he thrashed ; not
caring to be arrested for a street row, he started off just
as he was, in his dinner dress, for Oxford.

There is, however, a certain vagueness about the
details of this and all the other walking feats of John
Wilson, and I cannot accept the times given for covering
the alleged distances as correct. In later days he once
walked seventy miles to be present at a Burns Anni-
versary Festival, and in referring to that fact his
daughter and biographer Mrs. Gordon says :

"Of the Professor's walking feats I have not been
able to gather many authentic anecdotes. Mr. Aird
mentioned the fact quoted here in his speech at the
Burns Festival, and my brother writes me on the
subject : ' I have often heard him mention the following.
He once walked forty miles in eight hours ; but when or
where he did it I cannot recollect. On another occasion
he walked from Liverpool to Elleray within the four-
and-twenty hours. I do not know what the distance is,
but I think it must be somewhere about eighty miles.
You are correct about his walking from Kelso to
Edinburgh, forty miles, to attend a public dinner. It
was in 1822, when the king was there. Once, when
disappointed in getting a place in the mail from Penrith

170 1fcin08 of tbe "IRofc, Iftifle, anfc (Bun

to Kendal, he gave his coat to the driver, set off on foot,
reached Kendal some time before the coach, and then
trudged on to Elleray.' "

But Wilson's triumphs in " the schools " were not
less remarkable than his athletic feats. The brilliancy
he displayed in his final examination was long remem-
bered among Oxford dons. He was a poet, too, and
a talker of rare charm — an Admirable Crichton indeed,
as much at home among wits and scholars over the port
in the Common-room as among coachmen, guards, and
bruisers over the " early purl " in the tavern.

To most men he seemed the very impersonation of
joyous life, and yet there was another and a very different
side to his character known only to a few intimates, and
that side was as gloomy as the other was radiant. He
had formed an attachment for a mysterious " Margaret,"
who was equally attached to him ; but in deference to
the prejudices of his mother he would not marry her,
and consequently both of them were miserable. He
was continually passing from transports of ardent hope
to moods of deep despair, which he sought to drown
in reckless dissipation. At one time he seriously thought
of joining Mungo Park, the then celebrated African
explorer, in his last expedition to the Niger which
ended so tragically. That idea, however, he abandoned ;
but it is strange to find the idolised hero of Oxford, the
jovial, rollicking, reckless, brilliant John Wilson, writing
thus to his intimate friend Findlay : " I feel that I
am doomed to be eternally wretched. ... I will be
glad to see you, but the word happy will never again
be joined to the name of John Wilson." One is

" Cbrtstopfocr Wortb" 171

irresistibly reminded of the gloomy epistles indited by
Wilkins Micawber, having delivered himself of which
that immortal optimist entered with increased zest
into the delights of skittles and punch. But there
really was a streak of melancholy running through
Wilson's character, which grew more morbid and pro-
nounced in his later years, till at times it threatened
to darken his reason.

Soon after leaving Oxford he purchased the beautiful
cottage of Elleray, on the banks of Windermere, where
some of the happiest days of his life were passed.
James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, however, thought
it a poor place for a Scottish sportsman to dwell in.
Twenty years later, when Wilson, after many vicissi-
tudes, again took up his abode at Elleray, the
" Shepherd " wrote thus to him :

" MY DEAR AND HONOURED JOHN, — I never thought
you had been so unconscionable as to desire a sports-
man on the nth or even the I3th of August to leave
Ettrick Forest for the bare scraggy hills of Westmore-
land ! — Ettrick Forest, where the black cocks, and white
cocks, brown cocks, and grey cocks, ducks, plovers, and
pease-weeps, and willy-whaups are as thick as the
flocks that cover her mountains, and come to the hills
of Westmoreland that can nourish nothing better than
a castril or stonechat ! To leave the great yellow fin
of Yarrow, or the still larger grey-locher for the de-
generate fry of Troutbeck, Esthwaite, or even Wastwater !
No, no, the request will not do ; it is an unreasonable
one, and therefore not unlike yourself; for besides,

of tbe 1Rofc, Ifttfle, anb 6un

what would become of Old North and Blackwood,
and all our friends for game, were I to come to Elleray
just now? I know of no home of man where I could
be so happy within doors with so many lovely and
joyous faces around me ; but this is not the season
for in-door enjoyments ; they must be reaped on the
wastes among the blooming heath, by the silver spring,
or swathed in the delicious breeze of the wilderness.
Elleray with all its sweets could never have been my
choice for a habitation, and perhaps you are the only
Scottish gentleman who ever made such a choice, and
still persists in maintaining it in spite of every dis-
advantage. Happy days to you, and a safe return !
Yours most respectfully,

JAMES HOGG."

But Wilson revelled in the place. He had a fleet
of eight sailing boats on Windermere, besides a fine
ten-oared Oxford barge. He indulged, too, in another
sport, popular then, but discredited now — cock-fighting.
He had a passion for game-cocks, and had at times
as many as sixty or seventy in training. One grand
main was fought in the big new drawing-room which
he built on to his cottage. He had the flooring covered
with sods, and invited all the neighbouring farmers to
witness the sport and assist at a jolly supper afterwards.

The master of Elleray was an enthusiastic patron
of all the athletic sports in which the dalesmen delighted.
Of his love of wrestling, and his own prowess in that
manly pastime, Mr. Waugh has left us an interesting
record.

" Cbrfstopbcr INortb" 173

Mr. Waugh, in his wanderings in Westmoreland,
encountered at Wastdalc Head, in the person of the
innkeeper there, one of the most characteristic specimens
that could be found of a genuine old Laker, William
Ritson by name. " I was most interested," says the
writer, " in Ritson's anecdotes of famous men who
visited Wastdale. He had wandered many a day with
Professor Wilson, Wordsworth, De Quincey and others.
Ritson had been a famous wrestler in his youth, and
had won many a country belt in Cumberland. He
once wrestled with Wilson, and threw him twice out
of three falls. But he owned the Professor was 'a
verra bad un to lick.' Wilson beat him at jumping.
He could jump twelve yards in three jumps with a
great stone in each hand. Ritson could only manage
eleven and three-quarters. ' T first time Professor
Wilson cam to Wastd'le Head/ said Ritson, 'he hed
a tent set up in a field, and he gat it weel stock't wi'
bread, an' beef, an' cheese, an' rum, an' ale, an' sic like.
Then he gedder't up my granfadder, an' Thomas Tyson,
an' Isaac Fletcher, an' Joseph Stable, an' aad Robert
Grave, an' some mair, an' there was gay deed among
'em. Then nowt would surra, but he mun hev a boat,
an' they mun all hev a sail. Well, when they gat
into t' boat, he tell't un to be particklar careful, for
he was liable to git giddy in t' head, an' if yan ov his
giddy fits sud chance to cum on, he mud happen tummle
into t' water. Well, that pleased 'em all gaily weel,
an' they said they'd tak verra girt care on him. Then
he leaned back an' called oot that they mun pull quicker.
So they did, and what does Wilson do then but topples

174 1kin0s of tbe 1Rofc, tRifle, an& (Bun

ower eb'm ov his back i' t' watter with a splash. Then
there was a girt cry — " Eh, Mr. Wilson's i' t' watter ! "
an' yan click't, an' annudder click't, but nean o' them
could get hod on him, an' there was sic a scrowe as
niver. At last yan o' them gat him round t' neck as
he popped up at teal o' t' boat, an' Wilson taad him
to kep a good hod, for he mud happen slip him agean.
But what, it was nowt but yan ov his bit pranks, he
was snurkin' an' laughin' all t' time. Wilson was a
fine, gay, girt-hearted fellow, as strang as a lion, an'
he hed sic antics as nivver man hed. Whatever ye
sed tull him ye'd get yowr change back for it gaily
soon. . . . Aa remember, there was a " Murry Neet "
at Wastd'le Head that varra time, an' Wilson and t'
aad parson was there among t' rest. When they'd
gotten a bit on, Wilson med a sang aboot t' parson.
He med it reight off o' t' stick end. He began wi'
t' parson first, then he gat to t' Pope, an' then he
turned it to t' devil, an' sic like, till he hed 'em falling
off their cheers wi' fun. T' parson was quite astonished,
an' rayder vex't an' all, but at last he burst out laughin'
wi' t' rest. He was like. Naabody could stand it. . . .
T' seam neet there was yan o' their wives cum to fetch
her husband heam, an' she was rayder ower strang i'
t' tung wi' him afore t' heal comp'ny. Well, he took
it all i' good pairt, but as he went away he shouted
oot t' aad minister, "'Od dang ye, parson, it war ye
'at teed us two tegidder ! "... It was a' life an' murth,
amang us, as lang as Professor Wilson was at Wastd'le
Head.' "
When I was in the Lake country in 1860 I met a

" (Tbristopber flortb" 175

boatman on Ullswatcr, William Backhouse by name,
a fine, stalwart dalesman who remembered John Wilson
well, and bore similar testimony to the Professor's
enthusiastic interest in all the manly sports and jolly
revels of the country-side.

Of fishing John Wilson had his fill at Elleray. One
great angling excursion deserves special mention, not
so much perhaps on account of the sport it afforded
as for the illustrious names of most of the anglers. On
a lovely summer day in the year 1809 the solitudes of
Eskdale were invaded by such an army of anglers as had
assuredly never been seen there before. The anglers
numbered twelve, among whom, with Wilson as chief,
were Wordsworth, De Quincey, Alexander Blair, the
two Astleys, and Humphries. There were no less than
twenty servants to look after the tents and baggage,
which were carried on the backs of a string of twelve
ponies. For a week the party sojourned in the mountains,
and perhaps the long "cracks" in the evenings, with
Wordsworth, De Quincey, and Wilson himself in their
best talking form, afforded more pleasure than the day's
sport among the trout, though all of them were more or
less skilful anglers. It was, at any rate, a unique fishing
party. Probably the only thing of the kind comparable to
it is to be found in the experiences of Charles Kingsley,
Matthew Arnold, Tom Hughes, and James Anthony
Froude, on the rare occasions when those four fore-
gathered, rod in hand, at the river-side.

Amongst his other accomplishments John Wilson
reckoned that of dancing, in which he had few equals.
It was as a dancer that he made the acquaintance of Miss

176 Iktngs of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, ant) Gun

Jane Penny, the daughter of a Liverpool merchant, " the
Belle of the Lakes," and to her he was married on May
nth, 1811. Four happy years they passed at Elleray,
and then came the crash which suddenly reduced Wilson
from wealth to poverty. The whole of his fortune had
been entrusted to an uncle for investment, and was lost
in rash speculations. There was nothing for it but to
leave Elleray. So John Wilson, with his wife and
children, went to live with his mother at Edinburgh.

By this time John Wilson was known to fame as the
author of two poems, " The Isle of Palms " and " The City
of the Plague " — graceful, eloquent, with some thrills of
pathos and passion in them, but with no ring of the
genius that makes poetry live. Added, however, to his
picturesque personality, they made him a notable figure
in Edinburgh. Thomas Carlyle has left us one of his
mordant portraits of John Wilson as he was at
this time.

" I knew his figure well ; remember first seeing him in
Princes Street on a bright April afternoon [probably
1814] exactly forty years ago. A tall ruddy figure,
with plenteous blonde hair, with bright blue eyes, fixed,
as if in haste towards some distant object, strode rapidly
along, clearing the press to the left of us, close by the
railings, near where Blackwood's shop now is. Westward
he in haste ; we slowly eastward. Campbell whispered
me, ' That is Wilson of " The Isle of Palms," ' which poem
I had not read, being then quite mathematical, scientific,
etc., for extraneous reasons, as I now see them to have
been. The broad-shouldered, stately bulk of the man
struck me ; his flashing eye, copious, dishevelled head of

"Cbrtetopbet Worth" 177

hair, and rapid unconcerned progress, like that of a
plough through stubble."

" A Norse demi-god " was the phrase his admirers,
and their name was Legion, loved to apply to him. De
Quincey, however, whose judgment is entitled to respect,
did not think him handsome. " His complexion," writes
the " English Opium-eater," <( was too florid : hair of a
hue quite unsuited to that complexion : eyes not good,
having no apparent depth, but seeming mere surfaces,
and, in fact, no one feature that could be called fine
except the lower region of his face, the mouth, chin, and
the parts adjacent which were then truly elegant and
Ciceronian." One must be acquainted with the bust of
Cicero to understand that final comparison, which smacks
of the fantastic. But whatever difference of opinion
might exist as to his features, all who knew John Wilson
were agreed as to the grandeur and majesty of his
figure — a noble and impressive combination of stateli-
ness and strength.

Of his social qualities Thomas Carlyle gives us a
glimpse in one of his letters :

" Last night," he writes, " I supped with John Wilson,
Professor of Moral Philosophy here, author of the ' Isle
of Palms,' etc., a man of the most fervid temperament,
fond of all stimulating things from tragic poetry down
to whisky punch. He snuffed, and smoked cigars, and
drank liquors, and talked in the most indescribable
style. It was at the lodging of one John Gordon, a very
good young man from Kirkcudbright, who sometimes
comes here. Daylight came on us before we parted ;
indeed, it was towards three o'clock as the Professor

12

178 Ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anb Gun

and I walked home, smoking as we went. I had
scarcely either eaten or drunk, being a privileged
person, but merely enjoyed the strange volcanic
eruptions of our poet's convivial genius. He is a
broad sincere man of six feet, with long dishevelled
flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an
eagle's. Now and then he sank into a brown study,
and seemed dead in the eye of law. About two
o'clock he was sitting in this state, smoking languidly,
his nose begrimed with snuff, his face hazy and inert ;
when all at once flashing into existence, he inquired
of John Gordon, with an irresistible air, 'I hope, Mr.
Gordon, you don't believe in universal damnation ? *
It was wicked, but all hands burst into inextinguishable
laughter. But I expect to see Wilson in a more
philosophic key ere long ; he has promised to call on
me, and is, on the whole, a man I should like to know
better. Geniuses of any sort, especially of so kindly
a sort, are so very rare in this world."

That expectation was never realised : Wilson and
Carlyle never became intimate. Indeed, there seemed
to be a mutual antipathy which kept them apart ;
though, in the first instance, Wilson no doubt was to
blame, for he never paid that promised call, and his
excuses for not doing so were so palpably insincere,
not to say mendacious, that Carlyle resented them.

In 1817 Blackwood's Magazine was started, in which
adventure he and John Gibson Lockhart were the two
leading spirits, and it was just about this time that
Wilson started on his romantic fishing tour in the
Highlands, accompanied by his wife. Mr. William

"Cbrfstopbcr mortb" 179

Stewart, in his " Highland Sketches," gives this graphic
picture of the two pedestrians :

" On a fine summer evening, the eyes of a primitive
northern village were attracted by the appearance of two
travellers, apparently man and wife, coming into the
village, dressed like cairds or gipsies. The man was
tall, broad-shouldered, and of stalwart proportions ; his
fair hair floated redundant over neck and shoulders,
and his red beard and whiskers were of portentous
size. He bore himself with the assured and careless
air of a strong man rejoicing in his strength. On his
back was a capacious knapsack, and his slouched hat
garnished with fishing hooks and tackle, showed he was
as much addicted to fishing as to making spoons :

A stalwart tinkler wight seemed he,
That weel could mend a pot or pan;

And deftly he could thraw the flee,
Or neatly weave the willow wan'.

The appearance of his companion contrasted
strikingly with that of her mate. She was of slim and
fragile form, and more like a lady in her walk and
bearing than any wife of a caird that had ever been
seen in those parts. The natives were somewhat
surprised to see this great caird making for the head
inn, the ' Gordon Arms,' where the singular pair actually
took up their quarters for several days. Thence they
were in the habit of sallying forth, each armed with a
fishing-rod, to the river banks, a circumstance the
novelty of which, as regarded the tinker's wife, excited
no small curiosity, and many conjectures were hazarded
as to the real character of the mysterious couple.

i8o Ifctn08 of tbe 1Rot>, IRifle, anfc <3un

A local hero named the King of the Drovers, moved
by admiration of the peculiar proportions of this king of
the cairds, felt a great desire to come into closer relations
with the stranger. He was soon gratified. A meeting
was arranged, in order to try whether the son of the
mountain or the son of the plain were the better man
in wrestling, leaping, running, and drinking ; and in all
of these manly exercises the great drover, probably for
the first time, found himself more than matched."

Mrs. Wilson, slender and delicate Englishwoman
though she was, tramped like a hardy Scotswoman to
the manner born. On one occasion she walked twenty-
five miles in a single day. Between July 5th and
August 26th they covered 350 miles on foot, "sojourning
in divers glens from Sabbath unto Sabbath, fishing,
eating, and staring." Of the sport he had John
Wilson says: "I killed in the Highlands 170 dozen
of trout. One day 19^ dozen, another 7 dozen. I,
one morning, killed ten trouts that weighed 9 Ibs. In
Loch Awe in three days I killed 76 Ibs. of fish all with
the fly. The folks were astonished." If they were
astonished at that, I wonder what they would have
thought of Dr. Robertson's great feat in the August of
1833 at Ballater, where in a single day he killed in a
small loch adjoining the stream thirty-six dozen of
trout, weighing close on 250 Ibs. !

On their return to Edinburgh John Wilson and his
wife were the " lions of the season." Everyone expected
that Mrs. Wilson's beautiful complexion would be totally
ruined by exposure to wind and sun and rain. But at
her first party old Mrs. Mure, of Caldwell, after

" Cbrtstopber IKortb" 181

scanning her face closely, exclaimed, " VVccl, I declare
she's come back bonnier than ever ! "

Of John Wilson's extraordinary keenness in sport,
especially his favourite sport, fishing, I may quote the
following example given by one of his friends :

" At a point on the road near to the house which I
now occupy, and close by the river-side, as he was
on his way to Achlian, a large party of tinkers were
pitching their tents. There were men, women, and
children — a band — some preparing to go to fish for
their supper in the adjoining pool, and some, more
full of action, were leaping. They were tall powerful
young men, ready for any frolic, and all the bonhomie
of Mr. Wilson's nature was stirred in him. He joined
the group ; talked with them and leaped with them.
They were rejoicing in their sport, when he, finding
himself hard pressed, stripped off coat and shoes ; but
the river had had its channel once on the spot ; it
had left a sharp stone, which was only concealed by
the thin coating of earth over it ; his heel came down
on that stone ; it wounded him severely ; and, unable
to bear a shoe on, he had to go to Achlian. The
tinkers would rather that the accident had happened
to one of themselves, and they procured a cart in the
neighbourhood in which he was conveyed to Achlian.
The heel was carefully dealt with there by all but
himself. Mrs. Smith, then a little girl, tells me that
her mother remonstrated often, but in vain ; for he
would fish, though scarcely able to limp ; and one day,
as he was fishing from the shore, a large trout, such
as Loch Awe is remarkable for, was hooked by him.

1 82 Tkin^s of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc Oun

His line was weak, and afraid to lose it, he cast him-
self into the loch, yielding to the motions of the strong
creature until it became fatigued and manageable.
Then he swam ashore with his victim in subjection,
and brought it home ; but he was without the bandage,
and his heel bleeding copiously.

This was no unusual mode of fishing with Christopher.
As the Shepherd remarked : ' In he used to gang, out,
out, out, and ever sae far out frae the point o' a
promontory, sinking aye further and further doon,
first to the waist-band o' his breeks, then up to the
middle button o' his waistcoat, then to the verra breist,
then to the oxters, then to the neck, and then to the
verra chin o' him, sae that you wunnered how he could
fling the flee ; till at last he would plump richt oot
o' sight, till the Highlander on Ben Cruachan thocht
him drooned. No he, indeed ; sae he takes to the
sooming, and strikes awa wi' ae arm, for the tither
had haud o' the rod ; and could ye believe 't, though
it's as true as Scripture, fishing a' the time, that no a
moment o' the cloudy day micht be lost ; ettles at
an island, a quarter o' a mile aff, wi' trees and an
auld ruin o' a religious house, wherein beads used to
be counted and wafers eaten, and mass muttered
hundreds o' years ago ; and getting footing on the
yellow sand, or the green sward, he but gies himself
a shake, and ere the sun looks out o' the clud, has
hyucket a four-pounder, whom in four minutes (for
it's a multiplying pirn the cretur uses) he lands,
gasping through the giant gills, and glittering wi' a
thousand spots, streaks, and stars, on the shore.'"

41 Cbrtstopber IRortb" 183

Of Wilson's eccentricities and the strange adventures
he sometimes met with on his sporting excursions
Mr. Alexander Dingvvall gives an amusing instance :

" Mr. Wilson came to me (then living at Millbank,
near Dingvvall) in such peculiar circumstances as leads
me to think he would have made some memoranda
about it. He had been fishing in the Dee, and by
some accident came to a fair at Tomintoul, where
he saw a poor man much oppressed and ill-used by
another, who was considered the bully of the country
and whose name, I think he said, was Grant. Circum-
stances led to Mr. Wilson putting off his coat, and
giving this fellow a thrashing, but on picking up the
coat he found it rifled of his pocket-book containing
all his money but a very few shillings ! In this state
he left for Carrb ridge, where he passed the night
without more than enough of refreshment. In the
morning he left for Inverness, and calling at the Post
Office he found many letters to his address ; but not
having money to pay the postage, the person in charge
declined trusting him ! He then crossed Kessock
Ferry with only a few pence, and arrived at Dingwall
about midday, where I happened to be at the time,
and was quite overjoyed at seeing him. He was
dressed in white duck trowsers covered with mud, and
his white hat entirely so with fishing gear.

In our rambles, which included some curious in-
cidents, and which occupied several days, he fished
wherever a loch or stream presented itself. We avoided
roads entirely, and lived with the shepherds."

Such stories as these might, to a certain extent,

1 84 ffctngs of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc (Bun

justify that excellent old lady, Mrs. Grant, of Laggan,
in making the following remarks, when in writing to
a friend she burst forth upon the eccentricities of the
young poet :

" Did I ever tell you of one of the said poets we
have in town here — indeed one of our intimates — the
most provoking creature imaginable? He is young,
handsome, witty ; has great learning, exuberant spirits,
a wife and children that he doats on (circumstances
one would think consolidating), and no vice that I
know of, but on the contrary, virtuous principles and
feelings. Yet his wonderful eccentricity would put
anybody but his wife wild. She, I am convinced, was
actually made on purpose for her husband, and has
that kind of indescribable controlling influence over
him that Catherine is said to have had over that
wonderful savage, the Czar Peter.

Pray look at the last Edinburgh Review, and read
the favourable article on John Wilson's ' City of the
Plague.' He is the person in question."

In July, 1820, John Wilson was appointed Professor
of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, a post
which brought him an average income of about .£1,000
a year during the thirty years for which he held it. His
eloquent and discursive lectures, lacking though they
were in logic and philosophy, were a delight to the
students, who worshipped their Professor as the very
embodiment of "god-like manhood."

Two years later he burst upon the literary world as
" Christopher North," the creator of the " Noctes
Ambrosianae," which made the fortune of Blackwood's

"Christopher Worth" 185

Maga-,DL\ and were regarded as the most brilliant
efflorescence of Wilson's genius. There is nothing
like them in literature for their grotesque mixture of
eloquent rhapsody and boisterous fooling, of sport,
philosophy, criticism, conviviality, and buffoonery.
Wilson let himself go with a vengeance in the
" Noctes," even to the verge of ribaldry. The fun is
for the most part of the coarsest and broadest — pure
farce, most of it. The men of that generation who
laughed over Christopher's jests must have been very
easily entertained.

There are in the " Noctes " passages of real eloquence,
flashes of fine critical insight, gems of thought and
expression that sparkle with the lustre of diamonds of
the purest water ; but the boozing and buffoonery are
a sore trial to the patience of the modern reader who
knew not Christopher and his confreres in the flesh.
And one has the less patience with them because all
that Gargantuan guzzling was a fiction. Those
groaning tables laden with fish, flesh, and fowl, those
heroic potations of toddy, had no existence but in
Christopher's imagination. We know now that whilst
Christopher North was penning those graphic pictures
of gluttony and whisky-drinking, he was really dining
on boiled fowl and potatoes, washed down with cold
water, sitting in a bare, fireless room, scribbling by the
light of a big tallow candle in a tin kitchen candlestick.
As I think of that ghastly simulacrum of conviviality,
of those forlorn Barmecide feasts, I feel that the " Noctes "
are a fraud, and I could wish that Kit North had really
been the glorious gourmand and toddy-drinker that he

1 86 Ikin0s of tbe "Kofc, Ifttfle, anb 6un

paints himself. I love Scotland and her whisky well.
Nowhere have I met bolder, stouter drinkers, or enjoyed
more rational conviviality of the sort that brings no
headache in the morning and keeps within the limit
of becoming mirth. Wherefore I grieve to think that
those symposia at Ambrose's are impositions, and those
jolly bon vivants phantoms that never wore human flesh.

The grave duties of his professional chair did not
interfere with John Wilson's love of sport or hamper
his taste for unconventional adventure, as the following
anecdote proves :

"About a year after he had entered upon his new
duties the Professor was rambling during vacation-time
in the South of Scotland, having for a while exchanged
the gown for the old ' sporting-jacket.' On his return
to Edinburgh, he was obliged to pass through Hawick,
where, on his arrival, finding it to be fair-day, he
readily availed himself of the opportunity to witness
the amusements going on. These happened to include
a ' little mill ' between two members of the local ' fancy.'
His interest in pugilism attracted him to the spot, where
he soon discovered something very wrong, and a degree
of injustice being perpetrated which he could not stand.
It was the work of a moment to espouse the weaker
side, a proceeding which naturally drew down upon
him the hostility of the opposite party. The result
was to him, however, of little consequence. There was
nothing for it but to beat or be beaten. He was soon
' in position ' ; and before his unknown adversary well
knew what was coming, the skilled fist of the Professor
had planted such a ' facer ' as did not require repetition.

"Cbrirtopbet north" 187

Another 'round ' was not called for ; and leaving the dis-
comfited champion to recover at his leisure, the Professor
walked coolly away to take his seat in the stage-coach,
about to start for Edinburgh. He just reached
it in time to secure a place inside, where he found
two young men already seated. As a matter of course
he entered into conversation with them, and before the
journey was half over, they had become the best friends
in the world. He asked all sorts of questions about
their plans and prospects, and was informed they were
going to attend College during the winter session.
Among the classes mentioned were Leslie's, Jameson's,
Wilson's, and some others. * Oh ! Wilson ; he is a
queer fellow, I am told ; rather touched here ' (pointing
significantly to his head) ; ' odd, decidedly odd.' The
lads, somewhat cautiously, after the manner of their
country, said they had heard strange stories reported
of Professor Wilson, but it was not right to believe
everything ; and that they would judge for themselves
when they saw him. ' Quite right, lads ; quite right ;
but I assure you I know something of this fellow
myself ; only this very forenoon at Hawick he got
into a row with a great lubberly fellow for some
unknown cause of offence, and gave him such a taste
of his fist as won't be soon forgotten ; the whole place
was ringing with the story ; I wonder you did not hear
of it.' ' Well,' rejoined the lads, ' we did hear some-
thing of the sort ; but it seemed so incredible that a
Professor of Moral Philosophy should get himself mixed
up with disreputable quarrels at a fair, we did not believe
it.' Wilson looked very grave, agreed that it was

1 88 ikin^s of the 1Rob, IRifle, atto (Bun

certainly a most unbecoming position for a professor ;
yet he was sorry to say that, having heard the whole
story from an eye-witness, it was but too true.
Dexterously turning the subject, he very soon banished
all further discussion about the Professor, and held the
delighted lads enchained in the interest of his con-
versation until they reached the end of the journey.
On getting out of the coach, they politely asked him,
as he seemed ^to know Edinburgh well, if he would
direct them to a hotel. * With pleasure, my young
friends ; we shall go to a hotel together ; no doubt
you are hungry and ready for dinner, and you shall
dine with me.' A coach was called ; Wilson ordered
the luggage to be placed outside, and gave directions
to the driver, who in a short time pulled up at a very
nice-looking house, with a small garden in front. The
situation was rural, and there was so little of the aspect
of a hotel about the place, that on alighting, the lads
asked once or twice, if they had come to the right place ?
' All right, gentlemen ; walk in ; leave your trunks in
the lobby. I have settled with the driver, and now I
shall order dinner.' No time was lost, and very soon
the two youths were conversing freely with their
unknown friend, and enjoying themselves extremely in
the satisfactory position of having thus accidentally
fallen into such good company and good quarters. The
deception, however, could not be kept up much longer ;
and, in the course of the evening, Wilson let them know
where they were, telling them they could now judge for
themselves what sort of a fellow ' the Professor ' was."
So long as he had any strength left the Professor

" (Tbristopbcr Worth " 189

pursued with ardour the sports that he loved. In
shooting he professed, like Colonel Hawker, to be a
believer in the old flint-locks, and thus expresses his
opinion upon them in the " Recreations " :

" Let us inspect Brown Bess. Till sixty, we used a
single barrel. At seventy we took to a double ; — but
dang detonators — we stick to the flint. ' Flint,' says
Colonel Hawker, 'shoots strongest into the bird.' A
percussion gun is quicker, but flint is fast enough, and it
does, indeed, argue rather a confusion than a rapidity of
ideas to find fault with lightning for being too slow.
With respect to the flash in the pan, it is but a fair
warning to ducks, for example, to dive if they can, and
get out of the way of mischief. It is giving birds a
chance for their lives, and is it not ungenerous to grudge
it ? When our gun goes to our shoulder, that chance is
but small ; for with double-barrel Brown Bess, it is but a
word and a blow, — the blow first, and long before you
could say Jack Robinson, the gorcock plays thud on the
heather. But we beg leave to set the question at rest
for ever by one single clencher. We have killed fifty
birds — grouse — at fifty successive shots — one bird only
to the shot. And mind you, not mere pouts — cheepers
— for we are no chicken butchers — but all thumpers —
cocks and hens as big as their parents, and the parents
themselves likewise ; not one of which fell out of bounds
(to borrow a phrase from the somewhat silly though
skilful pastime of pigeon-shooting), except one that
suddenly soared half way up to the moon, and then —

Into such strange vagaries fell
As he would dance,

i go Ifcinas of tbe 1Rofc, 1Rfflet anfc Oun

and tumbled down stone-dead into a loch. Now, what
more could a detonator have done in the hands of
the devil himself? Satan might have shot as well,
perhaps, as Christopher North — better we defy him ;
and we cannot doubt that his detonator— given to
him in a present, we believe, by Joe Manton — is a
prime article — one of the best ever manufactured on
the percussion system. But what more could he have
done? When we had killed our fiftieth bird in style,
we put it to the Christian reader, would not the odds
have been six to four on the flint ? And would not
Satan, at the close of the match, ten birds behind,
perhaps, and with a bag shamefully rich in poor pouts,
that would have fallen to the ground had he but thrown
salt on their tails, have looked excessively sheepish ?
True that in rain or snow the percussion lock will act,
from its detonating power, more correctly than the
common flint-lock, which, begging its pardon, will then
often not act at all ; but that is its only advantage, and
we confess a great one, especially in Scotland, where it is
a libel on the country to say that it always rains, for it
almost as often snows. However, in spite of wind and
weather, we are faithful to flint ; nor shall any new-
fangled invention, howsoever ingenious, wean us from
our First Love."

It will, perhaps, seem almost incredible to a modern
sportsman that any sane man could express a preference
for the flint-lock over the percussion-cap. Yet that great
sportsman Colonel Hawker, as I have already shown,
was of the same opinion. And I daresay many old
sportsmen will agree with me when I say that it is

" Cbrtetopber Hortb"

difficult to wean one's affections from the weapon which
one has constantly handled up to, say, mid-manhood. I
confess myself that I would rather to-day shoot with the
good old double muzzle-loader, which was my familiar
friend forty years ago, than with the very latest improve-
ment in breech-loaders. I don't say that there is any
comparison between the two ; there is not a point in
which the breech-loader is not immeasurably superior to
the muzzle-loader. But as a matter of sentiment I still
cling to the old friend of my youth, just as Christopher
did to his beloved flint-lock.

On March 29th, 1837, Professor Wilson suffered an
irreparable loss in the death of his wife, whom he idolised.
I doubt whether he ever really recovered from that shock,
which for a time almost deprived him of reason. The
world was dark to him henceforth, and there were only
stray gleams of sunshine.

George Borrow, describing in " Lavengro " the death of
his father, a man of vast frame and great bodily strength,
remarks : " The strongest forms do not endure the longest,
the very excess of the noble and generous juices which
they contain being the cause of their premature decay."
John Wilson affords an illustration of the truth of that
remark, as indeed did George Borrow himself, for the
" mighty Lavengro," whose physique when I knew him
at the age of fifty was magnificent, fell into a melancholy
wreck of manhood for some time before his death.

It was in 1850, when he was but sixty-five, that the
fatal stroke fell which shattered the splendid frame of
Christopher North for ever. One of his pupils thus
describes the painful scene ;

192 Ikinos of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, ant> Gun

" One day Professor Wilson was late in appearing ;
perhaps ten or twelve minutes after the class hour — an
unusual thing with him, for he was punctual. We had
seen him go into his private room. We got uneasy, and
at last it was proposed that I should go in, and see what
it was that detained him. To my latest hour I will
remember the sight I saw on entering. Having knocked
and received no answer, I gently opened the door, and
there I found the Professor lying at full length on the
floor with his gown on. Instinctively I rubbed his head,
and raised it up, kneeling with the noble head resting on
my breast. I could not, of course, move. But in a few
minutes in came other students, wondering in turn what
was keeping me, and we together raised the Professor up
into his chair. I caught the words, ' God bless you ! '
Gradually he got better, and we forced him to sit still,
and never dream of lecturing that day or for a time.
He was very reluctant to consent. I remember too
we spoke of calling a cab, but he said ' No/ it would
shake him too much. In about half an hour he walked
home. . . .

Twice after this I saw him, at his own request, and
always on the subject of his lectures ; for he was bent on
what he called a * reconstruction ' of his theory for the
ensuing session ; while it was but too plain to those
around him that he was not likely to see the College
again. The old lion sat in his arm-chair, yellow-maned
and toothless, prelecting with the old volubility and
eloquence, and with occasionally the former flash of the
bright blue eye, soon drooping into dulness again. I
still remember his tremulous 'God bless you!' as the

"Cbrtotopbet Uortb" 193

door closed for the last time. How different from that
fresh and vigorous old age in which he had moved
among us the year before ! "

In the following year Christopher North made his
last pilgrimage to the Highlands, the scene of those
glorious days with rod and gun which he has im-
mortalised in the glowing rhapsodies of the " Recrea-
tions." His daughter gives this pathetic picture of the
tour :

" Had my father been able to endure fatigue we too
would have had something to boast of; but he was
unable to do more than loiter by the river-side close
to the inn — never without his rod. Alas, how changed
the manner of his sport from that of his prime ! We
must make use of his own illustration as he speaks of
the past and present ; for North's exploits in angling
are varied enough to be brought forward at any point
of his life. He says to the Shepherd, —

' In me the passion of the sport is dead — or say
rather dull ; yet have I gentle enjoyment still in the
" Angler's silent Trade." So seemed it then on the
banks of the Dochart.

But Heavens, my dear James ! How in youth, and
prime of manhood too, I used to gallop to the glens
like a deer, over a hundred heathery hills, to devour the
dark rolling river, or the blue breezy loch ! How
leaped my heart to hear the thunder of the nearing
waterfall ! and lo, yonder flows, at last, the long dim
shallow rippling hazel-banked line of music among the
broomy braes, all astir with black fins on its surface ;
and now the feed is on, teeming with swift-shooting,

13

194 Ikfnss of tbe 1Robt IRffle, ant) (Bun

bright-bounding, and silver-shining scaly life, most
beauteous to behold, at every soft alighting of the
deceptive line, captivating and irresistible even among
a shower of natural leaf-born flies, a swarm in the air
from the mountain woods.'

A picture of the past visiting the present, as time
glides on, making more perceptible the cruel changes
which come to mortal strength. How now do his feet
touch the heather? Not as of old, with a bound, but
with slow and unsteady step, supported on the one
hand by his stick, while the other carries his rod. The
breeze gently moves his locks, no longer glittering with
the light of life, but dimmed by its decay. Yet are his
shoulders broad and unbent. The lion-like presence is
somewhat softened down, but not gone. He surely will
not venture into the deeps of the water, for only one
hand is free for 'a cast,' and those large stones, now
slippery with moss, are dangerous stumbling blocks
in the way. Besides, he promised his daughters he
would not wade, but on the contrary, walk quietly
with them by the river's edge, there gliding ' at its
own sweet will.' Silvery bands of pebbled shore,
leading to loamy-coloured pools, dark as the glow of
a southern eye, how could he resist the temptation of
near approach ? In he goes, up to the ankles, then to
the knees, tottering every other step, but never falling.
Trout after trout he catches, small ones certainly, but
plenty of them. Into his pocket with them, all this
time manoeuvring in the most skilful manner both stick
and rod ; until weary, he is obliged to rest on the bank,
sitting with his feet in the water, laughing at his

"Cbrtetopber flortb" 195

daughter's horror, and obstinately continuing the sport
in spite of all remonstrance. At last he gives in and
retires. Wonderful to say, he did not seem to suffer
from these imprudent liberties. Occasionally he was
contented to remain away from the water, enjoying the
less exciting interest of watching others. His son John
delighted him by the great achievement of capturing two
fine salmon, their united weight being about forty-five
pounds. It was a pleasant holiday-time. There was
no lack of merriment, and though my father was not
in his best spirits, he rallied now and then from the
gloom that oppressed him at the outset of the excursion."

But from that time he broke up rapidly. It was
pitiable to those who had known the great athlete and
sportsman in all the full flush of his splendid manhood
to watch the swift progress of senile decay. There is
not a more pathetic spectacle in the world than that of
a big, strong man reduced to utter feebleness — the mind
as well as the body shrunken into childish helpless-
ness. Yet in John Wilson the ruling passion was strong
in death. It was to the moorlands and lochs and rivers
which he loved that his thoughts went back as the sands
of life were running out. Here is the touching picture
which his daughter gives of Christopher North's last
hours :

" It was an affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite
absorbed with the fishing tackle scattered about his bed,
propped up with pillows, — his noble head, yet glorious
with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive
hands, and falling on each side of his unfadcd face.
How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly

196 1fcin0s of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, ant) 6un

from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling
hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it
in his pocket-book, he would tell ever and anon of the
streams he used to fish in of old, and of the deeds he
had performed in his childhood and youth. These
precious relics of a bygone sport were wont to be
brought out in the early spring, long before sickness
confined him to his room. It had been a habit for
many years, but then the ' sporting jacket ' was donned
soon after, and angling was no more a mere delightful
day-dream, but a reality ( that took him knee-deep or
waistband-high, through river-feeding torrents, to the
glorious music of his running and ringing reel.' This
outward life was at an end. With something of a
prophetic spirit did he write in former days when he
affected the age he had not attained, — how love for all
sports would live in his heart for ever : ' Our spirit burns
within us, but our limbs are palsied, and our feet must
brush the heather no more. Lo ! how beautifully these
fast travelling pointers do their work on that black
mountain's breast ! intersecting it into parallelograms,
and squares, and circles, and now all a stoop on a
sudden, as if frozen to death ! Higher up among the
rocks, and cliffs, and stones we see a stripling, whose
ambition it is to strike the sky with his forehead, and
wet his hair in the misty cloud, pursuing the ptarmigan
now in their variegated summer dress, seen even among
the unmelted snows. Never shall Eld deaden our
sympathies with the pastimes of our fellow-men any
more than with their highest raptures, their profoundest
rriefs.' Nor did he belie the words."

" Cbrtstopber Hortb" i97

The end was not long in coming. John Wilson died
at midnight on April 1st, 1854.

In the literature of sport Christopher North is by far
the biggest figure we have had yet. No one has ever
embodied in such glowing eloquence the poetry of sport,
no one has ever thrown such a halo of romance round
the worship of rod and gun. Charles Kingsley, perhaps,
might have equalled him had he chosen to devote him-
self to the task, though if you compare Kingsley's
rhapsody on fox-hunting in " My Winter Garden " with
Wilson's in the " Recreations," I think you will note
that the parson does not let himself go with the same
freedom and dash as the Professor. Kingsley's was a
sedater mind — there was not in him the reckless, boyish
irresponsibility and impetuosity of Christopher. The
Englishman, too, was more orderly and methodical than
the perfervid Scot. In Wilson's mind there was, I think,
to be found as curious a jumble of incongruities as in
his library, where, his daughter tells us, " resting upon the
' Wealth of Nations,' lay shining coils of gut, set off by
pretty pink twinings. Peeping out from ' Boxiana,' in
juxtaposition with the ' Faery Queen/ were no end of
delicately dressed flies ; and pocket-books well-filled with
gear for the ' gentle craft ' found company with Shak-
speare and Ben Jonson, while fishing-rods in pieces
stretched their elegant length along the shelves,
embracing a whole set of poets."

But look at him from what point of view you will,
John Wilson was a big man — big in heart, in intellect, in
body. And how lovable he was ! See him there among
his grandchildren, turning the nursery into an imaginary

198 Ifcinas of tbe IRofc, IRtfle, an& Oun

loch, and with real rods, lines, and creels hauling in
phantom trout of fabulous size, to the ecstatic delight
of the tiny anglers ! See him among his dogs — New-
foundlands, terriers, setters, Dandies — with caressing
hand acknowledging the glances of dumb devotion from
their melting eyes ! See him sitting in his chair with
the pet sparrow, rescued years before as a fledgeling
from the gutter, perched on his shoulder or tugging
impudently at his whiskers ! See him among the trout
of Loch Awe or the grouse on Drumlochty moor ! He
is always the same big, human-hearted creature — strong
and gentle — a grand athlete mentally and physically — a
true sportsman of the finest type.

The Cokes of Holkham

AMONG "the stately homes of England," Holkham
House, in Norfolk, the seat of the present Earl of
Leicester, is, for a variety of reasons, one of the most
remarkable. John Blome, an enthusiastic East Anglian,
described it some seventy odd years ago as " one of the
most magnificent piles of architecture in this kingdom,
and perhaps in the whole world." Brewer, in his
" Beauties of England and Wales," if a little more
discriminating, is scarcely less emphatic in his praise.
" There may be houses," he writes, " larger and more
magnificent, and in some more uniformity and justness
of proportion may be visible ; but human genius could
not contrive anything in which convenience could be
more apparent than it is in this."

The candid person who looks for the first time
upon the huge building with its 344 feet of frontage,
its great central block with the Corinthian portico
and its four wings branching off in mathematical uni-
formity, will probably pronounce it the reverse of
beautiful. But if he be privileged to examine the in-
terior he will most certainly admit that if externally

199

200 ifcinss of tbe 1Rot>, 1Rtflet ant) 6un

the ugliest, it is internally the w0.tf comfortable house
in England.

That it should be something out of the common way
was only to be expected from the time and thought and
money expended upon the building of it. Thomas
Coke, after long consultations with his friend the Earl
of Burlington, the accomplished virtuoso of Burlington
House, and that nobleman's brilliant henchman William
Kent, painter, sculptor, architect, and landscape gardener,
commenced building his great "pleasure-house" in 1734
from designs by Inigo Jones, based upon the happiest
efforts of the great sixteenth-century Italian architect
Andrea Palladio. When, ten years later, Thomas Coke
was raised to the peerage as Viscount Coke of Holkham
and Earl of Leicester, the elaborately planned mansion
in Norfolk was still far from being ready for habitation.
And, indeed, though the Earl lived to inhabit his
splendid house, he never saw it finished, for it was
not till five years after his death and thirty years from
the laying of the foundation stone that Holkham House
was finally completed by his widowed Countess.

Over the entrance door of the fine Egyptian Hall,
from which the rest of the noble suite of state apart-
ments radiate, is the following inscription :

This seat, on an open and barren estate, was planned,
decorated, and inhabited, the middle of the eighteenth
century, by Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester.

Probably it never occurred to the said Thomas Coke,
Earl of Leicester, that he could do anything better to
improve his " open and barren estate " than build upon
it this " sumptuous edifice." That the poor and miser-

i (/////,-//// , arl c

ZTbc (Tofees of Ibolfebam 201

able soil of Holkham, fit only to produce scanty crops
of rye, could ever repay the cost of scientific cultivation
would have seemed to him a thing as reasonable to
expect as the extraction of sunbeams out of cucumbers.
And he would doubtless have regarded as a lunatic the
prophet who should have foretold that his own grand-
nephew should, within fifty years of his death, turn these
barren acres into the richest arable land in Norfolk,
transform Holkham Park from open warren into one of
the most beautifully wooded demesnes in England, and
raise the rental of the estate from £2,000 to upwards of
£20,000.

Yet all this and more was accomplished in the life-
time and by the indomitable energy of one man,
Thomas William Coke, known far and wide among
his contemporaries as " Coke of Norfolk," the Father of
modern Agriculture.

But great as Thomas William Coke was as an
agriculturist, he was hardly less great as a sportsman —
to him Holkham owes that sporting renown which
has been so splendidly maintained by his son, a renown
which I may almost call world-wide, for the vast game-
preserves have few rivals in the three kingdoms, and the
Holkham annals contain some of the most notable
shooting feats on record. In this gallery of " Kings of the
Gun," therefore, " Coke of Norfolk " must be assigned a
foremost place. And now let me sketch his career.

When Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, the builder of
Holkham House, died on April 2Oth, 1759, all his
honours became extinct, and the Countess, his widow,
had a life interest in his estate. On her death all the

202 ffcfnos of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, anfc <3un

lands and hereditaments of the late Earl came into the
possession of his sister's son Wenman Roberts, who took
the name of Coke. The eldest son of Wenman Roberts
Coke was Thomas William Coke, born in London on
May 6th, 1754. One of the boy's earliest recollections
was that of being brought to a window to see a fox
killed by Mr. Archer's hounds in Hanover Square \
For those were days when Oxford Street was open on
one side to the country, and snipe were often flushed
and shot where Edgware road now commences. That
sight Thomas William never forgot. It stirred the
Nimrod spirit in him. From that moment he cherished
the ambition of becoming a Master of Fox-hounds, and
he did not rest till he had realised it. Fox-hunting was
a passion with him. When he came into his estates he
started a pack of his own, and for many years was
renowned as one of the most daring riders in England.
But much as he loved hunting, he loved shooting
more, at any rate in his later years. He was " entered
to " the gun (to use a hunting expression) at an early
age. When he was a boy he used to rise with the sun
to shoot, and Longford Hall, in Derbyshire, where he
was brought up, afforded him capital sport. Boys are
often better shots at snipe than men ; but not many
boys, I think, have equalled young Coke's feat of
shooting sixty snipe in a couple of days while he was yet
in his early teens.

Thomas William's first visit to Holkham, of which he
was one day to be the master, took place just after he
had left Eton. He went there at the special invitation
of the Countess of Leicester, his great-aunt, who is

ZTbc Coftes of tbolfebam 203

described as " one of the most punctilious dames of her
time." She had been a widow for some years, but she
abated not one jot of the stiff ceremonial state which
had been kept up in the Earl's lifetime, and probably
young Coke never passed a more wearisome time in his
life than those six weeks during which he was the
Countess's guest at Holkham.

Among her ladyship's many fads was a rabid aversion
to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which she
believed to be hotbeds of atheism, socialism, and im-
morality. She was so anxious to keep her great-nephew
away from these pestilent seats of learning that she
offered him a handsome annual allowance if he would
travel instead of graduating at either university. Thomas
William accepted the offer, and soon afterwards started
for the Continent. His good looks, his graceful figure
and attractive manners gained him friends among the
men and admirers among the women wherever he
went.

At Rome, where he made a long stay, he was known as
the " handsome young Englishman," and it was rumoured
that he was a special favourite with the young and
beautiful Countess of Albany, then the newly wedded
bride of "Bonnie Prince Charlie," the last of the
Stuarts.

Louisa von Stolberg had already repented of her
marriage to a man old enough to be her father and a
drunkard and a rake to boot. She was not yet twenty,
and was naturally attracted by the gallant and handsome
young Englishman, who was but a year her junior and
showed his admiration for her in most unmistakable

204 1fcfn0s ot tbe 1Rofct IRffle, an& (Bun

fashion. Horace Walpole, who was au courant with every
bit of scandal in Europe, writing under date of August
1 8th, 1774, says : " The young Mr. Coke is returned from
his travels, in love with the Pretender's queen, who has
permitted him to have her picture," The latter state-
ment, however, is not quite correct. The Countess of
Albany insisted on making her youthful admirer a
present of his own portrait, which is now at Longford
Hall, Derbyshire, the seat of his second son, Mr. Edward
Coke. Lord Albemarle says that the portrait was given
" as an acknowledgment of the impression which young
Coke's good looks had produced on the Countess." He
is represented with a mask in his hand and attired in a
pink and white masquerade dress. In the background
of the picture is a statue of Cleopatra reclining in the
act of applying the asp to her arm, and the face and
figure of the love-sick " serpent of old Nile " are said to
be those of the Countess of Albany. If this be so, it was
an ingenious way of presenting her admirer with her
own portrait without committing herself, and in a
suggestive guise, too, which must have been highly
flattering to the young Englishman, who would so
willingly have played the part of Antony.

Another notable memento of Mr. Coke's sojourn in
Rome is preserved at Holkham in the shape of a fine
statue of Diana, which a romantic antiquarian fondly
imagines to be the identical statue mentioned by Cicero
in his oration against Verres as having been taken from
Sicily by the Carthaginians, recaptured from them by
Scipio Africanus, and restored by him to the Sicilians.
Whether this be so or not, the statue is unquestionably

ZTbc Cofees of feolfcbam 205

one of great value and antiquity, and has a further
interest from the fact that Coke obtained it under such
peculiar circumstances that he was arrested and im-
prisoned, and only released at the urgent solicitations of
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who acted under strong
pressure from the Countess of Albany, of whom he, too,
like the young Englishman, was deeply enamoured. The
price paid for the statue was £1,500.

On his return to England after these romantic
adventures Thomas William Coke prepared to settle
down as an English country gentleman, and as a first
step crushed his sentimental attachment for the beautiful
Countess Louisa under foot and took to himself a wife,
a woman as beautiful if not as charming as his first
love — to wit, Jane, sister of James, first Baron Sherborne,
and youngest daughter of James Lennox Button, of
Lough Crew, county Meath.

On April nth, 1776, Wenman Roberts Coke died, and
Thomas William succeeded to the estates of Longford,
in Derbyshire, and Holkham, in Norfolk. In the same
year, very much against his will, for sport was far more
to his taste than politics, he consented to become
Member for Norfolk in the Whig interest, and with only
one short break he represented that constituency for
thirty years. To quote one of his eulogists : " He has
ever been the independent, bold, uncompromising enemy
of every species of aggression upon the liberty or the
property of his countrymen, and has ever denounced
with unswerving zeal every form of corruption."

He was among the minority who voted against the
American War in 1776, and he moved the petition

206 ikings of tfoe 1Rofc, IRffle, ant) 6un

for the independence of the American colonies, which
was seconded by General Conway, who also accompanied
Coke when the latter presented the petition to the King.
Some years later a graceful recognition of the part then
played by Coke was made by Mr. Stephenson, the
United States Ambassador, who, on paying a visit to
Holkham, thus expressed himself:

" I, the representative of fourteen millions of freemen,
thought it my first duty on my arrival in England to
pay my respects and offer the grateful acknowledgment
of my countrymen to the man who had acted so early
and so noble a part in vindication of America."

Over one of the chimney-pieces in the saloon at
Holkham is a charming full-length picture of Coke
by Gainsborough, the last portrait, I believe, painted
by the great artist, who thenceforth confined himself
to landscapes. Mr. Coke is depicted in the act of
loading a gun ; a dog is at his feet. He wears long
boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and the shooting-jacket of
a century ago. Apart from its merit as a work of art,
this picture has an historical interest, as exhibiting the
actual dress in which Coke appeared before George III.
when, as knight of the shire, he presented an address
from the county of Norfolk, praying the King to
recognise the independence of the American colonies.

But he was not always popular with his constituents.
The Earl of Albemarle, in his " Fifty Years of My
Life," gives the following graphic picture of a desperate
attack made upon Coke at the time of the Anti-Corn
Law agitation :

"The high price of wheat and the low price of

TOc Cofees of Ibolfefoam 207

wages in 1815, led many of the working classes in
the provincial towns to hold tumultuous meetings for
the repeal of the Corn Laws. Mr. Coke, Bfl a true
disciple of Fox, was no believer in Adam Smith's
doctrine respecting a free trade in grain, and always
voted, in common with other county members, for
1 protection to agriculture.' In the month of March,
1815, he and my father attended a Cattle Show in
the Norwich Castle Ditches. On the same day, an
Anti-Corn Law mob paraded the streets, preceded by
a man bearing a small loaf on a pole. Mr. Coke was
immediately recognised. ' Let us seize the villain,'
cried some of the weavers, ' and before night we will
have his heart on a gridiron.' At the same moment
they made a rush towards their intended victim. In
the crowd, a stalwart poacher, whom my father had
once befriended, formed with his body a temporary
barrier between the mob and the object of their re-
sentment. Coke and my father took advantage of
the momentary respite, and amidst a shower of stones
scrambled over some cattle-pens. A butcher named
Kett, seeing their danger, opened the door of one of
his pens, and having first twisted the tail of a large
bull, let him loose on the crowd. The beast, maddened
with pain, went bellowing and galloping down the hill.
The mob dispersed in a trice, but quickly reassembled
in greater force. The Riot Act was read, and the
military — a regiment of Black Brunswickers (soon to
deal with a more formidable foe) — was called out. One
trooper was wounded by a stone.

In the meanwhile the fugitives made their escape

208 ikfngs of tbe IRofc, 18ffle, anfc 6un

to the ' Angel,' now the 'Royal' Hotel. The gates
were closed ; the Anti-Corn Law rioters assembled
round the inn. It was whispered that Coke would
be found in the boot of the London night coach, now
about to take its departure. The gates were opened,
the coach was searched, — no Coke was to be found.
He and my father, having escaped by the back way,
were on their road to Quidenham, where they arrived
safely the same evening."

But it is not as a politician that I am concerned
with "Coke of Norfolk," it is at Holkham amongst
his cattle and his game, as farmer and sportsman,
that I have it in my mind to picture him.

When Thomas William Coke, on the death of his
father, succeeded to the Holkham estates, he found
the inheritance a poor one. His predecessors had been
content to let the fat manors and rich collieries of
Longford supply them with revenue, and had expected
little from their barren Norfolk farms. The whole
district round Holkham was unenclosed ; there was little
or no attempt at cultivation, for the land would produce
nothing but scanty crops of rye. The sheep were all
of the miserable old Norfolk breed, and, with the
exception of a few milch-cows, cattle there were none.
The average rent was not two shillings an acre. Probably
things would never have been much better had not
Mr. Coke been forced to take up farming himself. It
came about in this way.

The Great Park Farm, one of the best on the estate,
had been leased to a Mr. Butt at one shilling and
sixpence an acre, and subsequently at three shillings.

ZTbc Cofces of Ibolfebam 209

When the latter lease expired Mr. Coke offered to
renew it at five shillings per acre, tithe-free. This
offer Mr. Butt declined ; and as no other tenant was
forthcoming, Mr. Coke resolved to take the farm into
his own hands.

Mr. Walter Rye, notable alike as athlete and antiquary,
who knows his Norfolk probably better than any man
living, in an admirable brochure on " Coke of Norfolk,"
suggests another reason for Mr. Coke's determination to
take the management of his farms into his own hands.
He had engaged as " auditor-general " of his estates one
Major Richard Gardiner, a rather remarkable adventurer
who had been in turn privateersman, parson, successful
preacher, and soldier. In the last-named capacity he had
distinguished himself at the capture of Martinique, in
the West Indies Expedition of 1759, and had written a
narrative of that expedition which rapidly ran through
three editions, and was translated into French. In 1773
Gardiner retired from the army on half-pay with the rank
of major, and for some time earned a more or less pre-
carious livelihood by writing prologues and epilogues to
plays, political pamphlets, and satires in verse. He had a
knack of turning off election squibs, and when he offered
his services to Coke of Holkham, with whose father he
had been on friendly terms, as " auditor-general " of his
estates at a salary of £600 a year, it was an understood
thing that his pen should be at the service of his patron
in his electioneering campaigns. Major Gardiner appears,
in fact, to have been a sort of literary Chevalier Strong,
and he regarded Mr. Coke in the same light in which
that jolly major-domo regarded Sir Francis Clavering.

14

210 ifcfngs of tbe 1Rot>, 1Rfflet an& (Bun

The place was intended as a sinecure, but Gardiner reck-
lessly altered existing relations, increased rents, drove out
tenants, and even endeavoured to choose the guests and
order the dinners of his employer. This, it must be
remembered, is Gardiner's own account of his proceed-
ings as given in his Autobiography under the pseudonym
of " Dick Merryfellow," and it may be a sarcastic exag-
geration of the reasons alleged by Coke for dismissing
him, after six months' trial, with a gratuity of .£200.

Dismissed at any rate he was, and, as he alleged, at
the instigation of Sir Henry Harbord, to whom he
addressed a long letter full of vituperation. Sir Henry
and Coke answered with indignant denials of Gardiner's
assertions, and there was a fierce paper war between
them. When the next election came on Gardiner avenged
himself by lampooning Coke as " Sir Growl " and
" Prince Pinery," holding him up to ridicule for his lack
of brains, " his baby face and simpering smile," and to
execration for his meanness and selfishness, declaring
that he thought of nothing but himself and his sport, that
the " broken meats " which had once been given to the
poor were now bestowed upon his hounds, and that he
was barbaric in his merciless severity to everyone guilty
of even the slightest transgression of the Game Laws.
I think most of the disparaging stories of Coke may be
traced to the venomous pen of Major Richard Gardiner.

Possibly, then, Thomas William Coke was influenced
by his unfortunate experiences of an " auditor-general "
to take up farming on his own account, and was perhaps
piqued, by Gardiner's assertion that he was not fit to
have the control of his own estates, into showing the

ZTbe Gofees of Ibolfebam 211

world that he had more in him than most people thou
He knew very little of farming, but he had plenty of
good common sense, a clear head, and a quick brain.
He wisely took counsel with practical farmers, among
them his young friend Francis, Duke of Bedford, who
was already making his mark as an agriculturist.

In the year 1778 at shearing-time he invited a number
of farmers from neighbouring districts to come and
examine his Park Farm and discuss with him its manage-
ment. And so originated the famous " Holkham
Shearings," or " Coke's Clippings," as Norfolk men
dubbed them, which were continued annually for more
than forty years, and were ranked amongst the most
important agricultural meetings in the kingdom.

For three days every July Mr. Coke kept open house
at Holkham. The mornings were passed in inspecting
the farms, the produce, the new machinery, the cattle,
and sheep, and all the latest improvements in husbandry ;
the afternoons in watching ploughing and shearing
matches and distributing prizes to successful com-
petitors.

With "Coke of Norfolk " on horseback at their head,
hundreds of agricultural enthusiasts rode or drove over
the different portions of the vast estate — 44,000 acres
within a ring fence ; and when the day's excursion was
over, six hundred guests would sit down in the noble
statue-gallery to enjoy the host's magnificent hospitality.

The secret of Mr. Coke's success in cultivating his
Holkham estates lay in high manuring, constant marling,
and dressing with rape seed. It was part of his system,
too, to stock his farms heavily, but, as fre said, " more

212 iRinss of tbe IRofc, TOfle, ant> (Bun

for the manure than the meat." Devons and South-
downs were the breeds he favoured in cattle and sheep.
During the sixty-six years of his reign at Holkham he
spent £536,992 in building and repairs, besides the cost
of planting the woods, which are now the great beauty
of the park. The annual fall of timber brought him in
£2,700, which was considerably more than the whole
rental of the estates when he first succeeded to them.
In commemoration of his great achievements as an
agriculturist an imposing monument was erected in the
park by public subscription. It was commenced in
1845 and completed in 1848, six years after his death.
The subscribers were nine hundred in number, and
the amount subscribed was £4,995 us. 6d, including
donations from five shillings to fifty pounds. The
monument consists of a fluted column surmounted by a
wheatsheaf, and rising to a height of 125 feet. The
pedestal is embellished with three bas-reliefs representing
the sheep-shearing, granting a lease, and irrigation, all
containing portraits of noted agriculturists, whilst the
fourth side is occupied by an elaborate inscription setting
forth the many claims of Thomas William Coke upon
the respect and admiration of his countrymen. At each
corner of the pedestal is a symbolic figure — a Devon ox,
a Southdown sheep, a plough, and a drill, with appro-
priate mottos beneath.

So much for " Coke of Norfolk " as an agriculturist,
the character in which no doubt he has the largest
claim to fame. Let me now look at him in his character
as sportsman.

Coke was without doubt the best game-shot of his

ttbe Cohes ot Ibolhbam 213

day. It is recorded in the Holkham Game Book that
lie once for a wager killed 82 partridges in 84 shots.
This has been ridiculed by some writers as an impos-
sible feat. When, however, one remembers that George
Osbaldeston once killed 98 pheasants in 100 shots, and
that Colonel Hawker and John Holt performed almost
equally remarkable feats, one hesitates to dispute the
truth of the Holkham legend. But, putting this phe-
nomenal performance on one side, here are some un-
disputed records of Mr. Coke's shooting. On October
7th, 1797, within an area of one mile of his manor at
Warham, he bagged 40 brace of birds in 90 shots, each
bird killed singly. On the previous day over the same
ground he had bagged 22^ brace in three hours, so that
birds must have been pretty numerous even then.

In those days partridges were far more plentiful than
pheasants and ground-game than either. For example,
it is recorded in the Holkham Game Book for 1810 that
in four days 2,032 head of game were killed, of which
1,012 were rabbits and 761 hares. In 1800, out of a
total of 5,201 head of game shot at Holkham, only
355 were pheasants, whilst the partridges numbered
3,805 and the hares 854. Ten years later the number
of pheasants killed showed a remarkable increase, for
out of 10,599 head of game shot, 1,227 were pheasants,
1,711 partridges, 3,176 hares, and 3,789 rabbits, the
ground-game, it will be noticed, still largely pre-
dominating.

Contrast this with the result of five days' pheasant-
shooting at Holkham in 1885, when 2,592 head of
pheasants fell to eight guns in four consecutive days,

214 Ikinss of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, anb (Bun

and it will be apparent what tremendous strides have
been made in pheasant-shooting and pheasant-pre-
serving.

Lord Albemarle gives a graphic picture of the sport
at Holkham in the 'Thirties. He writes :

" Early in November I accompanied the Duke of
Sussex to Holkham. For three successive months Mr.
Coke kept open house for his friends. Among his
annual guests were Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg,
afterwards King of the Belgians, and the Duke of
Gloucester. These princes desired to be considered
as private friends, and dispensed with the attentions
that etiquette usually assigns to persons in their station
of life. The battues began the first Wednesday of
November, and continued twice a week for the rest of
the season. The quantity of game killed in the three
months was probably not much more than it is now
the fashion to slaughter in as many days ; but the flint-
and-steel guns were always fully employed, and every-
body was satisfied with his day's sport. The non-battue
days were passed, either in the turnip fields among the
partridges, or in the salt marshes in pursuit of snipes
and wild fowl.

In a shooting establishment like Holkham, game-
keepers are persons of importance. Several of these
were characters in their way. There was old Joe
Hibbert, who had been a prize-fighter in his youth.
On one occasion, Sir John Shelley, who was celebrated
for his neat sparring, challenged Hibbert to a set-to
with the gloves, and some of the young men mis-
chievously promised Joe a good tip if he would ad-

ZTbe Cofees of Ibolfebam 215

minister a little punishment to Sir John. Joe put on
the gloves, but soon drew them off again ; and turning
round upon his backers, exclaimed, ' Not for twice the
money would I strike a gentleman ! '

One of Joe's colleagues, but of a different sex, was
Polly Fishbourne, keeper of the Church Lodge, who
when I last heard of her was still alive. She must be
about my own age. She had large, black eyes, red
cheeks, and white teeth ; her hair was cropped like a
man's, and she wore a man's hat. The rest of her attire
was feminine. She was irreproachable in character,
and, indeed, somewhat of a prude. Polly was the terror
of poachers, with whom she had frequent encounters,
and would give and take hard knocks ; but generally
succeeded in capturing her opponents and making them
answer for their misdeeds at Petty Sessions.

A Norfolk game-preserver once offered Polly a
shilling a-piece for a hundred pheasants' eggs. She
nodded her head. Soon after she brought Mr. Coke a
five-pound note. 'There, Squire,' said she, 'is the
price of a hundred of your guinea-fowl eggs." Of
course the Squire made Polly keep the five-pound
note.

One time that I was staying at Holkham, a bull killed
a labouring man in the salt marshes. The savage brute
was standing over his victim, and a crowd was assembled
at the gate, when Polly appeared at the opposite side.
There was a cry, ' Get out of the way, Polly, or the bull
will kill you.' ' Not he,' was the reply ; ' he knows
better.' She was right. The moment he saw her he
backed astern to the remotest corner of the enclosure.

216 iktngs of tfoe 1Ro&, IRifle, anfc (Bun

It turned out that the animal had once attempted to
run at her, but she had lodged a charge of small shot
in his muzzle.

Two young gentlemen once paid a visit to Holkham
in the summer time. The dinner hour was half-past
three, but the guests were not forthcoming. It was
eight in the evening before they put in an appearance,
and then looked uncommonly sheepish. At daybreak
they decamped without beat of drum. It transpired
that they had expressed a wish to see the church, and
applied to Polly, the keeper of the Church Lodge. On
their way thither one of them attempted to rob the said
keeper of a kiss. Luckily for them they were guests at
the hall, or she would have treated them as she used
to treat the poachers. She resorted to a milder punish-
ment ; while they were in the belfry admiring the
scenery, Polly turned the Church key upon them."

Another remarkable gamekeeper at Holkham, of the
other sex, was John Hawkesworth, of whose eccentricities
the Rev. William Barker Daniel gives the following
account :

" Hawkesworth never associated with, or spoke to any
person unless he was first addressed. He was very
penurious, and had accumulated a considerable fortune,
which he had hid from the fear of invasion, and his
death, at the age of seventy, was supposed to be
occasioned by depriving himself of sufficient nourish-
ment. Mr. Coke annually furnished him with sufficient
clothing, but his dress was of the most miserable kind,
and he always wore an old painted hat, patched over
with pieces of cloth. The liveries he had by him at the

tlbe Cofces of Ibolfebam 217

time of his decease, and which had never been worn,
were estimated to be worth one hundred poun
Amongst the neighbours he was known by the title of
the ' Walking Obelisk.' "

But among the shooting records of Holkham, the feat
which will be longest remembered is that of Sir Francis
Chantrey, the great sculptor, who killed two woodcocks
in a single shot. Chantrey, like Sir Humphry Davy,
was an enthusiastic sportsman both with rod and gun ;
in fact, he was an enthusiast at whatever he took up.
It was his boast that he had mowed an acre of grass
in a day, thrashed a quarter of corn (with a flail, be it
understood), and ploughed an acre of land in the same
space of time. For he held that a man should be able
to do with his own hand everything that " tended to the
duties, the necessities, and the conveniences of life."

Chantrey was the president of that jovial coterie of
Waltonians, the Houghton Fishing Club, and was the
life and soul of its convivial meetings. But with all his
intense love of sport he combined a peculiarly sensitive
nature. He could not bear to see any creature in
suffering, and he always carried in his pocket an ivory
rule, with which he killed every fish he caught the
instant he had landed it. So squeamish was he on
this point that once, when thirty pheasants and twenty
hares were placed at his feet by the keepers as his share
of a day's shooting at Holkham, he felt so sick that he
had to turn hastily away.

He was a frequent guest at Holkham during the
shooting season, and the following is the official account
of his memorable feat in woodcock-shooting, as given

218 ifcfnss of tbe IRofc, IRffle, ant> (Bun

by Mr. James P. Muirhead, who had the particulars
from Mr. Spencer Stanhope, one of the witnesses of
the sculptor's exploit, which, of course, was a mere fluke
and no proof of exceptional skill :

"QUARLES NEW PLANTATION.

Amidst the events of the day it is especially worthy
of being recorded that Mr. Chantrey killed at one shot
Two Woodcocks ; and, considering this exploit as among
the many illustrious achievements, if not the most
extraordinary, of that great and extraordinary man,
it was unanimously proposed to Mr. Coke that the
spot should be henceforth handed [down] to posterity,
and the honours of the individual perpetuated, by the
name of Chantrey Hill being given to it ; assured that
no sculptor in Europe had ever done before so much in
the art of Shooting, [Mr. Chantrey] having but the day
before killed at one shot a hare and a rabbit.

/-THOMAS WILLM- COKE.

Testified by \ ARCHDEACON GLOVER.

(j. SPENCER STANHOPE.

Mr. Stanhope has also been good enough to furnish
us with the following particulars of the occurrence, as it
first became known to him, and gave occasion to his
lines on * the joyous Chantrey.' By those who knew the
personnel of the Sculptor, and in what manner of guise
he was wont to be 'got up' for a regular day's sport
among the bushes, the ' joyous countenance ' and the
Peruvian hat will both be recognised as very graphic
features in the scene depicted. Writing to his friend

ftbc CofeC9 of ibolfebam 219

Mr. Collycr, Mr. Stanhope says : ' Perhaps you would
like to have my recollections of the day. Chantrcy was
placed in the gravel-pit that you will remember just
under the Hall. I was standing next to him, but hid
from him by the bank formed by the pit. Knowing
how keen a sportsman he was, I was amazed at seeing
him running up to me without his gun, just at the
moment when the hares were passing us in all
directions ; but when I saw him waving his Peruvian
hat over his head, and distinguished his joyous
countenance, I knew that all was right. " Two COCKS
AT ONE SHOT ! " burst from him, and announced to
me the feat that he had performed.'

This triumph was, as may be imagined, hailed by
the assembled sportsmen with wonder and applause :
and on its announcement, Mr. Coke, himself an
enthusiastic lover of the chase in all its forms,
marshalled the whole party, — ' guns,' keepers, and
beaters, — in line ; he then made Chantrey pass along
the ranks ; and, as he passed, each individual in
succession uncovered and made a formal obeisance
to the Hero of the Day.

The difficulty of Chantrey's exploit seems to increase
when it is known that he had the use of only one eye,
which was the left one. ' All of a sudden,' says a recent
writer, ' on some subject connected with blindness being
glanced at, he [Chantrey] turned to me a pair of very
agreeable deep-grey eyes, and said, " Do you know, sir,
I was born, it is supposed, blind of one eye, and it was
never discovered till I was ten years old ? . . . Now, can
you," he said, turning a somewhat handsome countenance

220 1kiu0s of tbe IRofc, IRtfle, ant) (Butt

upon me, " tell which of my eyes is blind ? Do guess
which it is ! " I looked up into his face. There was
an expression of thought and mild good sense in both
eyes. They were both clear, and free from any apparent
disease or weakness. They were searching without
being staring. I could at first see no difference ; but,
after looking earnestly for some time, I noticed in
one a tiny speck, or rather discolourment, on the pupil, —
so slight that I do not believe any one could have
observed it [without the closest inspection]. " That,"
I whispered, " is the — the defective eye." " No, sir, it
is not merely defective ; it is blind : but I do not let
my sitters know it." '

The gun of Chantrey, which was adapted to his
peculiarity of sight, was thus, like the bow of Ulysses,
a weapon which no one but its rightful lord was able
to use with ease ; but in his hands it was all-powerful ;
and on this occasion certainly caused, although in a
different sense from that intended by the old chronicler,
a memorable ''fall of woodcocks! "

The two woodcocks were exquisitely chiselled in
marble by the sculptor, and this beautiful specimen of
Chantrey's finest workmanship occupies a conspicuous
place in the library at Holkham. All the wits of
England were requested to exercise their ingenuity in
furnishing an epigram to form an appropriate in-
scription for the group. The contributions were so
numerous, and it was so difficult to decide which was
the best, that none of them was used, but a simple
inscription narrating the facts was placed below the
tablet. The epigrams, however, have been collected in

Gofces of Ibolftbam 221

a pretty volume by Mr. J. P. Muirhead under the title
of "Winged Words." I subjoin one or two examj
of these jeux d* esprit, 179 in number, but none of
them, to my thinking, very happy efforts.

The best, I think, is that by the late and great
Bishop of Oxford :

Life in death, a mystic lot,

Dealt thou to the winged band ;

Death from thine unerring shot,
Life from thine undying hand.

Lord Jeffery contributed several, but none better
than this :

Their good and ill from the same source they drew, —
Here shrin'd in marble by the hand that slew.

Mr. Hudson Gurney's contribution deals with the
subject in lighter vein :

Driven from the North that would have starv'd them,
This was the way that Chantrey sarv'd them,
He shot them first and then he carv'd them.

Chantrey 's feat, I may add, was rivalled by Colonel
Sands, who on November 4th, 1853, killed two wood-
cock with one barrel ; and the same sportsman is
credited with bagging four blackcock at a single shot.

In the February of 1822, when he was sixty-eight
years of age and had been for twenty-one years a
widower, Mr. Coke astonished his friends by marrying
for the second time. And what was still more astonish-
ing was that the bride was his god-daughter, a girl of
eighteen ! — Anne Amelia, third daughter of the Earl
of Albemarle. She was not born till three years after

222 ifcfnss of tfoe 1Ro&, IRffle, anfc 6un

the death of Coke's first wife, and was seven years
younger than her husband's granddaughter the Countess
of Rosebery. The reasons for this strange marriage
were as follows.

By his first wife, who died in 1800, Mr. Coke had
no male issue — only three daughters. Consequently
the heir-presumptive to his estates was his nephew
William Coke, whose exploits as a sportsman I have
recounted in my sketches of Captain Ross and Lord
Kennedy. For reasons which were never made public,
Mr. Coke and his nephew had a serious quarrel, and
the uncle, in his wrath, resolved to marry again and
provide himself with an heir in the direct line. His
hopes were realised — the second Mrs. Coke bore her
venerable but vigorous husband five sons and a
daughter. The eldest of those sons is the present
Earl of Leicester. For " Coke of Norfolk," after thrice
refusing a peerage and priding himself, like James Fox
Lane, on being the First Commoner in England,
yielded at last, in his eighty-third year, to the
seductive voice of Lord Melbourne, and consented to
accept a title, providing it was that borne by his
grand-uncle — namely, Earl of Leicester and Viscount
Coke of Holkham. His wishes were complied with,
and Thomas William Coke was the first commoner
on whom Queen Victoria conferred a patent of nobility.

But it was as " Coke of Norfolk " that he was known
till his death, and it is as "Coke of Norfolk" that
his fame will go down to posterity. To the very end
of his long life Lord Leicester retained his physical
vigour and his love of shooting. One of the last

ZCbe Coftcs of Ibolfebam 223

glimpses we have of him as a sportsman is that given
by Mr. W. Spencer Stanhope, of Cannon Hall, Barnsley,
in a letter to Lord Walsingham quoted by the latter
in the Badminton volume on " Field and Covert
Shooting." Mr. Stanhope, referring to grouse-drivi
which he says was first commenced by his father's
keeper George Fisher about 1805, writes:

"The first drive I can recollect being present at
was in 1836, when the late Lord Leicester was at the
Boadhill drive, then aged eighty-three ; and old Sir
William Cooke, of Wheatley, was there with a flint
gun, and he brought down an old cock that had
come down the length of the line and had been shot
at by everybody ; he took off his white hat and called
out, ' There's your copper caps, gentlemen ! ' '

Six years later, on June 3Oth, 1842, Thomas William
Coke, Earl of Leicester, died at Longford Hall, his
Derbyshire seat, having reached the patriarchal age of
eighty-nine, and he lies buried beside his first wife in the
family vault in the little Norfolk church of Tittleshall.

There were one or two traits in the character of
" Coke of Norfolk " to which I may refer before taking
my leave of him. Although one of the best whist-players
in England, he abhorred gambling in every shape ; and,
fond as he was of horses, he detested racing. His advice
to his son was, " Tom, when you go through Newmarket
draw down the blinds ; never look at the place." This,
of course, was in the good old days of post-chaises and
travelling " chariots."

His political enemies accused him of being coarse
and violent in his language, vehement and intemperate

224 Ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, an& Gun

in the expression of his opinions, and tyrannical to his
labourers. It was said that he compelled every labourer
on his estates to attend the parish church on Sunday
mornings, and then made them work for the rest of the
day to keep them from the ale-house. Radicals, too,
declared that his administration of the Game Laws was
harsh and arbitrary. So far as I can gather there was
very slight ground for these allegations. But Thomas
William Coke did not care much what his enemies said.
Honest, fearless, and hot-tempered, he despised them.
On one occasion, when at a political meeting he had
made a fierce attack upon a neighbouring baronet, a
friend said to him, " You have made that man an enemy
for life." " And what was he before ? " retorted Coke.
" I tell you what, my father called me to him when I
was a boy, and said, ' Tom, stick to your friends and
disregard your enemies.' I have done so, and I will do
so to the end of my life."

What his neighbours and fellow-shiresmen thought of
him may be gathered from the stately monument reared
to his memory at Holkham. They would hardly have
subscribed ^5,000 to erect such a memorial if they had
not been animated by a deep and sincere regard for the
public services and the private worth of the man whom
they thus signally honoured.

The present Earl of Leicester, now in his seventy-ninth
year, is as energetic a landlord and as keen a sportsman
as his father. Some of his shooting feats have been
phenomenal. Fifty years ago, long before partridge-
driving as we know it had come into fashion, he killed
137 brace of birds to his own gun in a single day's

trbe Cofecs of *olfebam 225

shooting, and in one inoniing, on another occasion,
accounted for 103 brace. How plentiful birds are on the
Holkham estates may be gathered from the following
records of four days' shooting by eight guns : December
8th, 1885, 856 head of partridges; December 9th, 885 ;
December loth, 678; December nth, 973, — a total of
3,392 killed in four consecutive days. Contrast this with
the old days. In the eight years from 1793 to 1800 the
highest bag of partridges in a single year was 3,965 in
1798 ; the annual average was under 3,000. That is to
say, in 1885 Lord Leicester with seven other guns killed
more partridges in four days than his father and his
friends killed in a whole shooting season !

But I find better evidence of the present Lord
Leicester's prowess with the gun in his records of wild-
fowl shooting. Holkham is famous for its wild-fowl, and
thousands of wigeon may often be seen in hard winter
weather on the great lake, where, however, they are
never disturbed, for that is their sanctuary. Elsewhere
they must take their chance.

On December I2th, 1862, there fell to Lord Leicester's
own gun 73 ducks, 36 teal, and 2 wigeon, total 1 1 1 ;
on Februaiy 28th, 1866, he bagged i snipe, 71 ducks,
24 teal, 2 wigeon, total 98 ; on February I2th he shot
64 ducks, 20 teal, 6 wild geese, and 2 Canada geese, total
92. On January I3th and 26th, 1881, Lord Leicester
and the Hon. Colonel Coke between them killed 76 wild
geese, all with shoulder-guns, a feat which I suppose it
would be impossible to achieve anywhere else in England,
except at Berkeley Castle, for nowhere else can the
shoulder-shot get such chances at wild geese.

15

226 ikings of tbe 1Rot>, IRtfle, anfc (Sun

But even more remarkable, perhaps, have been Lord
Leicester's achievements in snipe-shooting. In a single
day he has killed to his own gun eighty couple of snipe !
And on the day following that prodigious bag he and
his keeper shot 78 couple.

I have already referred to the great pheasant-shoots
at Holkham, where Lord Leicester offers superb sport to
his guests, amongst whom are always some of the finest
shots in England ; and a sportsman can have no higher
tribute to his skill than to be named for the " outer ring "
at Holkham, to stop those " rocketers " which tax all the
quickness of hand and eye of even the deadliest shooters.

There is not in the United Kingdom a spot on which
I should feel more disposed to bestow the title of " The
Sportsman's Paradise " than Holkham, and there is no
sportsman better fitted to be the owner of such a
" Paradise " than Thomas William Coke, second Earl
of Leicester.

Lord Kennedy

AMONG the wild band of madcap sportsmen who
" made things hum " during the first three decades of
the nineteenth century there was no bolder spirit and
no more brilliant Nimrod than Archibald Kennedy,
Earl of Cassillis, better known to fame as Lord Kennedy.
If you run your eye through the " Noctes Ambrosianae,"
you will find that whenever Christopher North wishes
to describe the ne plus ultra of skill with the gun, it is
Lord Kennedy that he takes as his exemplar ; and
there were certainly few men of his day who were his
equals as a game- or pigeon-shot, and only two who were
his superiors — the great Twin Brethren of Sport, Horatio
Ross and George Osbaldeston.

The Kennedys, Earls of Cassillis and now Marquises
of Ailsa, are a fine old Scottish family who began to
make their mark in Scotland's history as far back as the
commencement of the thirteenth century. Most of them
were warriors, but there were some who wore the mitre
of bishop and abbot. Gilbert, the first Lord Kennedy,
received his patent of nobility in 1456. His son David,
first Earl of Cassillis, fell on Flodden's fatal field.

228 ifcfngs of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, anfc (Bun

Gilbert, the fourth Earl, was Privy Councillor to Mary
Stuart, and was involved in the ruin which overwhelmed
her fortunes at Langside. His successor in the title has
been made famous by ballad and tradition as the grim
husband who locked up his Countess in Maybole Tower,
and kept her there till she died. But even the veriest
stickler for romance must admit that he had just cause
for this severity. The lady was married against her
will — no uncommon thing in those days — and her heart
had been given long before to the famous King of the
Gypsies, Johnny Faa, of Yetholm, " Lord and Erie of
Little Egypt," whom a living romancer has introduced
into one of the most popular of his novels. When the
Earl of Cassillis was away, the bold Johnny took ad-
vantage of his absence to make a raid on his castle
and carry off his Countess, "she being nothing loth."
But the grim Earl, on his return, at once gave chase
to the abductor, caught him up, killed him and all his
followers, save one, after a bloody fight, and recaptured
the abducted lady. He built a tower at Maybole, in
Ayrshire, and when it was finished he took his faithless
wife there and shut her up for the rest of her life. But
she had her revenge in a way, for she spent her long,
lonely hours of imprisonment in working out on tapestry
the pictured story of her love adventures with Johnny
Faa, whilst the Lowland balladist has also perpetuated
the tale in verse. Against such " eternal blazon " what
avail the indignant protests of the " family " and
appeals to the fact that no documentary evidence of any
such romantic episode exists in the archives of the
Kennedys ?

§

1

Xorfc "Rennety? 229

That the Kennedys were also a race of sportsmen one
may gather from correspondence still preserved in the
family archives. In 1693 I find Sir Archibald Kennedy,
a great shooter of wild-fowl, sending presents of solan
geese to James, Earl of Perth, and George, Duke of
Gordon, and others, whose letters thanking him heartily
for " the rarety " arc extant. A noble sportsman would
hardly think nowadays of sending solan geese to his
friends, and if he did the recipients of the present would
hardly thank him for " the rarety." Doubtless by men
besieged, say at Ladysmith or Mafeking, a solan goose
might be deemed a delicacy, but under no other circum-
stances can I conceive anyone looking on the bird in
its cooked state without a shudder.

They were noted breeders, too, both of hawks and
sporting dogs, these Kennedys. Here is a curious letter
from Alexander, Lord Montgomerie, of Eglintoun,
thanking Sir Archibald Kennedy for the present of "a
setter dog." The letter is dated June 25th, 1698 :

" I am much oblidged to you for the dog you have
sent me, setting being the onlay sport I am like to have
the next seson ; but you writt the doge is out, and your
man tells me Murdochs in your countrie ; besids my
wife likes mour-foull, and I would take ane day or tuos
sport or I goe to Edinburgh, all which has made me
return this doge, and sent my fout man along for the
other you writt of. I hope you will excuse this fredom."

The spelling is eccentric and the grammar obscure,
but apparently Lord Montgomerie's meaning is that
Sir Archibald Kennedy had previously promised him
another dog of Murdoch's breed, and that he prefers

230 ikinas of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, anfc <3un

that dog to the one which he had received. To coolly
send back one dog, however, sent as a present, and
ask for another, would certainly be deemed a " fredom "
not easily excusable in these days. But the noblemen
of that period were in the habit of taking even ruder
" fredoms."

From such good old sporting stock, then, came
Archibald, Lord Kennedy, who was born on June 4th,
1794, at Cassillis House, in the shire of Ayr. His great-
grandfather had been Receiver-General at New York,
where he married as his first wife Miss Elizabeth
Massam, of that city.

His grandfather was a captain in the Royal Navy,
who greatly distinguished himself in many brilliant
actions, particularly in one off Lisbon, in commemoration
of which the merchants of that city presented him with
a handsome piece of plate. He succeeded to his father's
estate of Pavonia, in the State of New York, and during
the War of Independence his house was burned and
all his papers destroyed. He married as his first wife
a Miss Schayler, of New Jersey, a lady of large fortune,
by whom he had no issue. His second wife was also
an American |lady, Anne, daughter of John Watts, of
New York, and she bore him four children, the eldest
of whom became twelfth Earl of Cassillis, and was the
father of Lord Kennedy, the subject of my sketch.

It will be noted how largely the Kennedys introduced
American blood into the family, and I think they were
the first noble house in Great Britain to enrich them-
selves by alliances with American heiresses.

The family estates, all in Ayrshire, comprised 76,000

Xorfc IkcnneM? 231

acres, producing a rental of £36,000. To these Lord
Kennedy, as the eldest son of the Earl of Cassillis, was
heir ; but he never came into his inheritance, for he
died before his father.

By his marriage with the rich heiress Miss Allardice,
however, Lord Kennedy became possessor of the
beautiful estate of Dunottur, near Stonehaven, in Kin-
cardineshire, with a rent-roll of something like £10,000
a year, and not far short of £100,000 in ready money.
Unfortunately, this large property was not strictly
settled on Lady Kennedy, and her husband was able
to get hold of it and play ducks and drakes with it, as
he did also with some £5,000 per annum which came
to him through his mother. At every race meeting from
North to South Lord Kennedy was a regular attendant,
and both in the ring and at the hazard-table he gambled
in a style that one can only call insane.

When the new Subscription Rooms were opened at
Doncaster, and superseded the long, narrow, upper
apartment at the Salutation, which was the betting
mart previously to the year 1826, Lord Kennedy was
the mightiest hero over their Board of Green Cloth.
The story is still told there how one evening it was as
much as the friend at his side could do to stuff the bank-
notes into his lordship's pockets, as he won eight mains
at hazard in succession ; and when the emulous ardour
of the spectators almost foamed into frenzy, a man near
the table sold his seat for five guineas !

But it is in connection with his mania for making
matches and betting frantically upon them that Lord
Kennedy is principally celebrated. In 1823 he backed

232 Ifcfn09 of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, an& (Bun

himself against Mr. William Coke for 200 sovereigns
a side to shoot more partridges in two days in Scotland
than his opponent in the same time in Norfolk. The
match caused considerable excitement, and large sums
were wagered on the event. September 26th and
October 4th were the days selected. Mr. Coke shot
over the manor at Holkham, the property of his uncle,
the famous " Coke of Norfolk." Lord Kennedy chose
Monreith, the seat of Sir William Maxwell, in Wigtown-
shire, famous then for its game-preserves. The result of
the match was that Mr. Coke killed 8oJ brace the first
day, and 87 J brace the second — total, 168 brace ; whilst
Lord Kennedy shot 50 brace the first day, and 82 the
second — total, 132 brace. Some 20,000 guineas changed
hands over the issue, of which a large share came out of
Lord Kennedy's pocket, for he had, as usual, backed
himself heavily. His lordship was undoubtedly the
better shot of the two, but he was so wilful, obstinate, and
quick-tempered that he would not take the advice of
those who knew the ground over which he was shooting
better than he did, and so he lost. Sir William Maxwell
was very indignant with anyone who suggested that
Lord Kennedy's defeat was owing to the far greater
number of birds at Holkham than at Monreith ; but
when I say that the young Norfolk squire killed 35 J
brace in a single twenty-acre patch of swedes, I think
it will be apparent that Mr. Coke had the pull in that
respect.

Another great match of Lord Kennedy's was against
Mr. Arrowsmith for 600 guineas, at 100 pigeons each,
30 yards rise. Fortunately for his lordship, who had

Xorfc IRcnncfcx? 233

£2,000" depending on the result, Mr. Arrowsmith's last
bird fell dead just two yards outside the boundary, and
the match ended in a tie, each having killed 76. This
was at the grounds of the famous Red House Club at
Battersea, which in those days vied with the equally
celebrated Old Hats Club at Ealing as the ne plus ultra
of aristocratic pigeon-shooting.

In the month of June, 1827, Lord Kennedy shot
his great match against " Squire " Osbaldeston for
2,000 guineas a side, the terms of which were 100
birds each day for four days at 24 yards rise.
The "Squire" won by 19 birds ; and how good the
shooting was may be gathered from the fact that
out of the last hundred Lord Kennedy killed 83
and the " Squire " 86. Indeed, with all our modern
improvements in gun-making, I doubt whether we have
two English pigeon-shots now living who could beat the
best records of such cracks as the " Squire " and Captain
Ross. The former is credited with 98 out of 100 at 30
yards rise, and the latter with 76 out of 80 at the same
distance, and 52 out of 53 at 35 yards rise. Mr. Stuart
Wortley, indeed, thinks the birds were inferior to those
now supplied, but gives no proof in support of that
theory.

With regard to Lord Kennedy's match with the
" Squire," the following anecdote will show that his
lordship was a " downy cove," up to a trick or two that
even the modern shootist would find it hard to improve
upon. During the match Lord Kennedy killed twenty-
five pigeons consecutively, and Mr. Budd, the celebrated
cricketer and all-round sportsman, who was present,

234 Ifcinss of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc (Bun

observed that though the birds fell and were reckoned
dead, each one began running about the ground cooing.
" What the deuce are you up to ? " said Mr. Budd to
his lordship, who replied, " Hold your tongue, you are an
enemy." The wind shifted just then, and Lord Kennedy
failed to stop four or five in succession.. Then Mr. Budd
" twigged " that the wily young nobleman was using
dust-shot.

It is interesting to compare these exploits with the
best performances of the present day. In pigeon-shoot-
ing Americans hold the record, and I will give some of
their best shoots. On July 2nd, 1880, the well-known
Captain Bogardus killed 99 birds out of 100 at 30 yards
rise, shooting against an Englishman named Rimmell, to
whom he conceded two yards. In reality Bogardus
killed all his birds, for the forty-seventh fell dead just
outside the bounds. In November, 1891, at New York,
Mr. E. D. Fulford and Captain Brewer shot a two days'
match, at 100 pigeons each day, 30 yards rise. On the
first day Fulford killed all his birds, and Brewer killed
99. On the second day Fulford killed 99 to Brewer's 98.
In a subsequent three days' match with Mr. Elliott, at
the New Jersey Gun Club, Captain Brewer won with the
following remarkable score. On the first day they tied
at 93. On shooting off Brewer killed 23 out of 25 to his
opponent's 21. On the second day Brewer scored 99
to Elliott's 92, killing 69 straight off the reel, and the
seventieth fell dead just out of bounds. On the third
day Brewer killed 93 to Elliott's 89. The winner, there-
fore, in the three days killed 308 out of 325. Since then
Captain Brewer has killed 105 birds in succession without

Xorfc ikcnncto? 235

.'i miss. In this country we can show no such records.
I may be mistaken, but I do not remember that any
score of 90 out of 100 birds has ever been made in
a public match in England.

I have already said that Lord Kennedy's temper
was none of the best. He could not take a defeat in
good part, but brooded over it, and never rested till
he had devised some scheme of revenge. On one
occasion he had taken long odds to a large amount
on winning three events. He won the first two. The
third was a match at pigeons against Captain Ross,
which he lost His lordship was much annoyed, and
somewhat unguardedly spoke of his determination " to
go at Ross in every way, until he had not left him
so much as a pewter pot." The Captain was to be
one of a party, which included Lord Kennedy, who
were to drive to the Derby together ; and before starting
the former received a hint to be wide awake and
prepared for all sorts of wild proposals from his lord-
ship. They had not got well off the stones before Lord
Kennedy opened fire. First he attacked Captain Ross
about his riding, and offered to back a gentleman who
hunted in Scotland (Captain Douglas) to ride a match
against Ross, four miles over Leicestershire, for ;£i,ooo
a side. Captain Ross accepted the bet ; and before the
day was over Lord Kennedy had not only wagered a
further .£2,000 to £1,000 with the Captain on the event,
but had made a cocking match with him to fight a
main for £1,000, and £"100 a battle.

The steeplechase came off first, the course being from
Barkley Holt to Billesdon Coplow, and excited a great

236 1fcin00 of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& (Bun

deal of interest, sportsmen coming from all parts of the
kingdom to witness it Lord Kennedy went to enormous
expense in purchasing horses for the match. At last he
fixed on Tom Smith's famous horse Radical, for which
he paid 400 guineas — a splendid animal, but rather
difficult to ride. Captain Ross, who was exceedingly
popular, had no need to buy a horse, for no less than
300 hunters were placed at his disposal by his numerous
hunting friends. After a good many trials, Mr. Francis
Holyoake's celebrated horse Clinker was selected. The
night before the race Lord Kennedy wrote to Captain
Ross, stating that he wished very much to see him and
come to an understanding about a very important point
connected with next day's race. They met accordingly,
and his lordship said that as such an enormous sum was
pending on the match, both between themselves and
others, he thought it advisable that they should start
with as few openings for a wrangle as possible ; that in
a flat race crossing or jostling was not allowed, but that
on the morrow he thought it best that the riders should
do just as they pleased. "In short," said Captain Ross
" I understand we may ride over each other, and kill one
another if we can. Is it so?" "Just so," replied his
lordship. What followed I will let the Captain describe
in his own words :

"Oddly enough, the first jump was a five-barred
gate. I lay with Clinker's head just opposite Douglas's
knee. When within forty or fifty yards of the gate
I saw clearly that Radical meant to refuse it ; so,
recollecting my last night's bargain, I held Clinker
well in hand. Radical, as I expected, when close

Xorfc Ikcnncfcx? 237

to the gate, turned right across Clinker. I struck the
spurs in, knocked Douglas over the gate, and sent
Radical heels over head, and lying on this side of it.
Douglas did not lose his horse ; his snaffle rein was
fastened to his wrist, and he was soon back again and
mounted — but it finished the match effectually. I
turned round, jumped the corner of the fence, and
gained such a lead that he never got near me again.
I suppose in these shop-keeping days killing a man in
that way would be 'wilful murder.' Not so in 1826 ;
the verdict would have been 'justifiable homicide.' "

Lord Kennedy dropped ^"9,000 over that match, and
the week after lost the cocking match as well ; for
Doctor Wing, of Melton, who was almost as famous
a cocker as old Dr. Bellyse, of Audlem, placed all his
splendid birds at the Captain's disposal ; and as the main
was fought in Leicestershire, Ross had the incalculable
advantage of having his birds on the scene of action,
whilst Lord Kennedy's had to stand the wear and tear
of a journey from Scotland. Poor Lord Kennedy's
mortification was complete, and his attempted revenge
upon Captain Ross cost him close upon £15,000.

One of the rashest bets Lord Kennedy ever made
was after a defeat by Captain Ross in a pigeon match.
In a moment of petulance he said he would bet anyone
£100 to £1 that he never shot another pigeon as long
as he lived. Mr. E. H. Budd promptly took the bet, and
booked it in the presence of the " Squire " and some
other friends. Some time afterwards his lordship was
complaining of the prevailing slowness and dulness
in the sporting world, and expressing a wish that some-

238 Ifcinas of tbe 1Rofc, TCifle, ant) (Bun

body would set the ball rolling again. Captain Grant,
who was present, at once offered to back Mr. Budd
against his lordship at pigeons for £50. Lord Kennedy
accepted the bet, and was beaten. When he paid Grant
the £50, Mr. Budd reminded him of the other bet,
but Lord Kennedy denied that he had ever made it.
Though witnesses proved the fact, he still refused to
pay, but at length agreed to refer it to the Jockey Club,
who decided that if his lordship was such a fool as to
make the bet he must abide by it, and that when any
man again did so, he ought to name it in his will, as the
person who took the odds could not 'lose during the life
of him who made the bet. Lord Kennedy was very
sore about the matter, but he eventually sent the money
to Mr. Budd by Captain Ross.

Two great feats of Lord Kennedy's I must not
omit. One night, when a large party of sportsmen
were assembled at Black Hall, in Kincardineshire, then
the seat of Mr. Farquharson, Sir Andrew Leith Hay
bet Lord Kennedy £2,500 that he would get to Inverness
on foot before him. Off they started at nine o'clock at
night in their evening costume, with thin shoes and silk
stockings. Sir Andrew Leith Hay went by the coach
road, vid Huntley and Elgin. Lord Kennedy, with
Captain Ross as umpire, struck straight across the
Grampians. Amid pouring rain they walked all night,
next day, and the next night, reaching Inverness at
6 a.m. on the third day. Sir Andrew Leith Hay,
who had chosen the longer, but far more comfortable
route, did not arrive till four hours later. I think that,
for its grotesque combination of madness, endurance,

Xorfc Tkenncfcg 239

and pluck, this feat stands unsurpassed in the annals
of sport.

On another occasion Lord Kennedy backed himself
for 1,000 guineas to shoot forty brace of grouse and
ride from his shooting quarters at Feloar, in Perthshire,
to his house, Dunottur, near Stonehaven, and back to
Feloar in a day. He started very early, rain falling
all the time. He killed forty brace by 9 a.m., changed
his dress on the hill-side, and mounted a very clever
hack, on which he rode the first seven or eight miles.
There was no road for that distance ; but thence there was
a tolerable road to Dunottur, along which he had relays
of horses. From Feloar to Dunottur is about 80 miles.
He got back to Feloar at 8 p.m., having shot 40 brace
of grouse and ridden 160 miles in less than 15 hours,
and was not in the least knocked up by it.

I may also mention here his famous golf match by
night, which came off during the Montrose race week.
At the race ordinary Lord Kennedy and Mr. Cruick-
shank, of Langley Park, got up a match of three holes
for £500 each hole, and agreed to play it then and
there. It was half-past ten, and quite dark. No light
was allowed except one lantern placed on the hole,
and another carried by the attendant of the player,
that they might ascertain to whom the ball struck
belonged. Boys were placed to listen to the flight of
the balls, and run to the spot when a ball fell. Lord
Kennedy won the odd hole, and curiously enough in
the same number of strokes in which he usually did
it by daylight.

Of Lord Kennedy's mad matches with Lord Kelburne,

240 1ktn0s ot tbe 1flobt IRtfle, anb (Bun

afterwards Earl of Glasgow, notably their famous mid-
night coaching race for £500, in which both nearly
lost their lives, I have told in "Kings of the Turf."
With half a dozen bottles of claret under his belt
there was no adventure, no feat of sporting or athletic
prowess, too hare-brained and foolhardy for this wild
Berserker spirit to undertake, and back himself for
thousands, if need be, to accomplish. At game-shooting
he was, as I have said, very hard to beat. Sir William
Maxwell, of Monreith, himself, though one-armed, one
of the best shots of his day, credits Lord Kennedy with
having killed to his own gun over dogs in a single day
1 20 brace of partridges— a grand feat in those muzzle-
loading days.

At the coronation of William IV. (one of whose
daughters by Mrs. Jordan had married Lord Kennedy's
younger brother) the Earl of Cassillis was created
Marquis of Ailsa, and his eldest son assumed by
courtesy the title of Earl of Cassillis. For a brief
space the new earl was induced to devote himself to
politics, and was elected member for Evesham. His
father was a red-hot Liberal, who voted for the first
Reform Bill ; what Lord Kennedy's politics were, if
he had any, I do not know. Probably he merely
entered political life to oblige his father, who, no doubt,
made this a condition of doling out further supplies
to the reckless spendthrift.

But those who thought that Lord Kennedy as Earl
of Cassillis had sown his wild oats and would settle
down into a steady and sober life were grievously
mistaken. He went the pace as fast as his crippled

Zorfc fteimety? 241

resources would allow him. And his mad recklessness
and hasty temper brought him prematurely to his end.

In the August of 1834 Lord Kennedy was in a
precarious state of health and under strict medical
treatment. He was expecting a visit from his doctor
one day. The appointed hour came, but the doctor
did not appear. His lordship was in an irritable mood.
" I'm damned if I'll wait in for all doctors in the world
if they don't keep time ; I'm off fishing," said he. And,
taking his rod, he went salmon-fishing.

When the doctor arrived and heard what his patient
had done, he exclaimed, " Then, if he's in the water
he's a dead man."

His lordship was in the water — standing up to his
middle in it, and thus, in defiance of the doctor, he
continued to fish for several hours. The next day a
chill struck him, and within a week he was dead.

It was one of " life's little ironies " that his death
should have taken place on the morning of " The
Twelfth," a day to which he always looked forward
with intense eagerness ; and the grouse on the moors
around Cassillis Castle were for the first time in their
history allowed to rest undisturbed on their annual day
of doom. Had they known that their deadliest foe
had met with the fate to which he had consigned them
by the score, how every cock would have crowed with
vindictive triumph !

Lord Kennedy was only thirty-seven when he died,
but he had already squandered his wife's fortune and
his mother's, and dipped largely into his expectations
as heir to the Marquis of Ailsa.

16

242 Ikfugs of tbe IRofc, IRifle, anfc (Bun

One hardly knows what verdict to pass upon such
a career as Lord Kennedy's. If he was a mad and
reckless gambler, he was also a keen and true sports-
man. He was a spoiled child of fortune who had no
command over his temper, and when that fiery temper
was touched it stung him like a gadfly into the com-
mission of acts which were nothing short of insane.
Yet he was not vicious, and had many lovable qualities.
" He was," says one who knew him well, " one of the
most charming companions in the world when things
were going all right, and his house was one of the
pleasantest to visit I ever knew."

It was " of a strange order " that his eldest son, who
became Marquis of Ailsa in 1846, on the death of his
grandfather, should have met with a tragic end, due also,
like his sire's, to his passion for sport. The Marquis
was killed in the hunting-field on March 2Oth, 1870.

Captain Horatio Ross

" THERE were giants in the earth in those days " — that
I think, no one will deny who is familiar with the
sporting annals of the first three decades of the nineteenth
century. For though in many respects the sportsmen of
the twentieth century are far superior to their pre-
decessors of eighty years ago, yet in all-round sport I
defy them to produce such a trio of heroes as George
Osbaldeston, Edward Hay ward Budd, and Horatio Ross.
There was no sport, except perhaps fishing, in which
the first-named of the three did not excel. He was
first-rate as a horseman, a Master of Hounds, a shot, a
cricketer, a boxer, a swimmer, and a billiard-player.
Budd as an athlete was unsurpassed. In boxing, running,
jumping, cricket, he was facile princeps. His weight
prohibited him from riding much, but he was as good a
judge of a horse as any man in England. With the gun,
whether at game or pigeons, he was in the very front
rank. Ross was among the first steeplechasers of his
day, and was a first flight man with hounds in the Shires
when Melton Mowbray produced some of the hardest
riders that ever galloped over the Leicestershire pasture?,

244 Ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, IRtfle, ant> (Bun

His walking feats were even more remarkable than his
exploits in the saddle ; whilst as a shot with gun, rifle,
and pistol he was acknowledged to be the best man of
his own day or perhaps of any other.

There are fortunately abundant materials for compiling
a biographical sketch of Horatio Ross as a sportsman,
for he supplied his old friend Mr. C. A. Wheeler,
the author of " Sportascrapiana," with copious details
of his various achievements, and I shall therefore let
him tell his own story to a large extent.

He was the only son of Hercules Ross, of Rossie
Castle, Forfarshire, an intimate friend of Nelson's, and
the boy was named after the great Admiral, who was one
of his godfathers. September 5th, 1801, was Horatio's
natal day. It is a curious fact that Horatio Ross was
as terrified when first introduced to firearms as the
present Earl Spencer, " one of England's hardest riders,"
was when first mounted on a pony. The following
amusing story is told of his terror. In the beginning of
the last century, when the volunteers were first raised to
oppose Napoleon's expected invasion, Horatio's father
was colonel of a regiment raised on the Rossie and
adjacent estates. When the regiment was about to
receive a set of colours the Colonel was anxious that his
little son, then six years of age, should present them.
Everything went satisfactorily until just before the
ceremony of presentation, when a salute was fired. The
noise so frightened the little Horatio that he immediately
bolted across the lawn into the house and hid himself.
This so enraged the Colonel that he ordered his valet to
fire a gun several times a day immediately over the

Captain IbonUio IRosa 245

child's head, so as to accustom him to the sound. That
plan was continued daily for months without much
effect, for the child still shrank from the sight of a gun
and shook with fear at the explosion. At last on«
the old valet got the boy to fire the gun himself at a
sparrow, which he killed, and from that moment he was
never so happy as when he had a gun in his hand.

At the age of eighteen Horatio joined the I4th Light
Dragoons, but barrack life was very irksome to him,
depriving him as it did of enjoying the field sports which
he loved. So after seven years' service he sold out with
the rank of captain, purchased a good stud, and took
up his winter quarters at Melton, then at the height of
its glory, with the wildest spirits in the three kingdoms
vying with one another in feats of madcap sport and
reckless daring.

Of Captain Ross's matches of all kinds at Melton with
Lord Kennedy I have written elsewhere in these pages.
I therefore pass on to some of his notable feats at game-
shooting. Of these one of the most remarkable was his
great match against Colonel, afterwards General, Anson,
one of the first sportsmen of his day on the Turf, in the
hunting-field, and in the coverts, of whom I have told
many good stories in " Kings of the Turf." He was, too,
one of the greatest whist-players of his time, and in
connection with his prowess at that game the following
story is told. When the Indian Mutiny broke out in
1857 General Anson was Commander-in-Chief of the
army in India. He started to the relief of Delhi, but his
movements were cautious and slow ; and when he talked
of entrenching himself at Umballa, instead of marching

246 iktngs of tbe IRob, "IRffle, ant) 6un

on the capital of the Moguls, Sir John Lawrence,
impatient at the delay, wired to him, " Clubs are trumps,
not spades? Anson took the hint to strike, but died of
cholera when he was yet forty-seven miles distant from
Delhi.

Here is Captain Ross's account of the great match :
" The Ross and Anson match was made in a boat
on the Thames, the party being Lord de Ros, Colonel
Anson, and myself. Time, month of July, 1828 ; place,
between the Red House and Whitehall. Lord de Ros
said that it was evident no one had a chance against me
at pigeons, and asked, * Had I equal confidence in my
power of shooting at game ? ' I replied that I thought
I was able to hold my own against any man I had
yet seen in the field ; that I had no objection to put the
matter to a fair test ; and that I would make a match to
shoot game against any man in Great Britain, and allow
his lordship till next shooting season to fix on his man.
Lord de Ros said that a match at game in covert-
shooting was a very uncertain affair, as it was hardly
possible so to arrange it as to give both parties fair
play ; that he thought on the whole a match at
partridges was the most likely arrangement by which
two great shots could try their powers ; that he had
rented some very good shooting quarters in Suffolk
(Mildenhall) ; that he thought we might settle on
a match to come off there ; and that he would do
his best to make it a pleasant party. After a little
further conversation we had arranged everything ; in
fact, it was all settled before we reached Whitehall
Stairs. The terms were that on November ist I should

Captain fjoratio iRoss 247

present myself at Mildcnhall, prepared to shoot
against any champion Lord de Ros brought forward ;
that we were to start at sunrise by the watch and
shoot until sunset without any halt ; that no dogs
should be used, but that we were to walk about forty
or fifty yards apart, with two or three men between
or on one side of us ; that it was not necessary any
birds should be picked up, the umpire's seeing them
drop was to be considered sufficient. The bet was
£200 a side, but to that I added considerably before
the event came off."

The eventful day arrived, and Captain Ross thus
describes what followed :

"We all breakfasted at Mildenhall by candlc-li^ht,
and were in line ready to start at the correct moment
when (by the watch) the sun had risen, for we could
see no sun, as the country was enveloped in mi-t.
Colonel Anson was a particularly fast and strong
walker, and seemed to fancy he was able to outwalk
me. So off he went at 'score' pace (I merely guess it),
probably from four and a half to five miles an hour. I
was not sorry to see him go off at 'score,' as I knew
I vas in the highest possible state of training, and that
I was able to keep up that pace for fifteen or sixteen
hours without a halt. Everything was conducted with
the greatest possible fairness. We changed order every
hour ; and as Colonel Anson was quite able to hold on
the great pace, we were fighting against each other as
fairly as two men could.

The Colonel had luck on his side, for though in the
arrangement of the match as made by Lord de Ros

248 Ikings of tbe 1Rofc, 1Riflet att& (Bun

everything was fair, still, by mere chance birds rose more
favourably for him than for me, and in the course of the
match he got eleven more shots than I did ; the conse-
quence was that at one time he was seven birds ahead of
me. About two o'clock I saw evident signs of the Colonel
having near about * pumped ' himself. .' The Old Squire '
rode up to me, and said, * Ross, go along ; he'll lie down
directly and die ' — he fancied he was viewing a beaten
fox. I was thus able to go right away from the
Colonel ; and as the birds were so wild (in consequence
of the crowd and noise) that few shots were got nearer
than fifty or sixty yards, I gradually made up my
1 lee-way.'

A quarter of an hour before the expiration of the
time Mr. Charles Greville and Colonel Francis Russell
rode up to me and said Colonel Anson was unable to
walk any more, but that he was one bird ahead of me,
and that Lord de Ros had authorised them to propose
to me to make it a drawn match. I had a great deal
of money depending on the result (about £1,000), and
had not had a shot for the last ten minutes, so, after
a moment's consideration, I came to the conclusion that
at that late hour, when the birds were all out of the
turnips and feeding in the stubble, it was too great a
sum to risk on the chance of getting a brace of birds
in a quarter of an hour. I therefore agreed to make it
a drawn match.

I was as fresh as when I started ; and in the
excitement of the moment, and perhaps a little
anxious to show that I was not beaten, I said to
the assembled multitude (about five to six hundred

Captain Iboratio ffioss 249

people) that I was ready then and there to start
against anyone present to go to London on foot
against him for £$oot or to shoot the same match
next day against anyone for £500. I excepted Mr.
Osbaldeston, not wishing to have any match of the sort
with him — he was to a great degree crippled by his
leg being broken when hunting, and he could not have
gone the pace with me ; and I did not like to hurt his
pride by challenging him also ; and so from kindly
feeling towards him I barred him. No one took
advantage of my somewhat rash challenge, for it
might have so happened that a regular professional
pedestrian was in the crowd. Some young farmer
said that he would try a race against me to the inn
(perhaps two miles or two and a half distant). I
entered into the fun, and said, ' With all my heart
my good fellow.' Many of them were on horseback
and had on top-boots ; they doffed their boots and
ran in their stockings. We made a fair start, all in
the best humour ; but I do not think anyone was
in sight when I reached the inn. 1 certainly went the
distance at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour.

I do not remember the number of birds killed, but
I know it was absurdly small — I think only twenty-five
or twenty-six brace. This must appear very unaccount-
able, but it is easily explained. At that season of the
year (November) the partridges in Norfolk and Suffolk
are always very wild ; but on the day of the great match
they had additional reason for being so : we were
followed by a multitude of men on horseback— say, two
or three hundred — all talking and betting on the shot.

25° Ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc (Bun

The row was indescribable. The consequence was, that
when we entered a field of turnips the partridges
generally went off in one great flight at the other end
of the field. Some were necessarily very long shots —
fifty or sixty yards ; we hardly fired a near shot during
the match."

The Lord de Ros here mentioned was afterwards the
plaintiff in the cause celebre of De Ros v. Gumming, when
he strove to clear his character by bringing an action for
libel against Mr. Gumming for accusing him of cheating
at cards. But the evidence in proof of his malpractices
was overwhelming ; the verdict was against him, and
the once popular nobleman and sportsman, thus branded
as a convicted cheat, hid himself and his shame in an
obscure Continental town, where he died in poverty and
disgrace.

Another great shooting match of Captain Ross's had
its origin in the following circumstances, which the
Captain himself thus narrates :

"In the year 1824 or 1825 Lord Kennedy and Mr.
William Coke (nephew of the then Mr. Coke, of
Holkham) shot a match at partridges for a considerable
bet. The terms were that Lord Kennedy was to shoot
for two days in Scotland against Mr. William Coke,
who was to shoot two days at Holkham. Mr. Coke, of
course, won the match.

I paid a visit to Holkham a month or two after this,
and I found them all rather pleased at the result. I
could not refrain from saying that Mr. Coke must
attribute his success more to the great number of birds
at Holkham than to his being a better shot than Lord

Captain fcoratto 1flo99 251

Kennedy; for if they met on equal terms I f< It per-
fectly certain he would not have the ghost of a chance
with his lordship. This led ultimately to a match being
made between Mr. Coke and myself, to come off at
Holkham the following year. Terms : Mr. Coke,
to name the two ' beats ' ; a day to intervene between
the first and second day's shooting, to allow the
partridges to settle, when we were to change beats ; to
start as early as we pleased ; to load our guns ; to hunt
the dogs and pick up all the birds killed ; to be allowed
two attendants, to help us in any way except picking up
the birds, hunting the dogs, or loading, as before named.

On my way to Holkham, the following year, I paid
a visit to ' the Squire ' at Ebberston. I had lost by
madness most of my good dogs, and those I had brought
with me were indifferent, ill-broken animals. With his
usual kindness ' the Squire ' said he would lend me his
dogs, and I went out for a day or two with them to get
acquainted with them. I can say that in Yorkshire
they were perfection ; but it proved quite another case
in Norfolk. The dogs were sent off to Holkham, and
* the Squire ' and I followed, he having agreed to act as
my umpire. The day after our arrival the two beats
selected by Mr. Coke were pointed out to us. I t
with Mr. W. Coke for the choice, and he won the t

Next morning we were up before daylight. I was
accompanied by Captain Greville, R.N., as Mr. Coke's
umpire. Never shall I forget my start. I entered a
turnip-field, and away went ' the Squire's ' fleet, high-
bred dogs, and, almost before they had got half-way
down the field, away went (I really believe) four or five

25* 1fcin09 of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, an&

hundred partridges at the end of it. The dogs found a
scent under every turnip ; they were totally bewildered,
and in a few minutes Most their noses' altogether.
They rushed here and they rushed there — partridges
were rising every moment ; they ' backed/ they jumped
in the air in their excitement, trying to catch the birds,
and finally rushed after some, giving tongue like hounds.
They followed them into the next turnip-field and
cleared it also. It was very trying and very provoking,
but at the same time was so absurd that Captain Greville
and I burst out laughing. However, time was passing,
and I had not as yet fired a shot, and I heard my
opponent hard at work. I sent my two attendants to
try and catch the dogs, and in about half an hour they
returned with them in couples. I then put a man on
each side, and walked through the fields, and at sunset
had bagged forty brace.

On my way to the Hall a fine old farmer joined me —
a Mr. Denny. He said he was one of Mr. Coke's prin-
cipal tenants, but in spite of that he could not bear to
see me defeated by mere bad luck and ignorance of the
country ; that I was the best shot they had ever seen,
but that I knew no more how to work Norfolk partridges
than a child ; and that I must be beaten unless I altered
my system. He then told me that his farm was the
one on which I was to shoot the second day, and that if
I would call on him the next forenoon (i.e., the inter-
vening day) he would give me some hints that would be
useful. On reaching the Hall I found that Mr. Coke
had killed fifty-four brace, so that I started the second
day fourteen brace behind him.

Captain Doratio IRoas 253

Next day I called on Mr. Denny and we rode over
the farm, and his instructions were : ' Early in the
morning ride the stubble all round this field ' (a very
large field of turnips which he pointed out), ' and drive
the birds into it. I will lend you two old setters which
have only two eyes between them ; they will potter about
within fifteen and twenty yards, and will help to find
dead birds. Place your men one on each side, and beat
the field in small circles. If you go straight through it,
the birds will run to the end and then rise in one great
pack ; but by making small circles you will cut them off
and get shots. The large field will keep you going until
9 o'clock, and then go to another large field of turnips '
(which he showed me).

I followed the old gentleman's instructions to the
letter. I got 50 shots in the first field, and by 9 o'clock
had bagged 50 partridges. I missed one shot, but killed
two at a shot afterwards. The result of the day's shoot-
ing was that I bagged 59 brace, Mr. Coke 36 ; so that
on the two days' shooting I was 9 brace ahead.

Mr. W. Coke was not a first-class shot, but he was a
perfect sportsman. He thoroughly understood how to get
at game ; and although he was not so accurate in his
shooting as some of the acknowledged great shots of his
day, he was very quick, and, as a general rule, killed
more game whenever he went out than other people did.
He had also dogs that were perfectly adapted for
Norfolk shooting : they were bred between setters and
water-spaniels. When on scent they never pointed but
went on, their tails straight out, and put their birds up ;
£>ut as they were broken to keep within twenty-five to

254 Ikings of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, an& (Bun

thirty yards of Mr. Coke, they did no harm by flushing
birds in their free-and-easy manner. They dropped to
shot and retrieved dead and wounded birds beautifully,
and I thought at the time if I had had them instead of
' the Squire's ' high-bred pointers, I should have made a
better bag the first day."

Touching this same Mr. William Coke, it was told of
him that he was the first man that went in earnest deer-
stalking in the Highlands. He had a pair of corduroy
breeches which " Squire " Osbaldeston declared that he
never took off for a fortnight. Crawling on hands and
knees, he was for the time being a second Nebuchad-
nezzar.

Of his own grouse-shooting and deer- stalking exploits
Captain Ross in a letter to a friend supplied the follow-
ing particulars. " I never," he writes, u tried to make a
great bag of grouse in a day ; I think 65 brace was the
largest number of grouse I ever shot in one day. That
is nothing. Two hundred brace have since then been
shot in a day by one man easily, on August I2th. In
1828 (the year of my match with Colonel Anson) I
rented from the Duke of Athol a large range of shooting
called Feloar. I shot 87 deer that season to my own
rifle. I worked hard. I was always up at 3 a.m. and
seldom back to the lodge before 7 or 8 p.m., walking,
running, or crawling all the time. This was the grandest
training in the world. I believe I came to the post (for
the Anson match) at Mildenhall on November ist as fit
to go as winner of the Derby ever did at Epsom. In
1851 I shot 118 deer in Mar Forest. During that season
I killed 13 in one day with 14 chances. In 1837 I

Captain Iboratio IRoss 255

killed 75 deer in Suthcrlandshirc. These are my three
best seasons."

How deadly a shot Captain Ross was with a sporting
rifle may be gathered from this one instance. I'urdey,
the famous gunmaker, had just finished a double
rifle for Lord Macdonald when Ross called at his shop.
Purdey asked the Captain to try the rifle. He did so.
The mark was a chalk disk exactly the size of a rifle-
patch, the distance 100 yards. Ross fired six double
shots and broke eleven disks.

Yet, confident as he was of his own powers as a rifle-
shot, Horatio Ross, like a true sportsman, would never
risk a shot at a deer unless he were certain of killing it.
" I cannot," he writes, " accuse myself of having often
wounded deer, because I make it a rule never to fire
at deer beyond the range of 150 yards, and then only
if I had a good steady view of the deer." And again :
" However well men may shoot at a small mark on
a target at a long distance, I venture to implore them
to think of the misery and pain they may cause to poor
deer for years by reckless shooting ; and I beseech them
to keep in mind, when getting near the end of their
stalk, the words — one hundred and fifty yards."

Of Captain Ross's wonderful feats as a target-shot
I have written elsewhere in these pages. Suffice it to
say here that he was eleven times captain of the
Scottish team for the Elcho Shield, and shot in the
eight himself four times, on two occasions, in 1862
and 1 863, making the highest score for Scotland, though
he had then passed his sixtieth year. Once he was
second of the whole sixteen English and Scotch. He

256 ikfnss ot tbe 1Rot>, IRifle, an& 6un

scored 147, having lost a shot, owing to a mistake of
his servant in loading. Captain Heaton, of Manchester,
was first with 150.

As a pigeon-shot, too, he was supreme. In a match
with Lord Macdonald, to whom he gave 5 yards,
shooting at 30 yards rise to his lordship's 25, Ross
killed 52 birds out of 53. In 1828, after five days' keen
shooting against the best shots in Great Britain and
Ireland from 5 traps at 30 yards, he won the Red House
Club Cup, then the Blue Riband of pigeon shooting,
by grassing 76 birds out of 80. The other birds were
killed but not scored, as they fell just outside the
boundary and one escaped through a wire fence. So
that practically the Captain accounted for all his birds.
On another occasion Captain Ross killed 96 out of 100.
If you contrast these feats with the exploits of our latter
day pigeon-shots, the superiority appears to lie with
the older sportsmen. Mr. Dudley Ward, in his great
match with the American crack Captain Bogardus,
killed 84 out of 100 ; and Mr. A. J. Stuart-Wortley, in
his match with another famous Yankee sharpshooter
Dr. Carver, killed 83 out of 100. In each case the match
was a tie. But the reader will find further information
on this point in my chapter on Lord Kennedy.

Amongst the many wagers between Lord Kennedy
and Captain Ross was one of £20 that Ross would not
shoot twenty brace of swallows on the wing in a day.
It was a rash bet, for Lord Kennedy had no idea of
the swarms of swallows that were flitting all day around
Rossie Castle. " I sent him the twenty brace," says the
Captain, "in a box, and they arrived while he and a

Captain fboratfo Iflos0 257

party were at dinner, and were brought into the dining-
room. He sent me the £20, and said in his note that
' it was the most expensive cntrte ever handed to him.' "

But a far more remarkable feat was the outcome of
a wager of £100 with Mr. George Foljambe. " I
undertook," says Captain Ross, " to shoot ten brace
of swallows with a pistol and single ball in one day.
An immense number of swallows built their nests all
round the towers of the Rossie Castle, and I shot the
match there. ' The Squire ' was staying with me at the
time and saw the match shot. I shot well, as the shots
were pretty long ones, the towers being three stories
high and a half-sunk story. I caught the birds as they
were hovering, with wings extended and pretty stationary,
before going into their nests. I finished the match
before breakfast."

As a pistol-shot Captain Ross had only one equal
amongst his contemporaries, and that was Captain Rees
Howell Gronow, whose racy " Recollections " have made
him famous. These two were without doubt the best
pistol-shots in the world. Neither of them was ever
beaten in a match, but though many attempts were
made to bring them together in competition, Gronow
would never consent. He told Ross, with whom he
was on intimate terms of friendship, that since his
two duels in Paris, in each of which he killed his man,
he could not bear the sight of a pistol.

In reference to one of those duels there is a dramatic
story told. Gronow had been forced into a duel by an
insolent Frenchman. They met in the Bois de Boulogne.
Just before taking their places to fire, the Frenchman^

.7

258 ikin^s of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc Gun

who had the reputation of being a dead shot, stuck his
glove on a tree, and in a swaggering tone asked Gronow
which finger he should hit ? Gronow did not condescend
to reply ; so the Frenchman, with a shrug of the shoulders,
said, " Ah ! we will say the little ringer, then," and with
that raised his pistol, fired, and shot away the little
finger of the glove ; then, turning to his antagonist, said,
" I will serve you in the same way."

Captain Hesse, Gronow's second, who was not long
afterwards killed in a duel, said to his principal, " You
must do something to try and shake that fellow's nerve ;
so he threw his hat high in the air. Gronow put a bullet
through the centre of the crown, and then, bowing to the
Frenchman, said, " Monsieur, voild votre destined Two
minutes later the Frenchman lay dead with a bullet
through his brain.

Captain Ross, unlike Gronow, not only never fought
a duel, but never saw one fought, though he was in
constant request as a second. " As far as it was in
my power to do so," he says, " I from the first set my
face against duelling, and during my longish life I never
sent or received a challenge, nor did I ever see a duel
fought. I have, however, acted for other people no less
than sixteen times, and I have in every case managed
to get the difference made up in a satisfactory manner.
In some cases it appeared at first almost hopeless ; but by
keeping cool, being patient, and appealing to the good
feeling and good sense of the opposite second, I have
at last always brought him to an amiable state of mind,
and then it was comparatively easy to settle matters
without resorting to the 'trial by battle.'"

Captain Iboratto 1Ross 259

Ross's style of pistol-shooting, however, was not of
the sort that makes a man a deadly duellist He was
a slow, steady shot who dwelt upon his aim ; and at
quick snap-shooting he was not great, perhaps because
he did not care to practise it. But he never lost a pistol
match in his life. On one occasion he was challenged
to shoot fifty shots at a target by a Spanish gentleman
who prided himself on his deadly aim. The match, for
£50 a side, came off at the Red House, Battersea. The
distance was very short, only twelve yards, the target a
common playing-card, on the back of which was marked
a bull's-eye exactly the size of a sixpence. Ross won
easily, and in his last twenty-five shots hit the bull's-
eye twenty-three times.

But it was at long-range pistol-shooting that he ex-
celled. He once shot a match, pistol against rifle, with
Lord Vernon at a hundred yards and won. And on
the same day won .£100 from Henry Baring, who bet
ten to one that Ross would not hit his hat with a pistol
bullet at a hundred yards. On several occasions he
killed deer, both roe and fallow, with a pistol at distances
over fifty yards.

Captain Ross's sons Edward (the first winner of the
Queen's Prize at Wimbledon), Hercules, and Colin were
all fine rifle-shots both at game and at targets, but none
of them was anything like the equal of their father
at all-round shooting.

There was another and a very different art in which
Captain Ross was also an expert. When in 1839
Mr. Henry Fox Talbot first made public his mode of
multiplying photographic impressions by producing a

260 ikinQB of tbe 1Rofct IRtfle, anfc Gun

negative photograph, Captain Ross became one of his
most ardent disciples. The great sportsman worked
as hard to perfect himself in this new art as he had
ever done to attain his unrivalled skill with gun, rifle,
and pistol ; and in those early days of photography he
had probably few equals, amateur or professional, as a
skilled practitioner in every branch of the art, the
details of which he had laboriously mastered. He
could boast that, with the exception of M. Claudet and
Mr. Talbot, he was the oldest photographer in Great
Britain.

To the last Horatio Ross retained his superb health,
his extraordinary vigour, and his skill with gun and rifle.
Writing to his friend Mr. Snowie, of Inverness, in 1881,
he says : " Saturday was my sixty-ninth ' Twelfth.'
On September 5th, if I be alive, I shall be eighty-one
years old. I was up this morning at 3 a.m. to go to
a particular part of the forest, but heavy rain sent me
back to bed. I have killed five stags, all in marvel-
lously good condition."

And what was the secret of the phenomenal health
and energy which enabled Horatio Ross to perform at
four-score feats of endurance which most men of half
that age would be proud of accomplishing ? He tells
us himself, and his words are worth taking to heart.
"It may be useful to others," he writes, " if I state what
I believe to be the cause of my preserving until so late
a period of life the activity of a man of middle age. I
attribute it in a great measure to my having always
kept myself in a state of moderate training. I have
always lived well, and for many years have drunk

Captain Ifooratto TRoss 261

nothing but light claret, one bottle per diem : but I
have never omitted, wherever I was, whether in town
or country, whether the weather was fair or the reverse,
to walk regularly eight miles, and generally twelve
miles, every day of my life, unless I had an opportunity
of going out shooting. I have also for a great many
years been very particular in taking a sponging bath
of cold water every morning."

A simple regimen ! but one that not many men have
either the opportunity or the inclination to adopt.

Not till four years after that letter to Mr. Snowic, on
December 6th, 1886, did the grand old sportsman pass
behind the veil. He has left none like him : the
heroic breed to which he belonged is extinct,

Roualeyn George Gordon Gumming

THE honour of being the Pioneer or Father of South
African Sport rests between two great British hunters —
Sir William Cornwallis Harris and Roualeyn George
Gordon Gumming. In point of time Sir William Corn-
wallis Harris has undoubtedly first claim to the title.
But his book, which was published in 1837, though it
appealed powerfully to sportsmen, took little hold of the
general public, and his name is remembered now only
by those who are versed in the lore of Big Game
Shooting. Gordon Gumming, on the other hand, took
the public by storm with his " Five Years of Hunter's
Life in the Far Interior of South Africa." The book was
read with as much avidity as a romance by all sorts and
conditions of men ; the author became a " lion " in
society ; for years his name was as familiar in our
mouths as household words, and still keeps its place in
the memories of those of us who were boys when the
great " lion-hunter " was a popular hero in the full flush
of his fame. There was a mixture of sentiment and
sport in his pages which gave them a romantic interest
in the eyes of the great bulk of the reading public of

IRoualegn <3eor0e Gordon Cummins 263

that day. And the man himself corresponded with the
popular notion of a daring hunter and adventurer. He
was a splendid fellow physically — a veritable king of
men — of towering height, of massive yet symmetrical
frame suggestive of immense strength, with a bold,
handsome face, the proud bearing of a Highland chief,
and an eye bright and piercing as an eagle's. Arrayed,
as he always was in public, in full Highland costume, he
made a picturesque and striking figure in whatever
company he was. There were some, no doubt, who
thought him a flashy and theatrical poseur ; but I think
they went as far wrong in one direction as those whose
admiration elevated him into a hero of romance went in
the other. What he really was I shall endeavour to
show by a brief sketch of his career, illustrated by
extracts from his own book.

Roualeyn George Gordon Gumming was a younger
son of Sir William George Gordon Gumming, Bart.,
of Altyre and Gordonstown. His mother was Eliza
Maria, daughter of Colonel John Campbell, of Islay,
who married Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of the
sixth Duke of Argyll. Born on March I5th, 1820,
Roualeyn was sent at the age of nine to Eton. Even as
a boy he distinguished himself in his Highland home by
his passion for sport and his precocious skill both in
deer-stalking and salmon-fishing. A commission was
purchased for him in the Honourable East India
Company's service, and at the age of eighteen he was
gazetted cornet in the Madras Cavalry. On his way
out he stopped for some time at the Cape and had his
first experience of South African sport. On arriving in

264 Iktngs of tbe IRofc, IRtfle, an& <&un

India he found the climate utterly unsuited to him. For
eighteen months he fought against it ; but his health
became so seriously affected that in 1 840 he resigned his
commission and returned to Scotland. For a while he
devoted himself to deer-stalking, but he soon found that
sport too tame for him. He felt the instincts of " the
wild hunter " stirring in him, and longed for more
exciting adventures than fall to the share of " the
mere sportsman." An ensigncy in the " Royal Veteran
Newfoundland Company" promised some prospect of
the sport he craved for in the Western Hemisphere.
But his hopes in this direction were not fulfilled. Dis-
appointed and disgusted, he exchanged in 1843 into
the Cape Mounted Rifles. There he found himself on
the threshold of the Hunter's Paradise. Sport had more
attractions for him than soldiering, and he resigned his
commission after a few months' service. His mind was
now made up. He would explore that vast, unknown
interior, teeming with game, of which as yet scarcely
more than the fringes had been touched. He sought
out traders well acquainted with Griqualand, Bechuana,
and the country beyond the great Orange River, and
got as much information from them as he could, though
it was not much they could give him, beyond hints as to
his outfit. For they traded only with the Dutch Boers,
loading up their waggons from the large stores of the
merchants at Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth with
groceries, hardware, haberdashery, crockery, saddlery —
in short, every conceivable article that the Boers, living
as they then did in isolated farmsteads, could possibly
want.

IRoualcvn George Gordon Cummtuo 265

" I was utterly in the dark," says Gordon Gumming,
" as to what sport I might expect to realise and what
difficulties I should have to encounter, and there was no
one to enlighten me." His sporting friends at the Cape
assured him that game had all retreated into such remote
and savage parts that no sportsman could reach them,
and that his proposed expedition was sheer midsummer
madness. "You'll only get sunstroke and dysentery,"
they said, " and it's twenty to one against your ever
coming back alive."

But Roualeyn turned a deaf ear to these croakers,
bought a couple of waggons, with teams of oxen, hired
three natives and one Englishman (an ex-Cockney cab-
man !), and set out on his adventures.

It may interest sportsmen to know what " battery "
he took with him, and I therefore quote the following :

" My ordnance was as follows : 3 double-barrelled
rifles by Purdey, William Moore, and Dickson of Edin-
burgh— the latter a two-grooved, the most perfect and
useful rifle I ever had the pleasure of using; one heavy
single-barrelled German rifle, carrying 12 to the Ib.
This last was an old companion, which had been pre-
sented to me when a boy, by my dear and much-
lamented friend and brother-sportsman, the late James
Duff, of Innes House. With this rifle, about ten years
before, I had brought down my first stag on the Paps of
Jura, and subsequently bowled over many a master-
stag, and graceful roebuck in his summer coat, throughout
the glens and forests of my native land. The Purdey
was also a tried friend, both it and the heavy German
having been with me in several campaigns on the plains

266

of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anb (Bun

and in the jungles of Hindostan. I had also 3 stout
double-barrelled guns, for rough work when hard riding
and quick loading is required ; several lead-ladles of
various sizes, a whole host of bullet-moulds, loading-
rods, shot-belts, powder-flasks, and shooting-belts ;
3 cwt. of lead, 50 Ibs. of pewter for hardening the balls
to be used in destroying the larger game ; 10,000 pre-
pared leaden bullets, bags of shot of all sizes ; 100 Ibs.
of fine sporting gunpowder, 300 Ibs. of coarse gunpowder ;
about 50,000 percussion caps ; 2,000 gun flints, greased
patches, and cloth to be converted into the same. I
carried also several spare yokes, yoke-skeys, whip-sticks,
rheims, and straps, two sets of spare linch-pins, all of
which last articles belong to the waggon. With the
above and 2ooL in cash which I carried with me, I
considered myself prepared to undertake a journey of
at least twelve months amongst Boers or Bechuanas,
independent of either."

With the Boer settlers he came into frequent contact,
and found them almost uniformly hospitable and friendly,
a fact which he thus curiously explains : " It is a
strange thing that Boers are rather partial to Scotchmen,
although they detest the sight of an Englishman. They
have an idea that the Scotch, like themselves, were a
nation conquered by the English, and that consequently
we trek in the same yoke as themselves." So, fifty years
ago the race-hatred was as strong and bitter as it is
now. Many of the poorer Boers subsisted entirely by
hunting ; but Gordon Gumming thought very little of
their skill as marksmen, and tells how four officers
of the 9 ist Regiment, then quartered at Colesberg,

fRouale^n <Beor0e <Borfcon Gumming 267

challenged any four Dutchmen to shoot, and how the
latter were "jolly well licked." Still less did the Scottish
hunter think of the personal attractions of the Boer
women. " Their beauty," he says, " like that of Skye
terriers, I fear in many cases consists in their ugliness.
They, however, sadly lack the dtgagt appearance of the
Skye terrier, as their general air and gait mi^ht be more
aptly likened to a yard of pump water." But some
of the wives and daughters of the Boers he found
" rather nice people," and they were always kind and
civil, even when their surly, drunken men-folk were
insolent and inhospitable.

When at last he got into the game-country his
astonishment was greater even than his delight. " The
whole country, as far as my eye could reach, was white
with springboks, with here and there a herd of black
gnoos or wildebeeste prancing and capering." But the
most remarkable sight which Gordon Gumming wit-
nessed, a sight the like to which no European sportsman
is ever likely to witness again, was that which he thus
graphically describes :

" On the 28th I had the satisfaction of beholding, for
the first time, what I had often heard the Boers allude
to — vis., a ' trek-bokken,1 or grand migration of spring-
boks. This was, I think the most extraordinary and
striking scene, as connected with beasts of the chase,
that I have ever beheld. For about two hours before
the day dawned, I had been lying awake in my waggon,
listening to the grunting of the bucks within two
hundred yards of me, imagining that some large herd
of springbok was feeding beside my camp ; but on my

268 fcfngs ot tbe iRofc, IRifle, anfc (Bun

rising when it was clear, and looking about me, I beheld
the ground to the northward of my camp, actually
covered by a dense living mass of springboks, marching
slowly and steadily along and extending from an open-
ing in a long range of hills on the west, through which
they continued pouring like the flood of some great
river, to a ridge about a mile to the north-east, over
which they disappeared. The breadth of the ground they
covered might have been somewhere about half a mile.
I stood upon the fore chest of my waggon for about two
hours, lost in wonder at the novel and wonderful scene
which was passing before me, and had some difficulty
in convincing myself that it was reality which I beheld,
and not the wild and exaggerated picture of a hunter's
dream. During this time their vast legions continued
streaming through the neck in the hills in one unbroken
compact phalanx. At length I saddled up, and rode
into the midst of them, with my rifle, and after-riders,
and fired into the ranks until fourteen had fallen, when
I cried ' Enough.' We then retraced our steps to secure
the venison which lay strewed along my gory track.
Having collected the springboks at different bushes,
and concealed them with brushwood, we returned to
camp, where I partook of coffee while my men were
inspanning.

A person anxious to kill many springboks might
have bagged thirty or forty that morning. I never, in
all my subsequent career, fell in with so dense a herd of
these antelopes, nor found them allow me to ride so
near them. Having inspanned, we proceeded with the
waggons to take up the fallen game, which being

ftoualegn George Gordon Camming 269

accomplished, we held for the small periodical stream
beside which the wandering Boers were encamped, that
being in my line of march for Beer Vlcy. Vast and sur-
prising as was the herd of springboks which I had that
morning witnessed, it was infinitely surpassed by v.
I beheld on the march from my vley to old Sweir's
camp ; for on our clearing the low range of hills through
which the springboks had been pouring, I beheld the
boundless plains, and even the hill sides which stretched
away on every side of me, thickly covered, not with
' herds,' but with ' one vast herd ' of springboks ; far as
the eye could strain the landscape was alive with them,
until they softened down into a dim red mass of living
creatures."

These vast herds of antelopes, hundreds of thousands
of them, quickly consumed every green herb and passed
on, leaving a desert behind them and compelling the un-
fortunate Boer farmers to trek with all their belongings
to fresh pasture-lands. They were nearly, if not quite,
as bad as the locusts — another terrible plague to the
South African farmer which Gordon Gumming graphically
describes.

Still pursuing his way towards the unknown land
where the biggest game was to be found, the hunter
fell in with Dr. Moffat, the afterwards celebrated Scotch
missionary, whose, " noble, athletic frame," and face " on
which forbearance and Christian charity were very
plainly written," impressed him greatly. The Doctor
he describes as " minister, gardener, blacksmith, gun-
smith, mason, carpenter, glazier," and after partaking
of his hospitality, Gumming set off in the direction

270 ifctnss of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc Gun

in which Moffat's son-in-law Dr. Livingstone, as yet
unknown to fame, was settled. Here, too, our hunter
stayed awhile, and was made gladly welcome by his
brother Scot.

Still the land of promise lay onwards. A dreary
distance of two hundred miles over rugged and apparently
impassable mountain-ranges, wide-rolling sandy plains
destitute of water, and vast trackless forests, lay between
Bakatla, Dr. Livingstone's missionary station, and
Bamangwate, the grand district of the elephants ; and
the interpreter and guides who had been hired for the
expedition did their utmost to dissuade the bold Scot
from advancing by drawing frightful pictures of the
difficulties of the way. He was also exposed to
another annoyance which threw on him an additional
burden. The Bechuanas were extremely fond of flesh,
which they considered the only food befitting man
Corn and milk they reckoned the food of women. Having
no flesh at home and being seldom able to kill large
game for themselves, they entertained great respect for
those who killed plenty of venison for them, and they
would travel to very great distances for the purpose of
obtaining it. Hence Gumming found himself transformed
into a South African chief, with a ready-made clan
following at his heels, all blessed with splendid digestions,
clamorous for animal food, and regarding him as their
legitimate purveyor. Many a weary hour was he forced
to pass in the saddle, in order to satisfy the appetites of
these carnivorous attendants. Fortunately they were
not very particular as to quality, for they would sit down
with satisfaction to a meal of rhinoceros or crocodile

Koualegn George <3orfcon Cummtno 27*

when the more delicate treat of eland steaks or buffalo
hump was wanting. If it be Christian charity to feed
the hungry, Gordon Gumming surely had a good and
sufficient answer to give those who accused him of a
wanton and intemperate passion for the chase. As one
of the charges brought against him was his wanton
and wasteful slaughter of game, it is only fair to let
him rebut that charge.

"It was ever," he says, " to me a source of great
pleasure to reflect that, while enriching myself in
following my favourite pursuit of elephant-hunting I
was feeding and making happy the starving families of
hundreds of the Bechuana and Bakalahari tribes, who
invariably followed my waggons, and assisted me in my
hunting, in numbers varying from fifty to two hundred
at a time. These men were often accompanied by their
wives and families, and when an elephant, hippopotamus,
or other large animal was slain, all hands repaired to
the spot, when every inch of the animal was reduced to
biltongue, viz., cut into long narrow strips, and hung in
festoons upon poles, and dried in the sun : even the
entrails were not left for the vultures and hyenas, and
the very bones were chopped to pieces with their hatchets
to obtain the marrow, with which they enriched their
soup."

Finding that his Scottish costume created an impres-
sion both among the Boers and natives, Gordon Gumming
stuck to it both on foot and horseback, despite the fact
that the kilt afforded no protection to his legs, which
were consequently torn and lacerated by the terrible
thorns. The retention of the Highland garb was more

272 1fcin00 of tbe 1Rot>, 1Rtflet anb (Bun

creditable to his patriotic sentiment than to his common
sense. But then Roualeyn was full of sentiment. Take
for example his narrative of the adventure on "the
memorable day the first on which I saw and slew the
lofty graceful-looking giraffe or cameleopard, with which
during many years of my life, I had longed to form an
acquaintance " :

" The giraffes stood looking at the waggons till I was
within sixty yards of them, when galloping round a
thick bushy tree under cover of which I had ridden, I
suddenly beheld a sight, the most astounding that a
sportsman's eye can encounter. Before me stood a
group of ten colossal giraffes, the majority of which
were from seventeen to eighteen feet high. On be-
holding me they at once made off, twisting their long
tails over their backs, making a loud switching noise
with them, and cantered along at an easy pace which
however, obliged Colesberg [his horse] to put his best
foot foremost to keep up with them.

The sensations which I felt on this occasion were
different from anything that I had before experienced
during a long sporting career. My senses were so
absorbed by the wondrous and beautiful sight before
me that I rode along like one entranced, and felt
inclined to disbelieve that I was hunting living things
of this world. The ground was firm, and favourable
for riding. At every stride I gained on the giraffes,
and after a short burst at a swinging gallop, I was in
the middle of them, and turned the finest cow out of
the herd. On finding herself driven from her com-
panions and hotly pursued, she increased her pace, and

IRoualegn (3eor0e ®orfcon Cummtno 273

galloped along with tremendous strid ring an

amazing extent of ground at every bound ; while her
neck and breast coming in contact with the old dead
branches of the trees were continually strewing them
in my path. In a few minutes I was riding within five
yards of her stern, and firing, at the gallop, I sent a
bullet into her back. Increasing my pace, I next rode
alongside, and placing the muzzle of my rifle within
a few feet of her I fired my second shot behind the
shoulder ; the ball, however, seemed to have little effect.
I then placed myself directly in front, when she came
to a walk. Dismounting, I hastily loaded both barrels,
putting in double charges of powder. Before this was
accomplished she was off at a canter. In a short time
I brought her to a stand in the dry bed of a water-
course, where I fired at fifteen yards, aiming where I
thought the heart lay, upon which she again made
off. Having loaded, I followed, and had very nearly
lost her ; she had turned abruptly to the left, and
was far out of sight among the trees. Once more
I brought her to a stand, and dismounted from my
horse. There we stood together, alone in the wild
wood. I gazed in wonder at her extreme beauty,
while her soft dark eye, with its silky fringe, looked
down imploringly at me, and I really felt a pang of
sorrow in this moment of triumph for the blood I
was shedding. Pointing my rifle towards the skies,
I sent a bullet through her neck. On receiving it she
reared high on her hind legs, and fell backwards
with a heavy crash, making the earth shake around
her. A thick stream of dark blood spouted out

18

274 Ikinss of tbe 1Rofc, 1Rfflet anfc (Bun

from the wound, her colossal limbs quivered for a
moment, and she expired.

I had little time to contemplate the prize I had won.
Night was setting in, and it was very questionable if I
should succeed in regaining my waggons ; so having
cut off the tail of the giraffe, which was adorned with
a bushy tuft of flowing black hair, I took ' one last fond
look/ and rode hard for the spoor of the waggons, which
I succeeded in reaching just as it was dark.

No pen nor words can convey to a sportsman what
it is to ride in the midst of a troop of gigantic giraffes :
it must be experienced to be understood. They emitted
a powerful perfume, which in the chase came hot in my
face, reminding me of the smell of a hive of heather
honey in September."

Gordon Gumming was a firm believer in the effect of
the human voice on wild animals. He tried it on one
occasion upon a lioness whom he disturbed as she was
gorging herself upon a blesbok, just after a tropical
thunderstorm. On lifting her head and observing the
hunter, the lioness promptly cantered off, hotly pursued
by Gordon Gumming on horseback, and the sequel I will
leave him to tell.

" The lioness having had a long start of me, we went
over a considerable extent of ground before I came up
with her. She was a large full grown beast, and the
bare and level nature of the plain added to her imposing
appearance. Finding that I gained upon her, she re-
duced her pace from a canter to a trot, carrying her
tail stuck out behind her, and slewed a little to one
side. / shouted loudly to her to halt as I wished to speak

ttoualegn (Bcoroe (Bor&on Gumming 275

to her, upon which stu suddenly pulled up, and sat on
her haunches like a dog, with her back towards me,
not even deigning to look round. She appeared to
say to herself, ' Does this fellow know whom he is after?'
Having thus sat for half a minute, as if involved in
thought, she sprang to her feet, and facing about, stood
looking at me for a few seconds, moving her tail slowly
from side to side, showing her teeth and growling
fiercely. She next made a short fun forwards, making
a loud rumbling noise like thunder. This she did to
intimidate me ; but finding that I did not flinch an
inch, nor seem to heed her hostile demonstrations, she
quietly stretched out her massive arms, and lay down
on the grass. My Hottentots now coming up, we all
three dismounted. . . . While this was doing, the lioness
sat up and showed evident symptoms of uneasiness.
She looked first at us, and then behind her, as if to
see if the coast were clear ; after which she made a
short run towards us, uttering her deep-drawn, murderous
growls. Having secured the three horses to one another
by their reins we led them on as if we intended to pass
her, in the hope of obtaining a broadside ; but this she
carefully avoided to expose, presenting only her full
front. . . . My men as yet had been steady, but they
were in a precious stew, their faces having assumed a
ghastly paleness ; and I had a painful feeling that I
could place no reliance on them.

Now then for it, neck or nothing! She is within
sixty yards of us, and keeps advancing. We turned
the horses' tails towards her. I knelt on one side, and
taking a steady aim at her breast, let fly. The ball

276 Iktnss of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anb (Bun

cracked loudly on her tawny hide, and crippled her
in the shoulder, upon which she charged us with an
appalling roar, and in the twinkling of an eye she
was in the midst of us. At this moment Stofulus's
rifle exploded in his hand, and Kleinboy, whom I had
ordered to stand by me, danced about like a duck in
a gale of wind. The lioness sprang upon Colesberg,
and fearfully lacerated his ribs and haunches with her
claws ; the worst wound was on his haunch, which
exhibited a yawning gash more than twelve inches
long, almost laying bare the very bone. I was very
cool and steady, and did not feel the least nervous,
having, fortunately, great confidence in my own shoot-
ing ; but I must confess, when the whole affair was
over, I felt it was a very awful situation and attended
with extreme peril, as I had no friend with me on
whom I could rely.

When the lioness sprang on Colesberg, I stood out
from the horses, ready with my second barrel for the
first chance she should give me of a clear shot. This
she quickly did ; for, seemingly satisfied with the re-
venge she had now taken, she quitted Colesberg, and
slewing her tail to one side, trotted sulkily past, within
a few paces of me. Taking one step to the left, I pitched
my rifle to my shoulder, and in another second the
lioness was stretched upon the plain a corpse."

On another occasion he had a little colloquy with
a lioness which had a less sensational ending both for
the lioness and himself; in fact, each had too much
respect for the other to proceed to extremities. This
is how the hunter describes what happened :

IRoualegn (Bcorcic Gordon Cummino 277

" Ruyter came towards me, and I ran forward to
obtain a view beyond a slight rise in the ground, to
see whither the lioness had gone. In so doing I came
suddenly upon two of them, within about seventy yards :
they were standing looking back at Ruyter. I tl
very rashly commenced making a rapid stalk in upon
them, and fired at the nearest, having only one shot
in my rifle. The ball told loudly ; and the lioness at
which I had fired wheeled right round, and came on,
lashing her tail, showing her teeth, and making that
horrid murderous deep growl which an angry lion
generally utters. At the same moment her comrade,
who seemed better to know that she was in the presence
of man, made a hasty retreat into the reeds. The
instant the lioness came on, I stood up to my full
height, holding my rifle and my arms extended, and
high above my head. This checked her in her course ;
but on looking round and missing her comrade, and
observing Ruyter slowly advancing, she was still more
exasperated ; and, fancying that she was being sur-
rounded, she made another forward movement, growling
terribly. This was a moment of great danger. I felt
that my only chance of safety was extreme steadiness ;
so standing motionless on a rock, with my eyes firmly
fixed upon her, I called out in a clear, commanding
voice, ' Holloa, old girl, what's the hurry ? take it easy ;
holloa ! holloa ! ' She instantly once more halted, and
seemed perplexed, looking round for her comrade. I
then thought it prudent to beat a retreat, which I
very slowly did, talking to the lioness all the time
She seemed undecided as to her future movements,

278 iRings of tfoe 1Rofc, fRifle, an& Gun

and was gazing after me, and snuffing the ground when
I last beheld her ! "

Such is the man's version of the incident. One would
like to know what the lioness's version was when she
told the story, as she doubtless did, to her leonine lord
in the evening.

Gordon Cumming's favourite method of shooting was
to dig a hole near some pool or fountain, and wait
ensconced there till the beasts came down to drink.
On one occasion he had rather a disagreeable surprise.
He had just shot an antelope and a hyena from his
hiding-place, and having lain down without taking the
precaution of reloading his rifle, fell asleep.

" I had not slept long," he said, " when my light dreams
were influenced by strange sounds. I dreamt that lions
were rushing about in quest of me ; and, the sounds
increasing, I awoke with a sudden start, uttering a loud
shriek. I could not for several seconds remember in
what part of the world I was, or anything connected
with my present position. I heard the rushing of light
feet, as of a pack of wolves, close on every side of
me, accompanied by the most unearthly sounds. On
raising my head, to my utter horror, I saw on every side
nothing but wild dogs chattering and growling. On
my right and on my left, and within a few paces of
me, stood two lines of these ferocious-looking animals,
cocking their ears and stretching their necks to have
a look at me ; while two large troops, in which there
were at least forty of them, kept dashing backwards
and forwards across my wind within a few yards of me,
chattering and growling with the most extraordinary

ftoualesn Oeotflc <Borfccm Gumming 279

volubility. Another troop of dogs were fighting over
the wildebeestc I had shot, which they had begun to
devour. On beholding them I expected no other
fate than to be instantly torn to pieces and con-
sumed. I felt my blood curdling along my checks, and
my hair bristling on my head. However, I had
presence of mind to consider that the human voice
and a determined bearing might overawe them ; and
accordingly, springing to my feet I stepped on to the
little ledge surrounding the hole, where, drawing myself
up to my full height, I waved my large blanket with
both hands, at the same time addressing my savage
assembly in a loud and solemn manner. This had
the desired effect : the wild dogs retired to a more
respectful distance, barking at me something like collies.
Upon this I snatched up my rifle and commenced
loading ; and before this the entire pack had passed
away, and did not return."

Strange sights indeed met the hunter's eye when he
thus lay in ambush at the watering-places. Here is
his record of a particularly thrilling experience after
killing a rhinoceros :

" On reaching the water I looked towards the carcase
of a rhinoceros, and to my astonishment I beheld the
ground alive with large creatures, as though a troop
of zebras were approaching the fountain to drink.
Kleinboy remarked to me that a troop of zebras were
standing on the height. I answered ' Yes ' ; but I knew
very well that zebras would not be capering around
the carcase of a rhinoceros. I quickly arranged my
blankets, pillow, and guns in the hole, and then lay

280 mtngs of tbe 1Ro&, IRffle, anfc Gun

down to feast my eyes on the interesting sight before
me. It was bright moonlight, as clear as I need wish,
and within one night of being full moon. There were
six large lions, about twelve or fifteen hyenas, and from
twenty to thirty jackals feasting on and around the
carcases of the three rhinoceroses. The lions feasted
peacefully, but the hyenas and jackals fought over every
mouthful, and chased one another round and round the
carcases, growling, laughing, screeching, chattering and
howling without any intermission. The hyenas did not
seem afraid of the lions, although they always gave
way before them ; for I observed that they followed
them in the most disrespectful manner, and stood
laughing, one or two on either side, when any lions
came after their comrades to examine pieces of skin
or bones which they were dragging away. I had lain
watching this banquet for about three hours, in the
strong hope that, when the lions had feasted, they
would come and drink. Two black and two white
rhinoceroses had made their appearance, but scared by
the smell of the blood, they had made off.

At length the lions seemed satisfied. They all
walked about with their heads up, and seemed to be
thinking about the water ; and, in two minutes one
of them turned his face towards me, and came on ;
he was immediately followed by a second lion, and in
half a minute by the remaining four. It was a decided
and general move ; they were all coming to drink right
bang in my face, within fifteen yards of me.

I charged the unfortunate, pale and panting Kleinboy
to convert himself into a stone ; and knowing from old

1Roualc\?n (Bcoroc Gordon Cumtmiu) 281

spoor exactly where they would drink, I cocked my
left barrel, and placed myself and gun in position.
The six lions came steadily along the stony ridge,
until within sixty yards of me, when they halted for
a minute to reconnoitre. One of them stretched out
his massive arms on the rock and lay down ; the oth
came on, and he then rose and brought up the rear.
They walked, as I had anticipated to the old drinking
place, and three of them had put down their heads,
and were lapping the water loudly, when Kleinboy
thought it necessary to shove up his ugly head. I
turned slowly to -rebuke him, and again turning to
the lions, found myself discovered.

An old lioness, who seemed to take the lead, had
detected me, and with her head high, and her eyes
fixed full upon me she was coming slowly round the
corner of the little vley to cultivate further my
acquaintance ! This unfortunate coincidence put a stop
to all further contemplation. I thought in my haste
that it was perhaps most prudent to shoot this lioness,
especially as none of the others had noticed me. I
accordingly moved my arm and covered her ; she saw
me move, and halted, exposing a full broadside. I fired ;
the ball entered one shoulder and passed out behind the
other. She bounded forward with repeated growls, and
was followed by her five comrades, all enveloped in a
cloud of dust ; nor did they stop until they had reached
the cover behind me, except one old gentleman, who
halted and looked back for a few seconds, when I fired,
but the ball went high. I listened anxiously for some
sound to denote the approaching end of the lioness ;

282 "Kings of tbe 1Rot>, IRtfle, anfc Gun

nor listened in vain. I heard her growling and
stationary, as if dying. In one minute her comrade
crossed the vley, a little below me, and made towards
the rhinoceros. I then slipped Wolf and Boxer on
her scent, and following them into the cover, I found
her lying dead within twenty yards of where the old
lion had lain two nights before. This was a fine
old lioness with perfect teeth, and was certainly a noble
prize ; but I felt dissatisfied at not having shot a lion
which I had most certainly done if my Hottentot had
not destroyed my contemplation."

But our hero's most tragic adventure with a lion was
the following, the appalling recollection of which, he
tells us, long haunted him and left an impression which
he was never able wholly to shake off :

"About three hours after sundown I called to my
men to come and take their coffee and supper, which
was ready for them at my fire ; and after supper, three
of them returned before their comrades to their own
fireside, and lay down. These were John Stofolus,
Hendrick and Ruyter. In a few minutes an ox came
out by the gate of the kraal, and walked round the
back of it. Hendrick got up and drove him in again,
and then went back to his fireside and lay down.
Hendrick and Ruyter lay on one side of the fire
under one blanket, and John Stofolus lay on the other.
At this moment I was sitting taking some barley-broth ;
our fire was very small, and the night was pitch-dark
and windy. . . .

Suddenly the appalling and murderous voice of an
angry, bloodthirsty lion burst upon my ear, within a

lRoualcv?n Gcoroc Gordon Cummtmi 283

few yards of us, followed by the shrieking of the
Hottentots. Again and again the murderous roar of
attack was repeated. We heard John and Ruytcr
shriek, ' The lion ! the lion ! ' still, for a few moments,
we thought he was but chasing one of the dogs
round the kraal ; but next instant, John Stofolus rushed
into the midst of us almost speechless with fear, his
eyes bursting from their sockets, and shrieked out, ' The
lion ! the lion ! He has got Hendrick ; he dragged him
away from the fire beside me. I struck him with the
burning brands upon his head, but he would not let go
his hold. Oh, God ! Hendrick is dead ! Let us take
fire and seek him.' The rest of my people rushed
about, shrieking and yelling as if they were mad. I
was at once angry with them for their folly, and told
them that if they did not stand still and keep quiet the
lion would have another of us ; and that very likely
there was a troop of them. I ordered the dogs, which
were nearly all fast, to be made loose, and the fire to be
increased as far as could be. I then shouted Hendrick's
name, but all was still. I told my men that Hendrick
was dead, and that a regiment of soldiers could not
now help him, and, hunting my dogs forward, I had
everything brought within the cattle-kraal, when we
lighted our fire and closed the entrance as well as we
could.

My terrified people sat round the fire with guns in
their hands till the day broke, still fancying every
moment that the lion would return, and spring again
into the midst of us. When the dogs were first let go,
the stupid brutes, as dogs often prove when most

284 Ikfngs ot tfoe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc (Bun

required, instead of going at the lion, rushed fiercely on
one another, and fought desperately for some minutes.
After this they got his wind, and, going at him, disclosed
his position : they kept up a continued barking until the
day dawned, the lion occasionally springing after them,
and driving them in upon the kraal. The horrible
monster lay all night within forty yards of us, consuming
the wretched man whom he had chosen for his prey.
He had dragged him into a little hollow at the back of
the thick bush beside which the fire was kindled, and
there he remained till the day dawned, careless of our
proximity.

It appeared that when the unfortunate Hendrick
rose to drive in the ox, the lion had watched him to his
fireside, and he had scarcely lain down when the brute
sprang upon him and Ruyter (for both lay under one
blanket) with his appalling murderous roar, and, roaring
as he lay, grappled him with his fearful claws, and kept
biting him on the breast and shoulder, all the while
feeling for his neck ; having got hold of which he at
once dragged him away backwards round the bush into
the dense shade.

As the lion lay upon the unfortunate man he faintly
cried, ' Help me, help me ! Oh, God ! men, help me ! '
After which the fearful beast got a hold on his neck, and
then all was still, except that his comrades heard the
bones of his neck cracking between the teeth of the
lion. John Stofolus had lain with his back to the
fire on the opposite side, and on hearing the lion
he sprang up, and seizing a large flaming brand, he
belaboured him on the head with the burning wood ;

Georoc <Bort>on Gumming 285

but the brute did not take any notice of him. The
Bushman had a narrow escape ; he was not altogether
scatheless, the lion having inflicted two gashes in his
seat with his claws.

The next morning, just as the day began to dawn,
we heard the lion dragging something up the river-side,
under cover of the bank. We drove the cattle out of the
kraal, and then proceeded to inspect the scene of the
night's awful tragedy."

That " something " was the mangled carcass of
Hendrick. By fragments of flesh and clothing they
tracked the lion till they came up with him, and Gordon
Gumming had the supreme satisfaction of sending a bullet
through the heart of the man-eater.

I think that the comments with which Gordon
Gumming winds up his experiences of lion-slaying are
too delicious to be omitted. I do not know which to
admire the more in them — the hidden egotism or the
unconscious humour. Here they are, and I leave the
reader to take them as he pleases :

" I may remark that lion hunting, under any circum-
stances, is decidedly a dangerous pursuit. It may,
nevertheless, be followed, to a certain extent, with com-
parative safety by those who have naturally a turn for
that sort of thing. A recklessness of death, perfect
coolness and self-possession, an acquaintance with the
disposition and manners of lions, and a tolerable know-
ledge of the use of the rifle, are indispensable to him
who would shine in the overpoweringly exciting pastime
of hunting this justly celebrated king of beasts."

From which the reader will perceive how simple are

286 ikinQB of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc (Bun

the qualifications of a lion-hunter if one only has
" naturally a turn for that sort of thing " !

I must candidly confess that Gordon Cumming's
sentiment is frequently nauseating. He is for ever
commiserating the fate of the animals he kills, till one
feels inclined to exclaim in exasperation, " What the
devil did you kill the beast for, if it makes you snivel to
contemplate its death ? " " Poor old bull ! I could not
help pitying him ! " is the sort of thing which one finds
ad nauseam in Gordon Cumming's volumes. Here, for
example, is a piece of gush which is sickening : " It was
a princely old buck. On beholding him I was struck
with wonder and delight. My heart beat with excitement.
I would have given half what I possessed in this world
for a broadside at that lovely antelope."

But for aesthetic enjoyment of the spectacle of
pain, worthy almost of Nero, commend me to the
following :

" We followed the spoor through level forest in an
easterly direction, when the leading party overran the
spoor, and casts were made for its recovery. Presently
I detected an excited native beckoning violently a little
to my left, and cantering up to him, he said that he had
seen the elephant. He led me through the forest a few
hundred yards, when, clearing a wait-a-bit, I came full
in view of the tallest and largest bull elephant I had
ever seen. He stood broadside to me, at upwards of a
hundred yards, and his attention at the moment was
occupied with the dogs, which, unaware of his proximity,
were rushing past him, while the old fellow seemed to
gaze at their unwonted appearance with surprise.

IRoualexm George Oorfcon Cummina 287

Halting my horse, I fired at his shoulder, and secured
him with a single shot. The ball caught him high upon
the shoulder-blade, rendering him instantly dead lame ;
and before the echo of the bullet could reach my car,
I plainly saw that the elephant was mine. The dogs
now came up and barked around him, but, finding
himself incapacitated, the old fellow seemed determined
to take it easy, and limping slowly to a neighbouring
tree, he remained stationary, eyeing his pursuers with
a resigned and philosophic air.

/ resolved to devote a short time to the contemplation of
this noble elephant before I should lay him low ; accord-
ingly having off-saddled the horses beneath a shady
tree which was to be my quarters for the night and
ensuing day, I quickly kindled a fire and put on the
kettle, and in a very few minutes my coffee was prepared.
TItere I sat in my forest home, coolly sipping my coffee with
one of the finest elephants in Africa awaiting my pleasure
beside a neighbouring tree. It was indeed a striking
scene ; and as I gazed upon the stupendous veteran
of the forest, I thought of the red deer which I loved to
follow in my native land, and felt that, though the Fates
had driven me to follow a more daring and arduous
avocation in a distant land, it was a good exchange
which I had made, for I was now a chief over boundless
forests which yielded unspeakably more noble and
exciting sport.

Having admired the elepJiant for a considerable time I
resolved to make experiments for vulnerable points^ and,
approaching very near, I fired several bullets at different
parts of his enormous skull. These did not seem to

288 ftfn09 ot tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc Gun

affect him in the slightest ; he only acknowledged the
shots by a ( salaam-like ' movement of his trunk, with
the point of which he gently touched the wound with
a striking and peculiar action. Surprised and shocked
to find that I was only tormenting and prolonging the
sufferings of the noble beast, which bore his trials
with such dignified composure, I resolved to finish
the proceeding with all possible dispatch ; accordingly
I opened fire upon him from the left side, aiming
behind the shoulder; but even there it was long
before my bullets seemed to take effect. I first fired
six shots with the two-grooved, which must have
eventually proved mortal, but as yet he evinced no
visible distress ; after which I fired three shots with
the Dutch six-pounder. Large tears now trickled from
his eyes, which he slowly shut and opened ; his colossal
frame quivered convulsively, and, falling on his side,
he expired. The tusks of this elephant were beauti-
fully arched, and were the heaviest I had yet met with,
averaging 90 Ibs. weight apiece."

Note the passages I have italicised, and then ask
yourself, gentle reader, what value you would put upon
the sentiment which enabled a man to sip his coffee
coolly and sit rhapsodising over the tortures of a wounded
beast when it was in his power in a moment to put the
creature out of its misery ! And then that affectation of
being surprised and shocked ! Faugh !

But perhaps even more disgusting than the incident
I have quoted is another, when, after shooting a gemsbok,
he calmly writes : " My thirst was intense, and the
gemsbok having a fine breast of milk, I milked her

Koualcgn (Bcoroc <3orfcon Cummino **v

with my mouth and obtained the sweetest beverage
I ever tasted." And this was the man who prided
himself on his humanity, his fine feeling, his tender
sentiment ! A fig for such sentiment !

But with all his sentiment Gordon Gumming had in
him a strain of the canny Scot, whose keen eye for the
main chance is proverbial. He did a good bit of trading
with the natives, and his methods were characterised by
more sharpness than honesty. He bartered muskets for
ivory ; and he tells us, with evident pride in his own astute-
ness, that he paid £16 for each case of twenty muskets,
and that for each musket he demanded £30 worth of
ivory, making thereby a gain of 3,000 per cent. ! That
was bad enough, but to add lying to cheating was going
a little too far. Yet he not only allowed the bamboozled
natives to believe that their fifteen-shilling muskets were
precisely the same kind of weapons as his own double-
barrelled Purdey and Dickson, but he calmly assured
them that each musket had cost " many teeth " in his
own country, leaving them to infer that he was a
philanthropist selling goods at a loss for the benefit of
his fellow-men ! From a trader's point of view this was
smart, no doubt, and excusable, but it is hardly what
one would expect from a sportsman and a Highland
gentleman.

There were other ways, too, in which this High-
land gentleman, the representative of Christianity and
civilisation, " played it low down " on the ignorant,
if not wholly guileless, aboriginal. Take the following
as a specimen :

" The Griquas, taking advantage of the superstitions

19

29o ikings of tbe tRofc, IRffle, ant> Gun

of the Bechuanas, often practise on their credulity, and,
a short time before I visited Sichely, a party of Griquas
who were hunting in his territory had obtained from him
several valuable karosses in barter for a little sulphur,
which they represented as a most effectual medicine
for guns, having assured Sichely that by rubbing a
small quantity on their hands before proceeding to
the field they would assuredly obtain the animal they
hunted.

It happened in the course of my converse with
the chief that the subject turned on ball-practice,
when, probably relying on the power of his medicine,
the king challenged me to shoot against him for
a considerable wager, stipulating at the same time
that his three brothers were to be permitted to
assist him in the competition. The king staked a
couple of valuable karosses against a large measure
filled with my gunpowder, and we at once proceeded
to the waggon, where the match was to come off,
followed by a number of the tribe. Whilst Sichely
was loading his gun, I repaired to the fore-chest of
the waggon, where, observing that I saw watched by
several of the natives, I proceeded to rub my
hands with sulphur, which was instantly reported
to the chief, who directly joined me, and, clapping
me on the back, entreated me to give him a little
of my medicine for his gun, which I, of course, told
him he must purchase. Our target being set up, we
commenced firing ; it was a small piece of wood, six
inches long by four in breadth, and was placed on
the stump of a tree at the distance of one hundred

ftoualegn Georoe Gorton Cnmmtno 291

paces. Sichcly fired the first shot and naturally missed
it, upon which I let fly, and split it through the middle.
It was then set up again when Sichely and his brothers
continued firing without once touching it, till night put
an end to their proceedings. This of course was
attributed by all present to the power of the medicine
I had used.

When Dr. Livingstone was informed of the circum-
stance he was very much shocked, declaring that in
future the natives would fail to believe him when he
denounced supernatural agency, having now seen it
practised by his own countryman."

Having once started as a " medicine-man," Gordon
Gumming was bound to keep up the imposture, and,
indeed, he found the pious fraud a lucrative one, as
the following anecdote proves :

" In the forenoon Matsaca arrived from the carcase
of the boreti\ he brought with him a very fine leopard's
skin kaross, and an elephant's tooth ; these were for me,
in return for which I was to cut him, to make him shoot
well. This I did in the following manner : opening a
large book of natural history containing prints of the
commonest of the African quadrupeds, I placed his
fore finger successively on several of the prints, and as
I placed his finger on each I repeated some absurd
sentence, and anointed him with turpentine. When
this was accomplished I made four cuts in his arm
with a lancet, and then anointing his wounds with
gunpowder and turpentine, I told him that his gun
had power over each of the animals his fingers had
touched, provided he Jield it straight. Matsaca and his

292 ikinos of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, anfc (Bun

retinue seemed highly gratified, and presently took
leave and departed."

Strong and hardy, however, though he believed him-
self to be, Gordon Gumming found five years of South
African hunting as much as he could stand. " The wild,
free, healthy, roaming life," he writes, " had grown upon
me, and I loved it more and more, but the most
laborious yet noble pursuit of elephant-hunting had
overtaxed my frame, and my nerves and constitution
were shaken by the scorching African sun." So he left
South Africa in 1849, never to return. In 1850 he
published his " Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the
Far Interior of South Africa," which, as I have said, was
an immense success, and made him a popular hero. At
the Great Exhibition of 1851 he exhibited his trophies
of the chase, and crowds pressed to see these proofs of
the famous " Lion-Hunter's " prowess. Then he went in
for lecturing, and as that particular form of self-adver-
tisement was a novelty then, he drew large audiences,
and made much money. People flocked to see the
stalwart Highland hunter in his kilt, surrounded by
the skins and heads of the wild beasts he had slain.
His conduct on the platform, however, was sometimes
so eccentric that his audiences did not know whether
to be angry or amused. And it is said that he on one
occasion in London so grossly shocked and insulted
the ladies that a riot nearly ensued.

In the year 1858 he opened a museum of his African
trophies and curiosities at Fort Augustus in order to
catch the tourists as they came up or down the Caledonian
Canal. The idea, in modern phraseology, " caught on,"

lRoualc\?ii (Beoroc Gorfron Cummtna 293

and Gordon Gumming gathered in a goodly toll from
the travellers who were attracted t«» his show. As an
African hero his celebrity was eclipsed by that of
David Livingstone, whose first volume, " Missionary
Travels," created a great sensation when it appeared
in 1857. But Gordon Gumming was able to make
some capital out of his rival, too, for he had tales to
tell and trophies to show of the country described
in Livingstone's fascinating narrative. 'And then he
could point with pride to the testimony of the
great missionary explorer in corroboration of his own
wonderful tales. For there could no longer be any
doubt that Gordon Gumming was no romancer, but a
faithful narrator of facts, after this emphatic declaration
of Livingstone's :

" I have no hesitation in saying that for those who
love that sort of thing Mr. Cumming's book conveys a
truthful idea of South African hunting. Some things
in it require explanation ; but the numbers of animals
said to have been met with and killed are by no means
improbable, considering the amount of large game then
in the country. Two other gentlemen hunting in the
same region destroyed in one season no less that 78
rhinoceroses alone. In the more remote districts, where
firearms have not yet been introduced, with the single
exception of the rhinoceros, the game is to be found
in much greater numbers than Mr. Gumming c\
The tsetse is, however, an insuperable barrier to hunting
with horses there, and Europeans can do nothing on
foot."

Gradually Roualeyn George Gordon Gumming faded

294 IfttnGS of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc (Bun

out of public recollection, for during his later years
he lived a secluded life up in Fort Augustus. There
was something mysterious and uncanny about this
big man who roamed the hills and moors alone,
with the step and bearing of a chieftain, with a strange
fire burning in his eyes, and a half-rapt look of exal-
tation in his strongly marked face. The Highlanders
believed that he had the gift of second sight, and this
belief was confirmed by the circumstances surrounding
his death.

One day, when he was apparently in perfect health,
he went to the village carpenter and ordered his coffin.
His instructions were that it was to be completed
and sent up within four days. His orders were
obeyed — the coffin was sent, and twenty-four hours
later Roualeyn George Gordon Gumming was dead.
He died from purely natural causes, but he must have
had some strange premonition of his end. By a will,
made on the same day on which he ordered his
coffin, he left all that he possessed to his little
daughter, twelve years of age. His death took place
March 24th, 1866, nine days after he had completed
his forty-sixth year.

It is only as a sportsman pure and simple that
Gordon Gumming has any claim to be remembered. He
made no pretence to be an explorer, and he added little
of scientific value to our knowledge of the natural
history of South Africa. But he had the qualities which
go to the making of a great hunter — courage, nerve,
endurance, and an adventurous spirit. There was some-
thing romantic and attractive, too, about his personality.

1Rouale£U Gcoroc Gordon Cummino 295

He gave you the idea of being a man who in an earlier
age would have made his mark as a bold rover by land
or sea. The story of his adventures thrilled the public
of his day, and 1 have no doubt that many a sportsman
who has since made himself a name as a slayer of big
game had the desire to shake off the trammels of civilisa-
tion and taste the joys of a wild hunter's life first
kindled in him by the graphic pen of Roualeyn Gordon
Gumming.

Sir Humphry Davy

" JUST look at that boy ! What an extraordinary face !
Who is he?"

The boy in question, a lad of seventeen, was care-
lessly swinging on a gate, and as he swung contorted
his features into grotesque grimaces which gave him
the appearance of an animated gargoyle. He seemed
quite unconcerned at the approach of two well-dressed
gentlemen, from the younger of whom came the ex-
clamation and query. The other made answer :

" That is young Davy, the carver's son. A queer
lad — has a craze for making chemical experiments."

"Eh? What? Chemical experiments!" said the
first speaker, regarding the boy with sudden interest.
" I must go and have a talk with him."

And that was how Gilbert Giddy Davies and Humphry
Davy, two future Presidents of the Royal Society, first
became acquainted.

Davies (or Giddy, as he then was, for he did not take
the name of Davies till some years later) was at that
time eight-and-twenty years of age, an Oxford Master
of Arts already known in literary and scientific circles,

296

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.

Sir l3uinpln*\? S)ax>£ 197

and a man of wealth to boot, with a fine estate in
Cornwall, where he was residing when he thus 1
with Humphry Davy. He soon discovered that the
extraordinary-looking boy swinging on the gate was
a genius in the rough, and offered him the use of his
library, with any other assistance in his chemical studies
of which the lad might care to avail himself. Young
Humphry jumped at the offer, which squared exactly
with his desires, and from that moment was started on
the career which led him to fame and fortune.

Hitherto no one had understood the boy or given
him credit for the possession of any talents likely to be
of the least use in getting him on in the world. His
father, Robert Davy, was a wood-carver, but followed
that occupation rather for amusement than profit, for
he had sufficient patrimony to support himself and his
family in modest comfort. The Davys had been estab-
lished in Cornwall as far back as the commencement of
the seventeenth century, and Robert Davy could point
with pride to monuments of his ancestors in Ludgvan
Church bearing the date of 1635.

Humphry was born at Penzance on December i/th,
1778. If his parents had not been unusually dull they
should have discovered that the boy was something
quite out of the common. His memory at the age of
five was phenomenal. He could master the contents
of a book by merely turning over the leaves rapidly,
and knew almost by heart what one of his biographers
Dr. Paris, calls "that pleasing work, 'The Pilgrim's
Progress.' " But it was as a teller of romantic tales that
he chiefly excelled. He would get a circle of boys,

298

of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc (Bun

many of them far older than himself, round him, and
keep them fascinated by his wonderful powers as a
raconteur. Above all, he was a born sportsman, and
his proficiency as a fisherman when he was yet in his
teens excited the amazement and envy of his school-
fellows.

" I have known him," says one of his boyish friends,
"catch grey mullet at Penzance Pier when none of us
could succeed. The mullet is a very difficult fish to
hook, on account of the diminutive size of its mouth ;
but Davy adopted a plan of his own contrivance.
Observing that they always swam in shoals, he attached
a succession of pilchards to a string, reaching from the
surface to the bottom of the sea, and while his prey were
swimming around the bait, he would by a sudden move-
ment of the string entangle several of them on the hooks
and thus dexterously capture them."

As soon, however, as he was old enough to handle
a gun, shooting rivalled fishing in his affections. Before
he was fourteen he had made a collection of rare birds,
all shot and stuffed by himself. The marshes around
Penzance abounded with snipe, and woodcock were
plentiful in the coverts. No licence was required for
shooting them, so young Humphry had rare sport of a
kind which, in the opinion of many good sportsmen,
has no superior. Accompanied by his favourite water-
spaniel Chloe, the wood-carver's son, with his gun on
his shoulder, was a familiar figure to the people of
Penzance, who never dreamed that a youth so devoted
to the pleasures of rod and gun could ever develop
into a man with any serious pursuits. Nor did his

Sir tmmpbn? Bav>s a99

schoolmasters discern any sign of the real bent of
his mind.

He was sent first to Coryton's Grammar School at
Pcnzancc, where he had the reputation of being an idle
boy, with a gift for making verses, but with no aptitude
for studies of a graver sort. Fortunately his head-
master was of an easy disposition — not an Orbilius or
a Keate— and the boy was not cruelly driven and beaten
into grinding at tasks for which he had no taste.

" After all," said Sir Humphry in later life, " the way
in which we are taught Latin and Greek does not much
influence the important structure of our minds. I con-
sider it fortunate that I was left much to myself as a
child, and put upon no particular plan of study, and that
I enjoyed much idleness at Mr. Coryton's school. I
perhaps owe to these circumstances the little talents
I have, and their peculiar application : what I am I
have made myself. I say this without vanity, and in
pure simplicity of heart."

His progress at Coryton's school, however, did not
satisfy his parents, and he was sent to Truro. There
he was more successful, though his headmaster, the Rev.
Dr. Garden, subsequently stated : " I could not discover
the faculties by which he was afterwards so much *
tinguished. I discovered, indeed, his taste for poetry,
which I did not omit to encourage."

And without doubt Humphry Davy had considerable
poetical gifts. At the age of twelve he wrote an epic
entitled " The Tyndidiad," the subject of which was
the adventures of Diomed on his return from the
Trojan war. "It is much to be regretted," says Dr.

300 ftincis of tbe 1Ro&, IRifle, an& (Bun

Paris, " that not even a fragment of this poem should
have been preserved." I do not share in Dr. Paris's
regret, nor can I agree with that worthy person when
he says of other verses of Davy's which have been
preserved, that " although marked by the common
faults of youthful poets, they still bear the stamp of
lofty genius " ! Fluent, graceful, eloquent, Davy's verse
often is, but it wholly lacks distinction and originality,
or any striking quality which at all merits Sir Walter
Scott's encomium : " If Davy had not been the first
Chemist, he would have been the first Poet of his
age " ; or Lockhart's : " He was a true poet, and might
have been one of the greatest of poets, had he chosen."
And yet these were men who were poets themselves,
and knew what good poetry was. But then they were
friends of Humphry Davy — they were under the spell of
his attractive personality ; and contemporary criticism
thus biassed seldom stands the test of time.

After leaving school, at the age of seventeen, Humphry
was apprenticed to a surgeon, Mr. John Borlase, of
Penzance. Then he began to dabble in chemistry, in
which pursuit his eldest sister was his enthusiastic
assistant, regardless of the ruin wrought in her dresses
by contact with corrosive acids. A garret in the house
of a neighbour and friend, Mr. Tonkin, was his laboratory,
and the awful smells and explosions which came from
thence were a source of terror to his friends. " This
boy Humphry is incorrigible," said Mr. Tonkin. "Was
there ever so idle a dog ? He will blow us all into the
air some of these days."

It was at this moment, whilst he was making his

Sir ftumpbn? £>a\n? 301

first crude experiments in chemistry, th.it Gilbert Giddy
came across his path, and turned his genius into
proper channel. For not only did Giddy place his
own library and chemical apparatus at the disposal
of the young student, but he introduced him to Dr.
Edwards, chemical lecturer at Bartholomew's Hospital,
and to Dr. Beddocs, who had just established at Clifton
a pneumatic medical institution for the purpose of trying
the medicinal effects of different gases. In the autumn
of 1798 Dr. Beddoes engaged Humphry Davy as
superintendent of this establishment, and the young
chemist was thus placed in a position in which he
could pursue unhampered the studies most congenial
to him. " I never loved to imitate, but always to invent"
he told a friend in after life. And this inventive quality
helped him marvellously in that career of discovery
which madev his name illustrious. Before he had been
twelve months at Clifton he made himself famous by
discovering the intoxicating effects of nitrous oxide
when respired, and thus gave medical science the
valuable anaesthetic known as " laughing-gas." In
the ardour with which he pursued the investigations
which led to his discoveries he knew no fear of con-
sequences, and more than once almost sacrificed his
life in his experiments. Indeed, his fearlessness had
been conspicuous from his boyhood. When he was
sixteen he was bitten in the leg by a dog supposed
to be mad ; he coolly pulled out his knife, cut out
the piece of flesh, and then went to the surgery and
cauterised it himself. He used to say that he had
educated himself to a disbelief in the existence of pain

302 ifcinss of tbe 1Ro&, 1Riflet anb (Bun

whenever the energies of his mind were directed to
counteract it. He had been enunciating this doctrine
once to a friend whilst they were out sea-fishing. " But,"
writes the said friend, " I very shortly afterwards had
an opportunity of witnessing a practical refutation of
this doctrine in his own person, for upon being bitten
by a conger-eel, my young friend Humphry roared out
most lustily." Humphry, however, might fairly have
urged in his defence the fact that " the energies of
his mind " were not at the moment " directed to
counteract it."

The fame of the young Cornish genius spread to
London, and when he had only just entered his twenty-
third year he was appointed Assistant Lecturer and
Director of the Laboratory to the Royal Institution.
As a lecturer he at once met with extraordinary success.
His subject, Experimental Chemistry, had the charm
of novelty. There was a freshness and a fascination
about these revelations of the mysteries of Nature
which made them irresistibly attractive to the half-
enlightened, semi-superstitious curiosity of Society in
general, as well as to genuine searchers after truth.
The young lecturer became the lion of fashionable
London. Men of the first rank and talent — the literary
and the scientific, the practical and the theoretical — blue-
stockings and women of fashion, the old and the young,
all crowded, eagerly crowded, the lecture-room. His
youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical
knowledge, his happy illustrations and well-conducted
experiments, excited universal attention and unbounded
applause. Compliments, invitations, and presents were

Sir fwmpbn? 2>ax>\? 303

showered upon him in abundance from all quarters;
his society was courted by all, and all appeared proud
of his acquaintance.

"Such was his great celebrity at this period of his
career," writes Dr. Paris, "that persons of the hi
rank contended for the honour of his company at dinner,
and he did not possess sufficient resolution to resist
the gratification thus afforded, although it generally
happened that his pursuits in the laboratory were not
suspended until the appointed dinner-hour had passed.
On his return in the evening, he resumed his chemical
labours, and commonly continued them until three or
four o'clock in the morning ; and yet the servants
of the establishment not unfrequently found that he
had risen before them. The greatest of all his wants
was Time, and the expedients by which he economised
it often placed him in very ridiculous positions, and
gave rise to habits of the most eccentric description :
driven to an extremity, he would in his haste put on
fresh linen, without removing that which was under-
neath ; and, singular as the fact may appear, he has
been known, after the fashion of the grave-digger in
Hamlet, to wear no less than five shirts, and as many
pairs of stockings at the same time. Exclamations
of surprise very frequently escaped from his friends
at the rapid manner in which he increased and declined
in corpulence."

A similar story is told of the late Dr. Joseph Wolff,
whose heroic expedition to Bokhara to ascertain the
fate of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly, in 1844,
made him famous. I was in the house at which Dr.

304 Ifcinss of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc (3un

Wolff was staying at the time, and can vouch for the
truth of the story. The great Oriental traveller and
linguist was as helpless as a child in all the ordinary
affairs of life. He could not dress himself without
assistance, and at table had to have his food cut up
for him. He was particularly careless, too, about his
personal appearance, and his wife had strictly enjoined
him to be sure and put on a clean shirt every day.
He followed her injunctions literally, and at the end
of a week was wearing six shirts, one over the other !

But amid all this whirl of excitement and popularity
there was one thing which kept Humphry Davy from
becoming the " spoiled darling " of Society, and that was
his love of sport. He turned for rest and recreation to
his beloved rod and gun. By the side of the trout-
stream or among the stubble and heather he shook off
the trammels of artificial life and came face to face with
Nature.

His brother John, who was not only eminent as a
physiologist and anatomist, but was a great fisherman
to boot, and the author of two delightful books on
angling, says :

"It was not unusual for him to go two or three
hundred miles for a day's fishing. . . . Passionately
fond of the beauties of Nature, which he felt as a
poet and saw as a philosopher, probably the happiest
hours of his life were spent by the river or lake side,
or on the mountain moor. In the open air, in the
country, at any season of the year, but more especially
in spring or autumn, when in tolerable health, he
could always (and sometimes even when labouring

Sir Dumpbrg Dav>\> 305

under disease) throw off his cares, and rid his mind of
all annoying thoughts. There he recovered the hilarity
natural to his disposition, and appeared in his t:
character, most cheerful, amiable, and entertaining, and
the delight of his friends. They, indeed, I will now say,
were almost his only true friends who were his associates
in these sports ; and they perhaps were almost the only
persons who knew him thoroughly and truly."

But in his angling, as in everything else, Humphry
Davy was nothing if not original. Dr. Paris gives the
following amusing picture of the philosopher in his
fishing costume :

" His whole suit consisted of green cloth ; the coat
having sundry pockets for holding the necessary tackle :
his boots were made of caoutchouc, and, for the con-
venience of wading through the water, reached above the
knees. His hat, originally intended for a coal-heaver,
had been purchased from the manufacturer in its raw
state, and dyed green by some pigment of his own
composition ; it was, moreover, studded with every
variety of artificial fly which he could require for his
diversion. Thus equipped, he thought, from the colour
of his dress, that he was more likely to elude the
observation of the fish. He looked not like an in-
habitant o' the earth, and yet was on't ; — nor can I find
any object in the regions of invention with which I
could justly compare him, except perhaps one of those
grotesque personages who, in the farce of ' The Critic,'
attend Father Thames on the stage as his two banks.

I shall take this opportunity of stating that his
shooting attire was equally whimsical : if, as an angler,

20

306 lktn$s of tbe 1Rot>, IRifle, anb (Bun

he adopted a dress for concealing his person, as a
sportsman in woods and plantations, it was his object
to devise means for exposing it ; for he always enter-
tained a singular dread lest he might be shot upon
these occasions. When upon a visit to Mr. Dillwyn, of
Swansea, he accompanied his friend on a shooting
excursion, in a broad-brimmed hat, the whole of which,
with the exception of the brim, was covered with scarlet
cloth."

Dr. Paris, who was no angler, expresses the opinion
that Davy was not more successful than other anglers ;
but John Davy, who was one of the best fishermen of
his day, pays this tribute to his brother's skill in the
" gentle craft " :

" He was a better angler than he was a fowler ;
indeed he was the most successful angler I ever knew.
He threw the fly with great delicacy and dexterity, and
had a tact and knowledge which made him very superior
to the common angler, however much practised. Salmon
fishing he was very successful in ; but I believe he was
most successful in trout fishing, in which he had most
experience. His tackle was curious and elaborate ;
he seemed to have had a pleasure in collecting the gay
materials necessary for dressing flies, though he seldom
used them himself, excepting on emergency, having
been always too much occupied to have had leisure to
apply himself much to fly-making, an art in which it
is impossible to attain tolerable skill without much
practice."

Both Dr. Paris and John Davy agree in crediting
Humphry with the display of the same extraordinary

Sir fnimpbn? IDaw 307

energy and zeal in fishing which he showed in every-
thing else he undertook, but on other points they differ.
Paris asserts that Humphry Davy's temperament
was too mercurial ; " the fish never seized the fly with
sufficient avidity to fulfil his expectations, or to support
that degree of excitement which was essential to his
happiness, and he became either listless or angry,
and consequently careless and unsuccessful." John
Davy, on the other hand, says that his brother's
patience and perseverance were as remarkable as his
energy and zeal. " I remember," he writes, " fishing
with him from early dawn to twilight in the river
Awe in June, for salmon, with little interruption,
without raising a fish."

Humphry's passion for angling betrayed itself upon
all occasions ; and the sport was alike his relief in toil
and his solace in sorrow.

" Whenever," writes Dr. Paris, " I had the honour of
dining at his table, the conversation, however it might
have commenced, invariably ended on fishing ; and when
a brother of the angle happened to be present you had
the pleasure of hearing all his encounters with the finny
tribe— how he had lured them by his treachery and
vanquished them by his perseverance. He would
occasionally strike into a most eloquent and impassioned
strain upon some subject which warmed his fancy ; such,
for example, as the beauties of mountain scenery ; but
before you could fully enjoy the prospect which his
imagination had pictured, down he carried you into some
sparkling stream or rapid current, to flounder for the
next half-hour with a hooked salmon !

Ikfnss ot tbe 1ftot>, IRifle, anb (Bun

I remember witnessing, upon one of these occasions,
a very amusing scene, which may be related as illustrative
of some peculiarities of his temper. I believe all those
who have accompanied Davy in his fishing excursions,
will allow that no sportsman was ever more ambitious to
appear skilful and lucky. Nothing irritated him so much
as to find that his companions had caught more fish
than himself; and if, during conversation, a brother
fisherman surpassed him in the relation of his success, he
betrayed similar impatience.

There happened to be present on the occasion to
which I allude, a skilful angler, and an enterprising
chemist. The latter commenced on some subject con-
nected with his favourite science ; but Davy, who
generally speaking, disliked to make it a subject of
conversation, suddenly turned to the angler, and related
what he considered a very surprising instance of his
success : his sporting friend, however, mortified him by
the relation of a still more marvellous anecdote ; upon
which Davy as quickly returned to the chemist, who, in
turn, again sent him back to the angler : — and thus did
he appear to endure the unhappy fate of the flying fish,
who no sooner escapes from an enemy in the regions of
air, than he is pursued by one equally rapacious in the
waters."

Meanwhile honours had been falling fast and thick
upon the brilliant young chemist. He had been elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of four-and-
twenty, the Institute of France had awarded him
the First Consul's Prize of 3,000 francs for "the
experiment most conducive to the progress of science/'

Sir Dumpfon? S)a\n? 309

the University of Dublin had conferred upon him
tV.e honorary degree of LL.D., bc^ ying him

1,^00 -uinc.is for two courses of lectures, and finally,
in 1812, he received the honour of knighthood from
the Prince Regent. On the day after he was knighted
Sir Humphry Davy delivered his farewell lecture at
the Royal Institution to an audience which crowded
the theatre in every part and included the cream of
London's intellect, beauty, and rank. Three days
later he was married to Mrs. Apreece, daughter and
heiress of Charles Keen, of Kelso, who had made a
large fortune as a sugar-planter in Antigua. As
Lady Davy not only exercised a great influence over
her husband, but was herself a person of considerable
note, I may be excused for giving some particulars
about her.

Her first husband was Shuckburgh Ashby Apreece,
eldest son of the well-known Welsh baronet Sir Thomas
Hussey Apreece, one of the finest sportsmen in the
kingdom. His death left her a young and wealthy
widow. She made Edinburgh her home, and her house
soon became a centre of all that was brightest and
cleverest in the " Modern Athens." A bewitching little
woman she was, with her petite figure, sparkling black
eyes, glossy black hair, vivacious manners, and lively
talk. The sweet smile with which she knew how to light
up her pleasant face was more than any man could
withstand. Sir Walter Scott and Sydney Smith both
acknowledged its subtle power and confessed themselves
her slaves. Under the spell of that smile a venerable
professor of the University knelt down in Prince's Street

310 ifctnss of tbe 1Rot>, tRifle, ant> Oun

in broad daylight to fasten up her boot-laces ! Fresh
from the Continent, with the distinction of Madame de
StaeTs friendship, and invested with a halo of romantic
interest as the alleged original of "Corinne," Mrs.
Apreece enjoyed a popularity greater even than Alison
Cockburn's or Bess Burnet's. Suitors, of course, the
rich and fascinating young widow had in plenty, but
none was favoured until she came up to London, to
spend the season at her mother's house in Portland
Place, and met Humphry Davy, then at the zenith
of his fame.

To carry off from all other rivals the lion of London
Society, the man whose intellect commanded the homage
of the beaux esprits of both sexes, was a triumph worthy
of any woman's ambition. And then the brilliant
experimentalist and eloquent expositor of science was
a man of most attractive personality. In his earlier
days, indeed, Humphry Davy was something uncouth
in his appearance, round-shouldered, lumpish, and
bucolic. But contact with good society soon put a
polish upon the rustic Cornish lad. " The change,"
says Dr. Paris, in his grandiose style, "which his ap-
pearance underwent after his introduction to the
Royal Institution was so rapid that in the days of
Herodotus it would have been attributed to nothing
less than the miraculous interposition of the Priestesses
of Helen." He was not tall — 5 feet 7 inches was his
height — but his figure was singularly well-proportioned
and his carriage was erect. His hands and feet were
remarkably small, but his chest was broad and full,
and his limbs extremely muscular. His compact, well-

Sir fjumpbrv? Baxn? 311

knit frame was capable of botli rtion and

great endurance. Hut probably what attracted women
most was his glossy, silken, curly, light brown
and his fine, cxprcssi 1 eyes. He had probably

as many admirers among women as Mrs. Aprcece had
among men, and his capture by that dashing brunette
doubtless made her an object of fierce jcalou
her own sex.

I doubt whether it was a happy marriage. Lady
Davy was a restless creature. Her physical activity was
extraordinary, her tongue was never still, except when
she slept, and charming as her sprightly conversation
no doubt was to outsiders, it is possible that her
husband found it a trifle wearisome. She was never
happy unless she was hurrying him about from place
to place.

And then, like all brunettes, she had a temper. Poor
Faraday found this out to his cost when, as Sir
Humphry's assistant, he accompanied the pair to France
in 1813. There was war between the two countries, but
Napoleon gave Sir Humphry Davy permission to visit
Paris and travel through the provinces in the interests of
science. During this tour Lady Davy snubbed and
persecuted Faraday with a vindictive spite which showed
the real littleness of her nature. " Her temper," says her
long-suffering victim, " made it often go wrong with me,
with herself, and with Sir Humphry."

But Davy, fortunately, always had his rod and gun to
fall back upon, and in the pursuit of the sports he loved
could forget even the tongue and temper of his charming
wife. It was the gun, however, that was now most in

312 Ifcinss of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc 6un

favour, though for a long while he had discarded it for
the more contemplative pastime. Possibly Lady
Davy had inoculated him with her own restlessness,
and so unfitted him, temporarily, for the full enjoy-
ment of the peacefulest of all pleasures. His brother
John says :

" From his boyhood he had been a lover of the angle,
and he was hardly less fond of fowling, for which sport
also he had acquired a taste early in life. At no time
of his life did he relinquish angling, except at the com-
mencement of his public career, whilst he was at Clifton,
and the first year or two he was in London, when all his
faculties were strained in the pursuit of science under
the impulse of a lofty ambition, and an intense desire
of distinguishing himself, extending the boundaries of
human knowledge, and benefiting mankind. When he
resumed angling, he pursued it, I may say, passionately
for some years, and never used his gun. The time,
however, arrived, I think it was soon after his marriage,
that he seemed to prefer his gun to his rod ; and probably
the reason for this was that he was much in the country
in the autumn, and followed fishing and shooting more
than formerly for amusement, and less as a mere relax-
ation from his scientific labours. Latterly, it is difficult
to say which he preferred ; the preference, I believe, was
very much decided by the kind of sport ; the salmo
Jiucho of the branches of the Danube, in Southern
Austria, and the double snipe in the marshes of Rome
and Ravenna, Laybach and Altona, would be to him
almost equally attractive. By connecting both sports
with natural history, he gave them a degree of import-

Sir fbnmpbn? IDav\? 313

ancc and interest not their own, ami made them, as it
were, rational. His notr-bonks show this vrry remark-
ably ; they contain not merely the minutes of his day's
sport, but also the results of his observations for the
purposes of distinguishing species and identifying them,
and of ascertaining their routes in migration, their
peculiar diets and habits."

In the year 1815 the attention of Sir Humphry I
was directed towards devising a remedy against the
frequent explosions of fire damp in coal-mines, attended
as they usually were by fearful loss of life. The result
of his investigations was the invention of the Safety
Lamp— a cage of wire-gauze, which by its cooling
action prevents the flame from igniting the explosive
atmosphere exterior to the lamp, even though the flame
reach as far as the gauze. It is as the inventor of the
safety lamp that Sir Humphry is now best known,
just as another eminent chemist, Justus von Liebig, owes
his fame among the multitude to what he, too, probably
thought the least of all his discoveries — the familiar
extract of meat. The grateful coal-owners presented
the inventor of the safety lamp with a magnificent
service of plate which cost nearly £2,000, and the Crown
rewarded him with a baronetcy.

During the latter portion of his life his devotion to
sport was at least as fervent as his devotion to science.
As the guest of the Duke of Sutherland at Dunrobin
Castle he enjoyed some of the best salmon-fishing
and grouse-shooting in Scotland. Now and then,
too, the hospitable laird of Abbotsford showed him
excellent sport, for there was no keener sportsman

314 IKinss of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anfc 6un

breathing than the great "Wizard of the North."
Lockhart, in his Life of Scott, gives us a delightful
glimpse of Sir Humphry Davy as the guest of Sir
Walter. Scott had planned a great coursing match at
Newark Hill, and had marshalled a motley cavalcade
of ladies and gentlemen to partake in the day's sport.
After describing those who were present, Lockhart
proceeds :

"But the most picturesque figure was the illustrious
inventor of the safety lamp. He had come for his
favourite sport of angling, and had been practising it
successfully with Rose, his travelling companion, for two
or three days preceding this, but he had not prepared
for coursing fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's troop for
Sir Walter's on a sudden thought ; and his fisherman's
costume — a brown hat with flexible brims, surrounded
with line upon line, and innumerable fly-hooks — jack
boots worthy of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian surtout
dabbled with the blood of salmon, made a fine contrast
with the smart jackets, white cord breeches, and well
polished jockey boots of the less distinguished cavaliers
about him."

Sir Humphry entered as zealously as any one of them
into the sport ; but his zeal outran his discretion, and he
was the victim of a ludicrous accident which Lockhart
thus describes :

" Coursing on such a mountain is not like the same
sport over a set of fine English pastures. There were
gulfs to be avoided and bogs to be threaded — many a
stiff nag stuck fast — many a bold rider measured his
length among the peat-hags, and another stranger to

Sir fwmpfon? £>a\n? 315

the ground besides Davy plunged neck deep into a
treacherous well-head, which till they were floundn
in it, had borne all the appearance of a piece of delicate
green turf. When Sir Humphry emerged from his
involuntary bath, his habiliments garnished with mud,
slime, and mangled water-cresses, Sir Walter rccci
him with a triumphant encore \ But the philosopher
had his revenge, for joining soon afterwards in a brisk
gallop, Scott put Sibyl Grey to a leap beyond her
prowess, and lay humbled in the ditch, while Davy
who was better mounted, cleared it and him at a bound.
Happily there was but little damage done — but no one
was sorry that the sociable had been detained at the foot
of the hill.

I have seen Sir Humphry in many places, and in
company of many different descriptions ; but never
to such advantage as at Abbotsford. His host and he
delighted in each other, and the modesty of their
mutual admiration was a memorable spectacle. Davy
was by nature a poet — and Scott, though anything but
a philosopher in the modern sense of that term, might,
I think it very likely, have pursued the study of
physical science with zeal and success if he had
happened to fall in with such an instructor as Sir
Humphry would have been to him, in his early life-
Each strove to make the other talk — and they did so
in turn more charmingly than I ever heard cither on
any other occasion whatsoever. Scott in his romantic
narratives touched a deeper chord of feeling than usual,
when he had such a listener as Davy ; and Davy, when
induced to open his views upon any question of scientific

316 Ik(n08 of tbe 1Rcto, 1Rfflet anb Gun

interest in Scott's presence, did so with a degree of clear
energetic eloquence, and with a flow of imagery and
illustration, of which neither his habitual tone of table-
talk (least of all in London), nor any of his prose
writings (except, indeed the posthumous * Consolations
of Travel') could suggest an adequate notion. I say
his prose writings — for who that has read his sublime
quatrains on the doctrine of Spinoza can doubt that he
might have united, if he had pleased, in some great
didactic poem, the vigorous ratiocination of Dryden,
and the moral majesty of Wordsworth ? I remember
William Laidlaw whispering to me, one night, when
their 'rapt talk' had kept the circle round the fire
long after the usual bedtime of Abbotsford — ' Gude
preserve us ! this is a very superior occasion ! Eh,
sirs ! ' he added, cocking his eye like a bird, ' I wonder
if Shakspeare and Bacon ever met to screw ilk
other up?'"

In 1820 Sir Humphry Davy was elected President
of the Royal Society, and held that distinguished post
till 1827, when, owing to failing health, he resigned.
He then devoted himself to travel and sport on the
Continent ; wherever he went he fished, and his
letters and diaries bear witness to his unabated
enthusiasm for angling and his minute study of the
habits and varieties of the fish inhabiting the different
rivers and lakes which he visited, with particulars of
the flies and artificial baits which he found most
successful in each case.

It was at this time, during (to quote his own words)
"some months of severe and dangerous illness, when

Sir fcumpfon;? Bav>£ 317

he was wholly incapable of following more serious
pursuits," that Sir Humphry Davy occupied himself
in writing "Salmonia; or, Days of Fly-fishing," the
work on which his fame as a fisherman rests. It was
unfortunate that the author should have adopted the
dialogue form and shaped his book on lines similar to
those of " The Compleat Angler," for the resemblance
provokes comparison and suggests imitation. Yet
beyond the form there is no attempt at imitation ; and
as a treatise on angling " Salmonia" is so immeasurably
superior to old Izaak's immortal classic that to compare
the two is ridiculous — they are not in this respect to be
named in the same breath. But as a piece of literature,
eloquent and poetical as " Salmonia " often is, it cannot
bear comparison with " The Compleat Angler." The
subtle charm, the sweet simplicity, the living, breathing
freshness, the racy redolence of Nature which have made
the London linen-draper's homely volume a joy for ever
to all who love true literature— all these are lacking in
Sir Humphry Davy's pages. He moves in a higher
and more ambitious sphere. Instead of the quiet
meadows, with the slow stream winding leisurely through
them and the cattle resting placidly under the willows,
the rustic ale-house, with honey-suckle and sweet-briar
climbing in at the windows, the comely hostess, the
cleanly rooms, the lavender-scented sheets, we have
purple and fine linen, elegant villas, lordly castles
romantic scenery, and grand society. Instead of the
humble chub " dressed so admirably as to equal trout,"
and washed down with a modest cup of home-brewed
ale, we have viands that would have made the mouths,

318 1kin00 of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, anO (Bun

of Lucullus and Apicius water, and wines over which
the Prince Regent and " Old Q. " would have smacked
their lips. And then the sport ! How can one
condescend even distantly to hint at the contents
of poor Izaak's humble creel in the presence of
philosophers whose quarry is the King of Fish, the
Royal Salmon !

The characters in " Salmonia " are four in number :
Hali&us, an accomplished fly-fisher ; Ornither, who
is " fond of field sports, but not a finished angler " ;
Poietes, " an enthusiastic lover of Nature, partially
acquainted with the mysteries of fly-fishing " ; Physicns>
" uninitiated as an angler, but a person fond of inquiries
in natural history and philosophy."

I shall best convey an idea of the sort of conver-
sation in which the quartet indulge by a few extracts.
Haliceus, referring to Byron's libel on Izaak Walton
remarks :

" And if you require a poetical authority against that
of Lord Byron, I mention the philosophical poet of the
lakes, and the author of

An Orphic tale, indeed

A tale divine, of high and passionate thoughts,
To their own music chanted ;

who is a lover both of fly-fishing and fly-fishermen—
Gay's poem you know, and his passionate fondness for
the amusement, which was his principal occupation in
the summer at Amesbury ; and the late excellent John
Tobin, author of the Honey-Moon, was an ardent
angler.

sir tmtnpbrs s>at>s

Phys. I am satisfied with your poetical authorities.
II aL Nay, I can find authorities of all kinds-
statesmen, heroes and philosophers. I can go back to
Trajan who was fond of angling. Nelson was a good
fly-fisher, and as a proof of his passion for it, continued
the pursuit even with his left hand. Dr. I'alcy was
ardently attached to this amusement ; so much so that
when the Bishop of Durham inquired of him when one
of his most important works would be finished, he said
with great simplicity and good humour, ' My Lord, I
shall work steadily at it when the fly-fishing season is
over. As if this were a business of his life."

Sir Walter Scott, in his picturesque and entertaining
article on " Salmonia " in the Quarterly Review, appends
this interesting note to his comments on the passage I
have quoted :

" The author of * Salmonia ' mentions Nelson's fond-
ness for fly-fishing, and expresses a wish to see it noticed
in the next edition of ' that most exquisite and touching
life of our Hero by the Laureate, an immortal monument
raised by genius to valour.' We believe neither Haliceus
nor the Laureate will be displeased with the following
little anecdote from a letter of a gentleman now at the
head of the medical profession with which he favoured
us shortly after perusing ' Salmonia' : ' I was' (says our
friend) ' at the Naval Hospital at Yarmouth, on the morn-
ing when Nelson, after the battle of Copenhagen (having
sent the wounded before him), arrived at the Roads,
and landed on the jutty. The populace soon surrounded
him, and the military were drawn up in the market-place
ready to receive him ; but, making his way through the

32o ifcings of tbe 1Ro&, 1Riflet an& Gun

crowd, and the dust, and the clamour, he went straight
to the hospital. I went round the wards with him, and
was much interested in observing his demeanour to the
sailors ; he stopped at every bed, and to every man
he had something kind and cheery to say. At length
he stopped opposite a bed on which a sailor was lying,
who had lost his right arm close to the shoulder-joint,
and the following short dialogue passed between them :
Nelson. " Well, Jack, what's the matter with you ? "
Sailor. "Lost my right arm, your honour." Nelson
paused, looked down at his own empty sleeve, then at
the sailor, and said playfully, "Well, Jack, then
you and I are spoiled for fishermen, — cheer up,
my brave fellow." And he passed briskly on to the
next bed ; but these few words had a magical effect
upon the poor fellow, for I saw his eyes sparkle with
delight as Nelson turned away and pursued his course
through the wards. As this was the only occasion on
which I saw Nelson, I may, perhaps, overrate the value
of the incident.' "

Every angler knows the bitter anguish of losing a big
fish, and his conviction that the fish so lost was the
biggest he ever hooked. It is said that Swift never to
the end of his life forgot the pang of losing a great
trout when he was a boy. But it may be some
solace to those who have thus suffered to learn, on
the unimpeachable authority of Haliceus, that the fish
thus lost are never really as big as the chagrined
angler imagines.

Physicus has been bewailing the loss of a very large
fish which he had hooked, and dilates mournfully on its

Sir tmmpbrs Dax>p

enormous proportions, when he is thus " taken down "
by that very superior person Haliceus :

" Hal. I daresay he was a large fish ; but I have
known very correct and even cool rcasoncrs in error
on a point of this kind. You are acquainted with
Chemicus ; he is not an ardent fisherman, and cert
not addicted to romance : I will tell you an anecdote
respecting him. He accompanied me to this very
spot last year, on a visit to our host, and preferred
angling for pike to fly-fishing. After th ment

of a morning he brought back with him to the house
one pike, and with some degree of disappointment com-
plained that he had hooked another of enormous size,
which carried off his tackle by main force, and which
he was sure must have been above 10 Ibs. At dinner,
on the table there were two pikes ; one the fish that
Chemicus had caught, and another a little larger, some-
what more than 3 Ibs. We put some questions who
had caught this second pike, which we found had been
taken by our host, who, with some kind of mystery,
asked Chemicus if he thought it weighed 10 Ibs.
Chemicus refused to acknowledge an identity between
such a fish and the monster he had hooked ; when my
friend took out of his pocket a paper containing some
hooks and tackle carefully wrapped up, and asked
Chemicus if he had ever seen such an apparatus.
Chemicus owned they were the hooks and tackle the
great fish had carried away. ' And I found them,'
said our host, ' in the mouth of that little fish which
you see on the table, and which I caught half an hour
ago.' "

21

322 frtngs ot tbe TCofc, IRffle, an& Gun

But the excruciatingly well-informed Haliceus not
only knows how to catch his salmon but how to cook
him. Listen to the oracle as he finishes playing a
15-lb. fish:

" Hal. He seems fairly tired : I shall bring him in to
shore. Now gaff him ; strike as near the tail as you
can. He is safe ; we must prepare him for the pot.
Give him a stunning blow on the head to deprive
him of sensation, and then make a transverse cut
just below the gills, and crimp him, by cutting to the
bone on each side so as almost to divide him into
slices : and now hold him by the tail, that he may
bleed. There is a small spring, I see, close under
that bank, which I daresay has the mean tempera-
ture of the atmosphere in this climate, and is much
under 50° — place him there and let him remain for
ten minutes ; then carry him to the pot, and before
you put in a slice let the water and salt boil furiously,
and give time to the water to recover its heat before
you throw in another ; and so proceed with the whole
fish : leave the head out, and throw in the thickest
pieces first."

There Haliceus is right, and no one who has not
tasted a salmon thus cooked within half an hour of his
capture really knows what is the true flavour of the
King of Fish.

In the following extract Haliceus is seen as the
somewhat pedantic but withal sensible expert coaching
the tyro Poietes in the art of throwing a fly, and landing
a fish after striking him :

" Hal. You have, I am sure, gentlemen, dined well ;

Sir fnimpbrg 2>at>s 313

no one ever dined otherwise in this house. It is a
beautiful calm evening, and many fish might be caught
where we fished in the morning ; but I will take
you to another part of the river ; you shall each catch
a fish, and then we will give over ; for the evening's
sport should be kept till a late season, — July or
August,— when there is little fly on in the day-time :
and it would be spoiling the diversion of our host, to
catch or prick all the fish in the upper water ; and
with a gentleman so truly liberal, and so profuse of
his means of giving pleasure to others, no improper
liberties should be taken. I shall not fish myself, but
shall have my pleasure in witnessing your sport It
must be in a boat, and you must steal slowly up the
calm water, and glide like aerial beings on the sur-
face, making no motion in the water, and showing no
shadow. Your fly must be an orange or brown
palmer with a yellow body ; for the gray drake is
not yet on the water. The fish here are large, and the
river weedy, so you must take care of your fish and
your tackle.

Poiet. We have at least passed over half a mile of
water, and have seen no fish rise ; yet there is a
yellowish or reddish fly in the air, which moves like
a drake ; and there are clouds of pale brown flies en-
cirling the alders. Now, I think I see a large trout rise
below that alder.

Hal. That is not a trout, for he rises in a different
place now, and is probably a large roach or chub ; do
not waste your time upon him. You may always know
a large trout, when feeding in the evening. He rises

324 Ikings of tbe TRoD, IRtfle, anD Gun

continuously, or at small intervals, in a still water,
almost always in the same place— and makes little noise
— barely elevating his mouth to suck in the fly, and
sometimes showing his back-fin and tail. A large circle
spreads around him ; but there are seldom any bubbles
when he breaks the water, which usually indicate the
coarser fish. We will wait a few minutes ; I know there
must be trout here ; and the sun is setting, and the
yellow fly, or dun cut, coming on the water. See,
beneath that alder, is a trout rising ; and now there is
another thirty yards higher up. Take care, get your
line out in another part of the water, and in order for
reaching the fish, and do not throw till you are sure
you can reach the spot, and throw at least half a yard
above the spot.

Orn. He rose, I suppose, at a natural fly, the moment
my fly touched the water.

Hal. Try again. You have hooked him ; and you
have done well not to strike when he rose. Now hold
him tight, wind up your line, and carry him down the
stream. Push the boat down stream, fisherman. Keep
your fish's head up. He begins to tire, — and there, he is
landed. A fine well-fed fish, not much less than four
pounds. Throw him into the well. Now, Poietes, try
that fish rising above, — and there are two more.

Poiet. I have him !

Hal Take care. He has turned you, and you have
suffered him to run out your line, and he is gone into
the weeds under the willow : let him fall down stream.

Poiet. I cannot get him out

Hal. Then wind up. I fear he is lost ; yet we will

Sir twnipbn? H)at>2 3*5

try to recover him by taking the boat up. The line
Is loose : he has left the link entangled in the weeds,
and carried your fly with him. He must have been
a large fish, or he could not have disentangled himself
from so strong a gut. Try again, there are fish now
rising above and below ; where the water is in motion,
opposite that willow, there arc two fish rising.

Poiet. I have one of them.

Hal. Now you are doing well. Down with the
boat, and drag your fish downwards. Continue to do
so, as there are weeds all round you. You can master
him now ; keep him high, and he is your own. Put
the net under him, and bring him into the boat ; he
is a well-fed fish ; but not of the proper size for a
victim : about 2 Ibs. Now, Physicus, try your fortune
with the fish above, that rises still. You have him !
Now use him as Poietes did the last. Very well ; he
is a large fish — take your time. He is landed. A
fish nearly of 3 Ibs., and in excellent season.

Phys. Anche lo son Pescatore — I too am a fisher-
man— a triumph."

On reading that passage the uninitiated greenhorn
might imagine that catching big trout is as easy as
shelling peas. But let him not be deceived Had
Sir Humphry chosen to tell the whole truth, which
no angler ever does, he would have confessed that he
envied his o\vn puppets the luck with which they took
their fish just when they pleased.

Sometimes, however, the superior Haliceus is him-
self called over the coals, as in the following
instance :

326 ikings of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& (Bun

"Hal. When a boy, I have felt an interest in sea-
fishing, for this reason — that there was a variety of
fish ; but the want of skill in the amusement — sinking
a bait with a lead, and pulling up a fish by main force,
soon made me tired of it. Since I have been a fly-
fisher, I have rarely fished in the sea, and then only
with a reel and fine tackle from the rocks, which is
at least as interesting an amusement as that of the
Cockney fishermen who fish for roach and dace in
the Thames, which I have tried twice in my life, but
shall never try again.

Phys. You are severe on Cockney fishermen, and
I suppose would apply to them only, the observation
of Dr. Johnson, which on a former occasion you would
not allow to be just : ' Angling is an amusement with
a stick and a string ; a worm at one end, and a fool
at the other.' And then to yourself you would apply
it with this change : ' A fly at one end and a philosopher
at the other.' Yet the pleasure of the Cockney angler
appears to me of much the same kind, and perhaps
more continuous than yours ; and he has the happiness
of constant occupation and perpetual pursuit in as high
a degree as you have ; and if we were to look at the
real foundations of your pleasure, we should find them,
like most of the foundations of human happiness —
vanity or folly. I shall never forget the impression
made upon me some years ago, when I was standing
on the pier at Donegal, watching the flowing of the
tide : I saw a lame boy of fourteen or fifteen years
old, very slightly clad, that some persons were attempt-
ing to stop in his progress along the pier ; but he

Sir Ibumpbrv? Dax>£ 327

resisted them with his crutches, and halting along,
threw himself from an elevation of five or six feet,
with his crutches and a little parcel of wooden boats
that he carried under his arm, on the sand of the
beach. He had to scramble at least 100 yards over
hard rocks, before he reached the water, and he
several times fell down and cut his naked limbs
on the bare stones. Being in the water, he seemed
in an ecstasy, and immediately put his boats in
sailing order, and was perfectly inattentive to the
counsel and warning of the spectators, who shouted
to him that he would be drowned. His whole at-
tention was absorbed by his boats. He had formed
an idea that one should outsail the rest, and when
this boat was foremost he was in delight ; but if any
one of the others got beyond it, he howled with
grief; and once I saw him throw his crutch at one
of the unfavoured boats. The tide came in rapidly—
he lost his crutches, and would have been drowned,
but for the care of some of the spectators : he was,
however, wholly inattentive to anything save his
boats. He is said to be quite insane and perfectly
ungovernable, and will not live in a house, or wear
any clothes, and his whole life is spent in this one
business — making and managing a fleet of wooden
boats, of which he is sole admiral. How near this
mad youth is to a genius, a hero, or to an angler,
who injures his health and risks his life by going into
the water as high as his middle, in the hope of catching
a fish which he sees rise, though he already has a
pannier full ! '

328 Kings of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, an& (Bun

One more extract I must allow myself, if only for the
pleasure of quoting Christopher North's comments upon
it — for Kit's critique on "Salmonia" was one of the
raciest things he ever wrote. The scene is laid at a
Highland inn. Enter —

" The Innkeeper. Gentlemen, dinner is ready.

THE DINNER.

Hal. Now take your places. What think you of our
fish?

Phys. I never ate better ; but I want the Harvey or
Reading sauce.

Hal. Pray let me entreat you to use no other sauce
than the water in which he was boiled. I assure you
this is the true Epicurean way of eating fresh salmon :
and for the trout, use only a little vinegar and mustard
— a sauce d la Tartare> without the onions.

Poiet. Well, nothing can be better ; and I do not
think fresh net-caught fish can be superior to these.

Hal. And these snipes are excellent. Either my
journey has given me an appetite, or I think they are
the best I ever tasted.

Orn. They are good; but I have tasted better.

Hal. Where?

Orn. On the Continent ; where the common snipe,
that rests during its migration from the north to the
south in the marshes of Italy and Carniola, and the
double, or solitary snipe, become so fat as to resemble
that bird which was formerly fattened in Lincolnshire,
the ruff ; and they have, I think, a better flavour from
being fed on their natural food.

Sir f^umpbn? Datn? 3*9

Hal. At what time have you eaten them ?

Orn. I have eaten them both in spring and autumn ;
but the autumnal birds arc the best, and are like the
ortolan of Italy.

Hal. Where does the double snipe winter ?

Orn. I believe in Africa and Asia Minor. They arc
rarely seen in England, except driven by an east wind
in the spring, or a strong north wind in the winter.
Their natural progress is to and from Finland and
Siberia, through the continent of Europe, to and from
the east and south. In autumn they pass more east,
both because they are aided by west winds, and because
the marshes in the east of Europe are wetter in that
season ; and in spring they return, but the larger pro-
portion through Italy, where they are carried by the
sirocco, and which at that time is extremely wet. Come,
let us have another bottle of claret : a pint per man
is not too much after such a day's fatigue.

Hal. You have made me president for these four
days, and I forbid it. A half pint of wine for young
men in perfect health is enough, and you will be
able to take your exercise better, and feel better
for this abstinence. How few people calculate upon
the effects of constantly renewed fever, in our luxu-
rious system of living in England ! The heart is
made to act too powerfully, blood is thrown upon the
nobler parts, and, with the system of wading adopted
by some sportsmen, whether in shooting or fishing, is
delivered cither to the hemorrhoidal veins, or, what is
worse, to the head. I have known several free livers,
who have terminated their lives by apoplexy, or have

330 frtngs of tbe 1Rofc, IRifle, ant) 6un

been rendered miserable by palsy, in consequence of
the joint effect of cold feet and too stimulating a diet ;
that is to say, as much animal food as they could eat,
with a pint or perhaps a bottle of wine per day.
Be guided by me, my friends, and neither drink nor
wade. I know there are old men who have done
both, and have enjoyed perfect health ; but these are
devil's decoys to the unwary, and ten suffer for one
that escapes. I could quote you an instance from
this very country, in one of the strongest men I have
ever known. He was not intemperate, but he lived
luxuriously, and waded as a salmon fisher for many
years in this very river ; but before he was fifty, palsy
deprived him of the use of his limbs, and he is still a
living example of the danger of the system which you
are ambitious of adopting.

Orn. Well, I give up the wine, but I intend to wade
in Hancock's boots to-morrow.

Hal. Wear them, but do not wade in them. The feet
must become cold in a stream of water constantly
passing over the caoutchouc and leather, notwithstanding
the thick stockings. They are good for keeping the feet
warm, and I think where there is exercise as in snipe
shooting, they may be used without any bad effects.
But I advise no one to stand still (which an angler must
do sometimes) in the water, even with these ingenious
water-proof inventions. All anglers should remember
old Boerhaave's maxims of health, and act upon them :
' Keep the feet warm, the head cool, and the body
open."1

Even Walter Scott, gently and genially as he deals

Sir Dumpbrg Bax>p 331

with his friend Sir Humphry, falls foul of that pitiful
piece of molly-coddling, and declares that wading never
did any angler harm if he only took a stiff dram of
" right Nantz, Schiedam or Glenlivct." But Christopher
North lashes himself into a perfect fury of sardonic
indignation. After giving a category of the dullest
dinners known to man, he exclaims that not the worst
of them "can in intenscst stupidity one moment hope to
stand the most distant comparison with this ANGLER'S
DINNER, eaten on the banks of the Ewe, the emptier of
Loch Maree, by these four gentlemen, poets, physicians,
philosophers, and what not, from the far-off and mighty
London.

At each successive and successful mouthful of the
curd, was each member of the club bound to say some-
thing wise or witty ; bound in duty, in honour, and in
gratitude. The perpetually recurring excitement and
assuagement of the palate, prolonged, as we must
believe, during ten hours at the very least — for they
have been at work, walking, rowing, and angling, for
forty miles, and fourteen hours, at the lowest computa-
tion, without refreshment — ought to have set all their
tongues a-wagging like the clappers of so many bells.
It was imperative upon them to scintillate — to coruscate
— to meteorize — to make the natives positively believe
that a " new sun had risen on mid-day," and that the
22nd of June had that year been delayed till the 1 5th
of July. It was imperative on them to have drunk
for their own share — a gallon of Glenlivet— merely a
bottle a-piece, a quantity which, if taken moderately,
can, in the climate of Loch Maree, hurt not a hair

332 icings of tbe 1Ro&, IRifle, an& 0un

on the head of any sober Christian. It was imperative
upon them to have insisted on the boatmen, also
four in number, whether they could or not, emptying
their keg of calkers. It was incumbent upon them
to have brought into a state of civilation all such of
the natives of that wild district as had been gathered
together in and about the inn, by the fame of the arrival
of the Missionaries. The landlord, of course, should
have been laid on his back among the blooming
heather, long before sunset ; and the pleasing toil
of distribution been devolved on his wife and daughters,
who, except at marriages, christenings, and funerals
eschew the creature.

Instead of a scene like this, equally rational and
sentimental, and the sweet savour of which would have
scented the mountain air for years after the departure
of the Sassenachs, whose names would have been
remembered till doomsday in many a flowing quech, —
'list, O list, if ever you did your dear Father love,'—
list to the brace of most portentous blockheads !
Ornither. ' Come, let us have another bottle of
claret — a pint per man is not too MUCH ! ! ! ! after
such a day's fatigue !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
Halieus. 'You have made me president for four days,
and / forbid it \ \ \ \ A HALF PINT FOR YOUNG MEN
IN PERFECT HEALTH IS ENOUGH ; and you will be
able to take your exercise better and feel better for this
abstinence !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
Ornither. ' Well, I give up the wine— but I intend to
wade in Hancock's boots to-morrow !!!!!'

A more mean, and melancholy, and miserable, and

Str twmpbrv

monstrous picture wai never drawn of humanity than
this. Half a pint of claret ! Poor devils ! Wading
to-morrow in Hancock's boots ! Cold feet ! Apoplexy !
Palsy! ' Be guided by me—neither drink nor wad
'Remember old Bocrhaavc's maxims of health,— I
act upon them — " Keep the feet warm— the head
cool— and the body open ! ! ! " ' A maxim on a fish-
ing excursion equally despicable and disgusting. Really
'Salmonia' smells like a dose of Glauber salt in a
tea-cup, and Sir Humphry is unpleasantly strong of
the shop."

For myself I can only "say ditto" to Christopher.
But stiff, stilted, and often priggish as the talk of
Haliceus and his friends is, and unreal and artificial
though their surroundings are, nevertheless, the book
is full of interest for the angler and the student of
natural history. And I think Haliceus justly sums
up its merits in his farewell remarks :

" Hal. But our horses are ready, and the time of
separation arrives. I trust we shall all have a happy
meeting in England in the winter. I have made you
idlers at home and abroad, but I hope to some purpose ;
and, I trust, you will confess that the time bestowed
upon angling has not been thrown away. The most
important principle perhaps in life is to have a pur
a useful one if possible, and at all events an innocent
one. And the scenes you have enjoyed — the contem-
plations to which they have led, and the exercise in
which we have indulged, have, I am sure, been very
salutary to the body, and, I hope, to the mind. I have
always found a peculiar effect from this kind of life ;

334 Ifttngs of tbc 1Rofc, IRifle, an& Gun

it has appeared to bring me back to early times and
feelings, and to create again the hopes and happiness
of youthful days. . . . For my health, I may thank my
ancestors, after my God, and I have not squandered
what was so bountifully given ; and though I do not
expect like our arch-patriarch, Walton, to number ninety
years and upwards, yet I hope, as long as I can enjoy
in a vernal day the warmth and light of the sunbeams,
still to haunt the streams — following the example of our
late venerable friend, the President of the Royal
Academy [Sir Benjamin West], in company with
whom, when he was an octogenarian, I have thrown
the fly, caught trout, and enjoyed a delightful day of
angling and social amusement, in the shady green
meadows by the bright clear streams of the Wandle."
It was, perhaps, with some presentiment that he was
not destined to enjoy a long life that Sir Humphry
penned those concluding lines ; but he could have little
dreamed how soon his " days of fly-fishing " were to end.
"Salmonia" was published in 1828. Davy passed the
following winter at Rome, and in the spring started on
a fishing tour among the lakes and streams of Italy, the
Tyrol, and Switzerland. Scarcely a day passed in which
he did not jot down in his Diary some fresh angling
experience. He arrived at Geneva on May 2/th. The
next day he went fishing, and dined heartily on the
spoils of his rod. His wife, who was with him, had
never seen him in better spirits. But about midnight
he was suddenly seized with apoplexy, and before day-
break he was dead — dead in his prime, for he was only
fifty-two.

Sir feumpbrg Barx?

335

The municipality of Geneva granted him a public
funeral, and every scientific institution in the world paid
its eloquent tribute to the genius of the greatest chemist
of his age. His great contemporary Cuvier, the foremost
naturalist of his day, assigned him the first place among
the scientific discoverers of his time. His successor as
President of the Royal Society pronounced him to have
been " not only one of the greatest but one of the most
benevolent and amiable of men."

Of his popularity among the common people and
the respect in which they held him Lord Brougham
gives the following singular illustration. Returning
home one evening, he observed an ordinary man
showing the moon and a planet through a telescope
placed upon the pavement. He went up and paid his
pence for a look. But no such thing would they
permit. " That's Sir Humphry " ran among the people ;
and the exhibitor, returning his money, said, with an
important air which exceedingly delighted Davy, that
" he could not think of taking anything from a brother-
philosopher."

But whilst Science claims the largest share in the fame
of her brilliant son, Sport had at least an equal share in
his affection. The happiest hours of his life were those
passed with rod and gun. His love of fishing and shoot-
ing remained unabated till his last hour. In the pursuit
of these sports he showed the same zeal, energy, and
thirst for investigation which characterised his career as
a scientific discoverer. He set himself as seriously to
master the art of angling as to explore the secrets of
chemistry. He studied the habits of birds and fish as

336 frtn08 ot tbe 1Ro&, IRifle, an& (Bun

carefully as the composition of gases. And when he put
the results of his study to a practical test his success was
as great in the one as in the other. He showed the
world that it was possible for a man of high and rare
intelligence to be an enthusiast alike in science and in
sport, and to be a King of both.

Printed by Haaell, Wtitson, c* Viney, Ld., London and Ayttsbury

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