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DOINGS IN SHROPSHIRE.

"OTHELLO'S Occupation's gone!" for at present we are completely frozen up. The frost set in the night previous to the Shrewsbury Hunt, as if it was to typify the frigidity of "old bachelors," this Meeting being established by the Benedictines of the county of Salop. The fixtures of Mr. Smith Owen on one side, and the North Shropshire on the other, are advertised for alternate days, and at convenient distance from the town, which is generally filled during the Hunt week with the greatest part of rank and fashion in the county. This has been a week of indolence and ennui, merely pacing to and fro from stable to stable, anticipating swelled legs, or seeing the reality in the greater half of idle horses shut up in an atmosphere sufficiently hot to hatch a covey of birds or a clutch of wild ducks. The first person I recognised here was my sarcastic and Quaker-like associate I met at Whitchurch his garb was of a more sporting-like cut; he was grouped with four others puffing Woodvilles, and watching the vane on the spire of St. Alkmond's, which vane stood due North-east, with the thermometer at 20, and the barometer travelling from fair to settled fair, the smoke of the Havannahs ascending in playful curls, or "uptumbling," as a modern poet says, being all indicative of a light atmosphere and continuity of frost. All was melancholy repetition and monotonous puffing of cigars, flirting the embers therefrom, and then returning them, you may say, coolly to the lips again. My friend whispered me, "This place, I thought, was famed for beauty; I have seen none yet that George Farquhar was a flattering rogue: he was an Irishman; 'twas all blarney."-Sterne says, "When Smellfungus travelled Italy for the benefit of his health, his soul was out of tune; he was dissatisfied with everything: the Pantheon was no better than a huge cock-pit, and the Venus de Medicis he abused worse than any strumpet." Now my cynical friend had worked up his fancy to a thorough week's sport: his stud pent up in town, and for the present not the least chance of "getting away," his mind was soured; he had lost his merry mood: he put me in mind of a dog I once gave a good thrashing to for running a hare: when I let him go, fearful of biting me, he flew at a dog of superior strength, and gave him such a shaking as terrified his more powerful companion. This was a transfer not very welcome, but still it eased the corrected dog's mind, and that was all he desired. Fuseli always recommended to his wife swearing for the same purpose when she felt annoyed in the crowded streets of London. I agree with my southern friend that Shrewsbury is one of the worst places I know for the amusement of a frost-bitten sportsman; and as he says, and I think with truth, "no county is so much in want of rural games as Shropshire, the want of which makes the lower classes rancorous towards the higher, who found their amusements to their capacities and wealth."

The ball on Thursday evening was unusually well attended, with a strong muster of pretty spinsters, and the Love-chase will make ample amerids for the disappointment in the field, at least to the younger part of sportsmen, who live I will not say in single blessedness.

You know, Mr. Editor, by this time that Sir Rowland Hill's pack (for he still retains possession) is now called the "North Shropshire," Mr. Clive of Stych having taken the management for two seasons with a subscription, Sir Rowland subscribing two hundred pounds and kennelling the hounds until next April. Even with this liberality there was some "hanging fire" on the part of the Gents of North Shropshire, and things were in a doubtful state for some time, during which an offer was made from His Majesty of Prussia for this most excellent pack. A pack of hounds," says my friend, “is ever useful in putting men on good terms with each other, and destroying the acrimony of political parties." The dogs are to be kennelled at their old quarters, Leabridge.

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Staples, Grice, and Peter are still in requisition. Staples was brought into this country by Sir Bellingham Graham, and is considered a first-rate huntsman. Staples is a man of excellent temper, cool and decided as a huntsman, a bold rider, and knows well the kennel management. Grice and Peter I have spoken of before.

The sale of the principal part of Sir Rowland's stock took place in Birmingham, and realized £1600. Several intended purchasers were disappointed : "an accident" on the railway was the cause. The parties had the mortification of arriving just in time to see the last horse on the list sold. My humorous friend from the South was one of the disappointed.

The severity of the weather having unfixed all the fixtures, and consequently having nothing sporting to detail of the Hunt week, I will hark back, and give the appended two.

A Run, December 5, was good.-From Mr. Taylor's plantations on Earcall Heath, two foxes were unkennelled at the same instant, taking the same line of country for some distance before they divided. The Whip brought the hounds together, scent excellent, and speed equally so. Eaton brook was a poser, the banks rotten and treacherous; Staples and Grice well over; they are not to be stopped by a trout-stream; but some of the timid began to look for bridges and highway, and ultimately became roadsters. From Eaton, through Ollerton, through part of Soke, and away towards Buntingsdale; doubled back to Stokeheath, which gave the laggers a chance of having another glimpse: having threaded these plantations, he made all speed towards Mr. Shillitoe's gorse: too hot to tarry: he was soon after run in to by these determined pursuers.

Since assuming the name of the "North Shropshire," the first fixture was Hankelow.

Friday, December 22.-Soon found, and lost near Broughton Hall : tried again in a gorse covert near this place; soon found, and routed a knowing one, a regular traveller: he turned his head towards Staffordshire, leaving Bishop's Woods to the right, crossing the rail-road on the other or northern side of Whitmore, and with his best speed making his way to the neighbourhood of Bretby, in the very presence of an old acquaintance, Mr. Wickstead, whose pack had taught him these renegade tricks here he unfortunately went to ground in an earth that had been formerly dug out by orders of Mr. W., and was not known to have been re-opened, or he might easily have been prevented from entering. The hounds were close to his brush when he grounded.-This was a hot run of one hour and twenty minutes: they well deserved their prize, but unfortunately they were disappointed. Mr. Clive, of Stych (the Master), Lord Delamere, Mr. Wickstead, Mr. J. Hill, Mr. Dod, and many more of the best sportsmen of the Northern part of the county, formed a numerous field.

January 19, 1838.

A WANDERER, but no PIPER.

TIDINGS FROM LEICESTERSHIRE.

It might be thought, from the little mention made of it in any of the Sporting Annals, that LEICESTERSHIRE had ceased to hold pre-eminence as a Sporting County; that our woods, hills, and valleys are no longer vocal with the hunter's horn, or the still more delightful melody of the canine band: it is not, however, that hunters have cooled, or that hunting has retrogaded here, but that the historians, chroniclers, and poets of the Chase have been too idle to record

"the deeds that they do, and the tales that they tell."

*

This shall not be the case in future, so far at least as CHASSEUR can prevent it, and MAGA's monthly pages shall never lack intelligence from this classic land of Fox-hunting.

Never perhaps since the days of Old Meynell was more work done between the 5th of November and New Year's Day than has been done this season. Not a day has passed in which either Lord Hastings, Mr. Errington, or the Duke of Rutland's hounds have not had runs that deserve to be chronicled or handed down to posterity in immortal verse!

That Sporting Athens, MELTON MOWBRAY, filled well from the first; and the furor venaticus (as the Author of Rookwood has it), "which inspires all who come within twenty miles of this Charybdis of the Chase," was never more keenly felt: Princes and Peers, Counts and Viscounts, Barons and Baronets, hopored that metropolis as usual with making it their head-quarters; and with what pleasure did we welcome back those veterans of the field, our Mahers, Moores, and Musgraves-men who have hunted in Leicestershire for nearly half a century, and, to shew the beneficial effects of fox-hunting on the constitution, who still look young and fresh as Adonis.

The show of horses, if at any time larger, was certainly never better: the world, I may boldly assert, will not produce another such a troop of beautiful steeds as fill the parlor-like stables of Melton this seasona combination of all the best blood in the universe. What a pity that Debrett or Burke never thought of publishing a Peerage of the second noblest animal of creation! He would find abundant materials at Melton. But, besides Melton, the whole county is, in the proper sense of the word, thickly studded with the finest steeds that ever champed bit.

It is, I believe, a source of high satisfaction to all lovers of sport that Mr. ROWLAND ERRINGTON still continues to occupy the Presidency-" regnat, et diu regnet!" His liberality, his gentlemanlike bearing, his knowledge of hounds, his deep devotion to the pleasures of the chase, and his popularity among the farmers, form a combination of qualifications for his high station that few other men possess. His corps of attendants, or, I should rather say, his aids-de-camp, was never more effective. Mr. Errington has had some most brilliant runs; but, owing I believe to some unaccountable peculiarity in the lying of scent, he has had more perhaps than an average of cool hunting the case, I hear, with many other Hunts. A striking instance of this peculiarity occurred on the day preceding the frost. The fixture was Six Hills, the first find in Mundy's Gorse; and, after an hour's dodging in circuit,

*THE SPORTING MAGAZINE is, in Sporting Literature, what Blackwood is in General Literature, and therefore merits this distinction,

Reynard was lost near Walter Thorns. Wymeswold Covert was next tried, and a wolf-looking old fellow was soon seen scampering for Willoughby Field: he was headed, returned to covert, and being again ejected, the hounds were laid on and dashed off like greyhounds. "For the Vale!" was the universal cry-a cry full often prophetic of a long run : but scarcely had the hounds gone half a mile, when, to the surprise of every one and the great mortification of Mountford, they turned like lightning, and heeled back on their previous track to covert. They were afterwards taken back, and laid on at the place of turning, but the loss of time (and in nothing is the trite proverb volat tempus irrevocabile better exemplified than in fox-hunting) proved too great, and we were balked of what promised to be the crack run of the season. Mr. Errington has, however, killed his fair proportion of foxes.

But it is time I said something of our Preux Chevalier of the Chase, Lord Hastings, who so gallantly leads one battalion of our Leicestershire horse, and to whom the county is so deeply indebted. Never, as was the general remark at the commencement of the season, did huntsmen, horses, and hounds, enter the field in such splendid condition as the Marquis's:

""Twere worth ten years of peaceful life

One glance at their array :"

and the work they have done, and the manner in which they have done it, justify the predictions hazarded at the first fixture.

A fox-hunter's heart and hand are generally more thought of perhaps than his outer man; but there is something in Lord Hastings's personal appearance in the field that cannot fail greatly to strike every beholder. To one of the finest figures in the Peerage are added a head and eye that might have served as models for the Apollo Belvidere, a voice of most beautiful intonation, and a firmness of seat and steadiness of hand that are as near perfection as anything I ever saw. In addition to all these, Lord H. has a blandness of manner and an ease of accès that rivet all hearts, and make the farmers regard him with feelings very like idolatry. His noble father, when leading his victorious squadrons in America, or when presiding in Oriental splendor over eighty millions of our fellow-subjects in India, was scarcely more honored, more beloved, or more proud. Among ten thousand, Lord H. is the first man of whom a stranger would say, "Who's that?" I have heard indeed that as Andromache watched Hector from the Scaan Gate, so there are bright eyes that can distinguish His Lordship in the chase from Donington Tower to any part of the Vale of Trent! Lord H. is, in fact, one of Nature's own Noblemen

“The rank is but the guinea stamp,

The goud's the goud for a' that."

The Marquis commenced the season with his wonted zeal and spirit, and he had, before the storm, contributed his full share to the pleasures of three counties. The runs with these now far-famed hounds during the three weeks preceding the frost were such as will not soon be forgotten by those who had the happiness to obtain good places. Several deserve to be placed among your Sporting Memorabilia, but, unluckily, I am too much in arrear to recount them. One or two, however, may be briefly sketched. At fixture at Coleorton, the seat of Sir

G. Beaumont, so celebrated by Roscoe's prose and Wordsworth's poetry, led to a run in which men, horses, and hounds had a fine opportunity to display their mettle, as it was found that those that had none were thereby precluded from witnessing the prettiest run and finish of the season.

A fixture on the Warwickshire side produced a curious rencontreI tell it only from hearsay, and therefore cannot vouch for the perfect accuracy of the report. The Marquis's hounds had been running a fox in fine style for some time, when they came to a junction with Mr. Applewaite's, and it was proposed by His Lordship, and acceded to by Mr. A., that the two packs should hunt in concert. They ran paribus rostris for some time, when the Donington pack suddenly shot a-head and appeared determined to have the thing entirely to themselves. Whether it was the longo intervallo, or this slight on the part of the Donington hounds, deponent saith not; but the huntsman of the other began to stop the leading pack on the plea that they were now out of their own country! The fiery spirit of the Leicestershire yeomen soon evidenced itself in sundry loud vociferations, strange gesticulations, and sudden castings on the ground of their upper toggery, and but for the courteous and pacific conduct of their Chieftain, 'tis impossible to say where the affair would have ended.

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Saturday, December 30.-The Marquis's appointment was White Horse Wood. The meet, though not a favorite one, called up many of the best riders from the Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Leicestershire borders. Thorncliffe Woods and the Glades of Garendon were tried, and a fine old forest fox was soon unkennelled. To such of your readers as have not hunted in this district—and many of the Meltonians eschew it a word or two on its geography, or rather perhaps its geology, may be acceptable.

Charnwood Forest is a range of treeless hills, covering a space of 20,000 acres many of these hills are nearly 900 feet above the sea level, and fox-hunting here is as dangerous as boar-hunting in the Grunenwald or the Black Forest: the whole district is

"A lone hill side,

Where heath and fern are waving wide,"

covered with bracken and whins: blocks of granite, big as your horse's head, lie over the whole, and the safest foot and the most skilful hand are not always proof against a tumble. Yet has Charnwood afforded days of uncommon interest: it is besides the arena for cub-hunting, and the scene of the last glories of the season, as Winter lingers there long after he has left our valleys. Well, with a speed equal to a mountain roe's, off went Sir Reynard, and, determining to bother his pursuers, he led the way over the roughest of these Alpine passes, only indeed to afford a fresh proof of the excellency of Lord H.'s hounds, of His Lordship's correct judgment, and of the dauntless courage of a Leicestershire Field. "Beautiful!" exclaimed a hundred voices during the run. "Excellent!" shouted a hundred more, when at the end of half an hour, in the midst of a little copse near Woodthorpe, the gallant pack closed on their beaten victim. There are times when the cry of hound on Charnwood is the loveliest vocal music in the world; and never were heard sweeter notes than those that rose, and fell, and reverberated along our beautiful forest this morning. It was an oratorio, with Handel's finale.

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