N view of my own pleasant experiences of the office I am very willing to declare that we are wiser than our ancestors in making the mastership of the Buckhounds a political ap pointment. As long as As long as the master is punctual, fond of hunting, and knows what clover seeds look like, the fortunes of stag hunting do not suffer from the uncertainties of politics. In Berks and Bucks it is an amusing, good-humoured, unscientific, and tolerant pastime. We all go out to enjoy ourselves, and to dismiss our civic or domestic cares. Nobody seems concerned with the master's views upon the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament or the retention of the Irish members at Westminster, and the field are more interested in his horse's shoulders, or the arrangements he has made for turning out a second deer than in his politics.

But the mastership of the buckhounds began by being hereditary, and there is something to be said for its being so. Hunting, and the instinct for hunting

proper, and for hounds, are hereditary in certain families. Sir Bernard Brocas, appointed master by Edward III., "Canum nostrorum damorum vocatum buckhondis," was doubtless the best substitute for a Somerset of his day-the time of John of Gaunt being presumably too much taken up with statecraft and fighting and I daresay Sir Bernard Brocas descendants justified the selection.

This first master, Mr. Hore tells us, was a "grand sportsman," and he was also a distinguished statesman, an intimate and trusted friend of the king, and held other appointments of honour and profit. "A grand sportsman" is a somewhat general commendation, but Sir Bernard Brocas deserves particular credit for having started riding to hounds; "at force," as it was then called, instead of the half stalking, half tracking with bows and arrows which buckhunting had meant up to his appointment. "Drawn after with a bloodhound and forestalled with netts and engines," as Christopher Ware, gentleman, tells us. Edward III., himself, when not fighting, hunted, and was very willing to pay for it. According to Barnes, "He spent extraordinary sums,

fair ladies and a great concourse of nobility accompanied his Royal Highness. The king, however, went sporting occasionally. In September, 1717, we hear of his diverting himself with hunting in Bushy Park. After which, "alighting from his horse, his majesty walked above three miles with a fowling-piece in his hand and killed several brace of partridges flying." In July, 1724, a stud of nice horses was got together for His Majesty and sent to Windsor for stag-hunting, but there is no account of his using them.

now I fear days of the past, when the Harrow country was a reality and not a tradition, when cabbages and celery were less popular vegetables, when the residential advantages of the villa were not SO generally recognised, and when barbed wire had not been invented. Thus I am constrained to deal with my subject in a cavalier and disjointed way. I shall therefore make no further apology for skipping the centuries until I come to the Georges, and especially George III.

George I. liked stag-hunting in his own country better than in ours, but the Prince of Wales hunted a good deal from Hampton Court, in Windsor, and Richmond and Bushy Parks. A train of

He went out pheasant-shooting however on the 27th of August, which is earlier even than the writers of 1st October leading articles in the daily papers begin their pheasant-shooting. He was out from

eight in the morning till nearly five, but only shot two and a half brace and one and a half brace of partridges. George I. appointed no official master of the buckhounds; but George II., soon after his accession, appointed Colonel F. Negus master of the buckhounds. He was to defray all expenses on a yearly salary of £2,341. This stipend continued till 1782. 1782. Mr. Ralph Jenison, M.P., appointed master in 1737 and again in 1746, is the last commoner who has