The celebrated Charles Davis, of whom a capital illustration is given, was one of these boys. Davis was a very tall, slim

man and a most elegant rider, and had a considerable command of terse expression. With one or two exceptions, notably the brilliant Hermit, he rode all his horses in snaffle bridles. Davis was appointed huntsmanin 1822. George IV. wrote to him: "It delights me to hear you've got the hounds. I hope you'll get them so fast that they'll run away from everybody." A good authority speaks of him as a huntsman of "daring talent." Fourteen miles from Salt Hill to the old Berkeley kennels within the hour, and a twenty mile race from Aylesbury to Twyford in little over an hour and a quarter, with a deer named Richmond Trump, in the first year of Lord Lichfield's mastership. This run was all over grass, and Davis, who only rode ten stone, had it all to himself on The Clipper, so named from being the first horse clipped for royal use. According to tradition, as Mr. Davis lay in a ditch with one arm round Richmond Trump's neck, he took out his watch and timed the run with the other. Hermit, Columbine, upon whom he was painted, Sepoy, Pioneer, and Traverser were celebrated horses of his; Radiant, Byron, Landscape, and Rockwood, who ran well in his sixth season, favourite hounds. The Ripley deer, who always went with his head low; The Miller, who ran eleven seasons before he became cunning and useless. The Miller made the men so often sleep out that Mr. Davis used to put an extra guinea in his pocket when he was hunted; Sepoy, whom the deer-keeper described as a most amiable deer; Woodman, the Hendon deer, and Harry, are some of the heroes of Davis's time; all deer which made their points like our best deer do now. It is said that The Miller, if he got a few hundred yards wide, would right himself and get back to his old line.

Kennel lameness used to give Davis and his predecessor Sharpe much trouble -a scourge from which the Ascot kennel is now free-and Sharpe used to take the hounds to Brighton for a month's sea-bathing.

Space only permits of a passing reference

to such notable masters of the Tudor dynasty as Lord Rochford and Lord Leicester. The former was brother to

Queen Anne Boleyn. On May 15th, 1536, he was arraigned within the Tower of London for treason to his prince, "whereunto he made answare so pru

dentlie and wisely to all articles layde against him, that marveil it was to heare," so much so, that 10 to I was laid upon his acquittal. He was nevertheless beheaded like Sir Bernard Brocas, the second master, on Tower Hill, May 17th, 1536. Shorn as the master of the buckhounds now is of the splendour and dignities of those days, he is not likely to be shorn of his head, failing, of course, a drastic dealing with the House of Lords.

In the last century the M.B.H. had a charming house in Swinley Forest against the deer paddocks. It was burnt down and never rebuilt. The master cannot live in his stand on Ascot Heath, and I think he ought to have a habitation where he can take shelter after his inevitable sins of omission and commission as regards the Royal enclosure, that most thorny field of his later-day patronage. A great deal of eating and drinking used to go on at Swinley, and on the fourth of June the master used to give a dinner to all the farmers and foresters. Twice or thrice the Royalty drove over from Windsor, and watched the dancing on the green in front of the house. Lord Cornwallis was a great host, whilst Lord Bateman disgusted everybody, and for very many years, by a "penurious sterility" and "personal pomposity." The public got a master to their mind at the fall of the Coalition, when Lord Sandwich was appointed, and we are told the exhilarating steams of roast sirloin and the vibrating echo of the cork once more inspired the staghunter's prowess, and cheered the long seclusion of Swinley.

And now to bring my tale to an end. Hunting the carted deer has always had, and I suppose always will have, its detractors and its apologists, its Strattons, and its Bowen Mays. A writer of some note of George III.'s day declared that were the king once to see a fox well found and handsomely killed he would give up the buckhounds. He condemns stag-hunting for its lack of "ecstasy" and the glorious uncertainty which should distinguish hunting, the sulky or generous temper of the deer being the sole variety the staghunter can count upon. He also says that it is only fit for those who are fond of pomp and parade. Well, I will attempt no apologia pro fide nostrâ, or cloud my own mind or my reader's with the enthusiasm or the morals of stag-hunting. The subject is already in some danger of becoming very tiresome by being surrounded by too great a cloud of witnesses

on both sides. I admit that some deer take a proper view of their responsibilities, and that some do not; and as to the pomp and parade, I confess that the bill for liveries last quarter embarrasses my budget for the future. I will even go further. Plato-I am quoting the tainted authority of a sporting writer, and I cannot discover this passage in my Jowett-laid it down that hunting was a divine institution. I do not suggest that Plato would have included stag-hunting; and I advance no such claim on its behalf. Tried by the purest standards of hunting, it cannot to my mind take rank

with fox-hunting. But it is an ancient and a famous pastime. "The stag" gives you a good ride which the foxhounds, in the nature of things, can seldom be expected to do in the countries the Queen's hounds hunt. Stag-hunting begins late, and the best of it, at all events, is over early; it suits the hours and the pockets and the wardrobes of all kinds of people who would not embark upon the really serious obligations and conventions of fox-hunting. True, the staghunter recks nothing of the hazards of a doubtful find, a wild night, a chain of woodlands, and a main earth. But to say there is no uncertainty is to say you have never ridden over Berkshire, stick

the Queen's hounds at Hawthorn Hill or Wokingham. But if any of my readers are tempted to come upon this invitation I appeal to them to identify old Rattler at the meet, and to ride wide of him. An apologist of the last century shall finish this paper for me. "Here our chase differs from every other of the field and proves itself worthy of the title Royal; for as it is the sport of Majesty, it is also strictly the seat of mercy for, in all other sports of the field as each individual considers himself the hero of the day by being first in at the death, here the arduous determined struggle is who can most exceed in his exertion to save life."

F late years there has been a most systematic and wholesale forgery of historic documents and letters purporting to be written by Burns, Scott, and other authors. The magnitude of the business which has been carried on is a point distinguishing it from all previous cases of literary forgery. The attempts of Ireland, Collier, and other nimble-fingered gentry were few and far between, and the products of their inventive genius were easily collected and branded as spurious for all time coming. But in the present instance the forgeries come not in single spies, but in battalions" they are scattered in their hundreds, nay their thousands, over the whole world. Batches of them have been discovered in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and other towns in the kingdom; the London auctioneers testify that they have had large bundles of the forged literature forwarded to them from various places in England and Scotland; and we know that immense quantities have been exported to America and the Colonies.

Of

These forgeries, which are stated to have had their origin in Edinburgh, bear on their faces such marks of genuineness as to have deceived the most acute collectors; they are executed with marvellous skill; they have been bought up by hunters after autographs, anxious to make bargains in manuscripts. Burns forged manuscripts alone there must be in circulation a greater number than of original documents; and, only the other day, of 202 reputed authentic manuscripts bought from an Edinburgh bookseller by Mr. John Kennedy of New York, and presented by him to the Lenox Library in that city, 201 were guaranteed by the British Museum to be spurious. Rebellion and Jacobite papers, Burns letters and poems-one and all of them

were declared to be the work of a clever forger. These manuscripts, it is alleged, were disposed of by a fellow-lodger of the law scribe who is charged with the imposition.

The first suspicion that there were numerous forged documents in the market was aroused by the sale of "the Millbank Crescent Manuscripts" in Edinburgh in May, 1891. These had been formed by a Mr. James Mackenzie, who stated that he had possessed the items for twenty-five years, but omitted to state the source of his acquisitions. Strong disbelief was cast upon the authenticity of these papers, and the prices they realised were in fair keeping with the disbelief, five letters by Burns-one of them with a poem-bringing only prices between one and two guineas, a song in the handwriting of the poet realising but thirty shillings, and a discharge for £3, granted and signed by Burns, changing hands for the ridiculous sum of thirty-two shillings. These prices. were quite sufficient to prove the worthlessness of the documents. Since that time Mr. Mackenzie has been offering for sale to collectors similar manuscripts, frequently with-more frequently without -the success which he anticipated.

Among other "genuine" Burns documents, Mr. Mackenzie submitted, as he said, "a number of verses, copied from the unpublished MS. in my possession, to speak for themselves. The first is addressed to Gilbert by his brother, Robert Burns, and his Christian name is spelt in full in this instance-a thing seldom done by him." The lines referred to are entitled "The Poor Man's Prayer," a long composition of ninety-two lines, the first and seventh verses of which read :