G]tANTLEY BERKELEY'S REMINISCENCES OF A HIINTSMAN. * IN unity of subject
these Reminiscences are not equal to a popular volume on natural history which Mr. Berkeley published some years since. But they possess a greater variety of topics, and a wider range of anecdote. They carry the reader into other days with other manners, and have besides a species of biographical inte- rest. There is as much closeness of observation upon animal charac- ter as in the former work, and an equal vigour of style ; though this last sometimes runs into diffuseness and "flash," when Mr. Berke- ley is telling some good stories, or describing scenes in detail, whose interest arises from associations which cannot be imparted to his reader.
The story or framework begins with Mr. Berkeley's earliest at- tempts at sport ; and narrates his gradual advances in venery and woodcraft, till at last he became the master of a pack of hounds, which hunted one of his father's "countries." Within memory the boundary of this country came as close to London as Kensing- ton Gardens and Bayswater, and a main run was through the Vale of Harrow. The extension of London, detached or semi- detached villas rising over grounds not long since the haunt of game, with the ill blood that the offhand manner and free speech of "the Hunt" created among their Cockney occupants, together with the ill-conditioned temper of some of the Harrow farmers, drove the Berkeley from his ancestral chase. He then migrated to Bedfordshire, becoming master of a subscription pack, which under his skilful management and vigorous doings not only be- came a nonsuch, but he reared up such a game country as as- tonished the natives. But "envy does merit like its shade pur- sue." An Oakley club, that subscribed a thousand a year to the hounds, wished to " dictate " to Mr. Berkeley, as they had been in the habit of" trying it on" with Lord Tavistock ; and this, with the family disagreements about money matters, on which he has already published a pamphlet or two, induced him to move to Teffont, near Salisbury. Here, as usual, he headed the sportsmen, terrified the poachers, and won golden opinions from all sorts of men save his landlord, who tried to impose upon him : so, finally, Mr. Berkeley settled down in the vicinity of the New Forest.
Of, course the mere sporting is not the most attractive part of the Reminiscences. The reading public has lately had too many sketches of hunting or shooting replete with danger and novelty, to care for foxes, hares, or pheasants. There must be character to give attraction to home sports ; and though sometimes overdone by attempts at effect, there is a good deal of character in Mr. Berke- ley's picture of men and animals ; rare instances are not unfre- quently furnished of animal sagacity, affection, or mental capability, which contribute more materials for that singular subject animal me- taphysics. There are many pictures of natural grace and beauty, in which the qualities of the subject-matter overcome the tendency of the writer's mind, which is rather to the genial and jovial—to the "hail fellow well met" kind of feeling, than to refinement or grace.
The following case may be regarded as a singular contribution to the history of hydrophobia, and as tending to prove how the rabidness of the dog is increased by the excitement in which his own motion keeps him, without regard to the persecution he is subject to. A puppy fox-hound had been sent to Mr. Berkeley, with a note stating that it had been knocked over by a mad dog, but the most careful search could not detect any abrasion of the skin. The puppy was therefore placed in the kennel and a careful watch kept upon him.
"I was sitting on their bedstead, caressing those that sought me, and watching others in their graceful play, my eye always open to thr caution as to the mad dog ; when, before I had been in the kennel five minutes, I perceived that the puppy, as to whom I had received the letter, refused to play with any of the others, and, without seeming to have anything the matter with him, looked bored (that is the best description I can give of it) with his fellows when they invited him to a romp. That instant I put a pair of couples round his neck, and placed him apart from all the rest, giving
'in at the same time a gentle dose of physic, in case the apparent dulness or drooping was occasioned by passing indisposition. Several times during that day I visited him ; and towards the evening the hound became decidedly dull and out of all spirits, but without showing any other symptom of dis- tress : this might have been occasioned by the physic, but still I had other apprehensions. On the following morning, the hound was gloomy, dejected, and had a heavy look about the eyes; he knew me and wagged his stern when I spoke to him, and fed a little, and also drank water, but not more than a lap or two. In the evening of that day he rejected both food and water: still there are phases of the distemper so like hydrophobia that I hoped for the best, though my suspicions were of the worst description. The following morning cleared up every doubt
• Reminiscences of a Huntsman. By the Honourable Grantley F. Berkeley. with Illustrations by Leech. Published by Longman and Co. upon the subject; the hound at first became ill at ease, and could not sleep ; he moaned occasionally, and his eyes had a greenish-gissq or shining appearance, when subjected to the reflection of light, .much as one has seen a fox's eyes look in the dark in a-short earth sr drain, when gazing towards the orifice by which he had entered, only there was in the hound's eyes a ray, if it may be so called, that conjured up the thought of the Devil. I left him for about an hour ; and when I returned, hirwas lying in the position of a sphinx, at the extreme length of his chain from the dish that held his water. Thkinstant I raised the water, he became full of ap. prehension or suspicion; so, by way of an experiment to satisfy myself, I took a little of the water in my hand and sprinkled it on his nose, drawing the chain that held him through the ring, so that I could prevent his reaching me in any wish to bite. The instant he heard the water and saw it coming, almost before it touched him, he was convulsed, crying in an angry or con- vulsive manner, and biting at his chain. On the removal of the water he relapsed into a sullen dejected state ; and, unless approached by water, in that sort of lethargy he remained, occasionally moaning, till he died; which I think happened about the fourth or fifth day after my first perceiving that he was dull. Had this hound been let loose, I have no doubt but that exer- cise, increasing the circulation, would have incited to violence, and that he would have run through the country biting all he came near. I do not think that had I sat within reach of his chain throughout the malady, that he would have bitten me, unless under delirious spasm produced by the touch of water."
The close of the following picture of the horse in leaping smacks a little of the wonderful, which occasionally attends upon leaping stories. It is, however, a striking bit altogether.
"When resolutely ridden the horse is aware, as soon as the rider, of what
he has to do ; and the instant the mind is made up, it is beautiful to feel between your knees the ample swell or heave of the round deep ribs be- neath you, caused by the long breath the horse fetches, to catch his wind for the exertion. I have, on Brutus and Jack, felt a girth snap in the action, when I had not previously run my hand over them, to feel that they were not in the least too tight. A hedge is reached with the ditch to you, and neither you nor your horse expect anything on the other side ; but at the moment of the spring, and while in the air, and about to land as you think, a second wide yawning ditch lies beneath. The gallant horse then must get out of the scrape in one of two ways,—either you feel him expand as if he were flying, sending out his shoulders to such an extent that I have blown Brutus and 'Jack snap their breastplates ; or the horse, if he feels he can't thus cover the unexpected width, must drop his hinder-legs, and kick the bank with force enough to give him a second spring. I have known Brutus kick a hard-bound wattled hedge with his hinder-legs, and gain enough ad- ditional impetus to clear the second ditch ; and once, over the river Brent, feeling that it was impossible to leap from bank to bank, he went in and out, striking the ground, luckily of gravel, with but a touch, as it were, of his hinder-legs, sending the water flying, but landing without a fall. To sit on a horse, and feel all this flying power and activity beneath you, is, I main- tain, the most delightful sensation experienced in the noble science of horse- manship."
"Non sum quails cram "—half a century tells upon the fox- hunter : nerve leaves him.
"Though now but in my fifty-third year, I find myself speaking to some extent of a past generation, while at the same time my own active step, thanks to the bounty of Heaven, remains, and I joy in woodcraft and in ru- ral scenes as much as ever. The thing that left me, and began to leave me early, was nerve over a country. Nerves are strange things, and not to be accounted for and they quit the horseman at a fence when they stand by him in all else besides. Few hunting-men like to admit the failure of their riding nerves, and always lay their having been 'nowhere' in a run to some other cause. Wine is never the cause of a man's unsteadiness after dinner ; it is always the apple he ate at dessert, or coming out into the open air, that takes him off his legs, and makes him hold fast to the ground to prevent his going any further. In the same way, want of nerve never loses a man a run; whereas, if the truth were told, want of nerve and of instant decision loses a man more runs than all other contretemps put together. "The first symptom of a man's riding-nerves failing him, (I call them riding-nerves, because they are decidedly apart from other nervous sensi- bilities,) when the rider has been a good one, is in the start from the cart with stag-hounds with a lot of hard-going men around him, or with a fox from the side of a gorse. When the riding-nerve is the least shaken, the eye objects to seeing men down and perhaps bleeding, and the ear shrinks from the crash of fences right and left, overborne with the knowledge, too, that there are perhaps a dozen fellows following in his wake who can't take a line for themselves, and are safe to be on him if he falls. Long after a rider's nerve has begun to fail him, if he can get a start with an advantage over the field on a favourite horse, he will sail away as triumphantly as ever ; but his nerves are not proof against the dangers that a long ex- perience has shown him sometimes attend the most able horsemen and horses."
Among the stories, are some of two vocalists,—Knyvet, whose art may have preserved his name in a sort of twilight existence; Duruset, who is only remembered individually. Neither were striking shots, though Knyvet when sent out pheasant-shooting with a keeper did shoot a pied pheasant—a favourite of the old lord; and when the agonized keeper exclaimed, "I called out pie !" "Why," replied the singer, "you might as well have called out pudding ! " When Duruset went a hunting he dressed the part in the costume of Young Meadows, which he carried about for that purpose. His knowledge of crops was on a par with his brother vocalist's ideas of pied pheasants.
"Duruset was intrusted with a gun one day in October, and told to shoot; and we were beating a field of potatoes, that, ere the disease was known, afforded cover above the knees. We knew that nothing valuing its life, except a pheasant, ought to be in front of the singer ; so, finding that he was not keeping his line, I desired him to come on.' We halted the line to get hi% up, and then for the first time I became aware that he was walking like man with a very bad string-halt, his toe clearing the extreme tops of the haulm. Having asked him why he did not keep up, and wherefore he had such remarkable action, Action !' he replied ; come on, indeed ! it's ell very well for you to do as you please, but it won't do for me to spoil the peasant's vegetables.'"
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