SPORTING SAGAS --
stable. 21s.) .
Tire late Mr. John Woodcock Graves, author of -the words. of the famous song, is reported to have said-on •one occasion
to its Cumberland hero, whose name is still known and loved. (especially at two o'clock in the morning) wherever the English
language is spoken-: By Jove, Peel,- you'll be sung -when we're both run to earth." And so it has turned out. - There have been- three Peels who have achieved a measure of fame in the -annals of our -country, and if the affection of. the public is anything-to go by, the-greatest of these is. JOhni. Plain John.-- And from Cumberland too ; -not from the fashion- able shires, let our contemporary. high flyers- kindly note. For who, -except Parliamentary historians, will remember Peel- the famous Speaker.? Most. of us know that: Sir Robert Peel invented the blue-coated gentlemen who command the. London traffic,. and, -here and there, one- of; us remembers, a little more about him, but -could one -Englishman in --a thousand write two pages of fact-, about that great. Prime! Minister ? I 'doubt it.
But John Peel ! There was a man for you i -The man who won the War. For it is a singular. .fact that .John Peel—the song—was the despair of the enemy and the incredulous . astonishment of our Allies. Who but Englishmen would have gone to battle blowing hunting horns, and singing about man who spent his life hunting foxes in .Cumberland-77.and . singing it wrong ? • • Let early morning roysterers- take notice once and for all. Peel's coat was not "gay." (as. you7Ve sworn it was, I'll warrant) but ":grey "—the ,grey of the. Cumberland crags. and fells . of which .Mr. 1-i ugh:Maehell._iu his delightful book; without which 4o_sporfing.,library, -can, henceforth be complete, writes with' loving industry., • Personally, I like to .think -that the greatest huntsman . of them all came neither from Melton nor." the Duke's." county,.
but from an obscure district in a (sportingly) unfashionable._
county, and that he yore a ." blue grey coat brass buttons,,, white beaver-hat and choker tie, knee. breeches joined by. a. pair of long stockings, and then, most -curious: of._all, shoes„. to one. only _of which a, spur. was attached.':.. Shoos anfl.,gne-. spur ! How I should like to.ride the BelvoiLor Quorik country,.,; similarly apparelled 1 _
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Lord Bathurst writes of foxhounds with grave dignity and a finely flavoured style. The scoffer will say that hounds ought not to be taken so seriously ; the thruster that this is a dry, technical book of no interest to the ordinary sportsman. True, it is not perhaps a layman's book, but it contains so much information that I can cordially recommend it. And what jolly names foxhounds are blessed with I take a few at random. Belvoir DonoVan—Grafton Woodman —The Duke of Buccleuch's Waistcoat (rather a mouthful. this, for a hard pressed huntsman)—Beaufort Justice— Badminton Rallywood. The stately homes of England, you see, handed on, as it were, to our hounds !
These two books are sporting sagas in the true Galsworthian Manner ; for Mr. Machell deals in detail with the pedigrees of the Peels while Lord Bathurst does likewise for the
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