great facility for this. It contained a noble heronry, and the wild heaths of the neighbourhood seemed spread purposely for those "who lance their falcons in the air." Certain parts of Suffolk were exactly suited to the cry of " Heron à la vole," which in feudal days often rang o'er its fern-bearing wilds. Upon one of these, sheltered by a solitary clump of firs and mountain ash to hide their presence and purpose from the home-wending fisher-bird, might the old lord be discerned seated in a rude one-horse chariot of primeval simplicity, with a small but select band of the lovers of the " flight " around him. Russet-clad men of foreign aspect bore stately birds plumed and hooded upon their fist, the music of whose silver bells was the sole sound breaking the silence of the world of waste. The whole scene resembled one by Snyders.

Lord Berners was also a great supporter of the turf, and few men who have made racing a pursuit ever supported it so long as he. His house at Newmarket was characteristic of him and a most unpretending box, containing much that was useful, but nothing by any means superfluous or ornamental. All that related to the stable, however, was amply provided for in both the last-named respects, though latterly they were maintained in a less careful way. The ground behind it, with its thickset hedgerows offering complete shelter for walking exercise, and the quiet access afforded by its situation to the heath at either side of the town, made this place the ideal of a racing establishment.

Lord Berners did not become more liberal as he grew older, and in 1834 his stud, though in the hands of Doe, a man who thoroughly understood his profession, exhibited a good deal of seediness due to economy. In that year he would have won the Oaks but for a fall, by which his mare lost her life. After this Doe left his master's service for that of Lord Lichfield, and the racehorses were entrusted to the direction of a person who was really little but an ordinary stable-boy. With these odds against them they went to Epsom in 1837, where Phosphorus, with forty to one against him and a queer leg, won the Derby, which was more than the stable had been able to do in the palmy days of the Didlington stud.

Lord Berners was exceedingly eccentric about money matters. On one occasion, being in a county town on one of his racing expeditions, and wanting cash for some immediate purpose, he entered a bankinghouse and requested money for his cheque upon his London banker, stating who he was. "My lord," answered the official, "there is no need for you to draw upon London; we shall be happy to pay your draft upon ourselves, as we are in account with you for a considerable sum which your lordship lodged with us several years ago to your own credit." This anecdote is by no means out of keeping with the character of a man of close habits.

In his general appearance no man of his class ever exhibited a more supreme contempt of outward show, or was more eminently independent of his tailor. A portrait of the sporting old peer, " in his habit as he

lived," would be as original a sketch as can well be imagined. An ample and venerable white hat was matched by a marvellously capacious frock-coat composed of grass-green baize lined with a substance resembling buff kerseymere; his waistcoat was of the same material as the lining of his coat, and his trousers were of brown stuff. Thus arrayed, it was his habit to stand at the gate of his lodge at the foot of the windmill hill in Newmarket, his customary cigar alight, in attitude and bearing the very picture of one whom the cares and anxieties of this world had touched but lightly. Lord Berners died, when seventy-six, having left no species of sylvan craft untried, and a name honourably connected with all of them. He was in many ways the type of the oldfashioned sportsman with original ideas.

Another, though of a different kind, was Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh, of Up Park, in Sussex, who flourished in the days of the Regency. One of his eccentricities was to cause his hunters to stand for a given time with their forelegs in stable buckets full of cold water. This plan was once adopted at the hunting stables at Goodwood, with extremely unfortunate results.

Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh (whose widow the present writer perfectly remembers, having been taken to see her as a child), though a sorry veterinarian, was a fine horseman. As a result of the adoption of his cold-water system at Goodwood, all the horses subjected to it became unfit to follow hounds. One of the old grooms, speaking of the disastrous ex

periment to an enquirer, said: "It was all a frolic, sir, of that Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh's; but, Lord love ye, it was something else besides cold water and horses' legs that was running in their heads, in those days at Up Park."

Sir Harry was for some time on intimate terms with the beautiful creature who became Lady Hamilton, and he it was who taught her to ride.

A fox-hunter of eccentric ways was that Duke of Somerset (a Seymour) who was commonly called “ the proud Duke." He employed Seymour, the artist, to paint the portraits of his horses, and asked him to stay. One day, at dinner, the Duke filled his glass, and saying with a sneer, "Cousin Seymour, your health," drank it off.

"My lord," said the artist, "I believe I have the honour of being related to your Grace."

The proud peer rose from the table, and ordered his steward to dismiss the presumptuous painter, and send for a humbler brother of the brush.

This was accordingly done; but when the new painter saw the spirited works of his predecessor, he shook his head and retired, saying:

"No man in the world can compete with James Seymour."

The Duke now condescended to recall his discarded cousin.

"My lord," was the answer of Seymour, "I will now prove to the world that I am of your blood-I won't come ! "

Upon receiving this laconic reply, the Duke sent his

steward to demand a former loan of one hundred pounds sterling.

Seymour briefly replied that he would write to his Grace; he did so, but directed his letter, "Opposite the trunk-maker's, Charing Cross."

Enraged at this additional insult, the Duke threw the letter into the fire without opening it, and immediately ordered his steward to have him arrested.

But Seymour, struck with an opportunity of evasion, carelessly observed that "it was hasty in his Grace to burn his letter, because it contained a banknote of one hundred pounds, and therefore they were now quits."

Many sporting artists, like Seymour, were wits in their way. One of them, for instance, drew an excellent likeness of a well-known dashing young man of rank and fortune, driving his chère amie in a chaise. The landscape was St. George's Fields, with a distant view of the King's Bench Prison. Under this he wrote, "This is allowed to be a very good portrait, but a shocking bad prospect!"

The aristocracy of the past, though patrons of art, do not appear to have treated even great painters with any particular respect.

Sir Walter Blacket paid Sir Joshua Reynolds two hundred guineas to paint his portrait, which, when finished, was placed amidst the baronet's ancestors in the family mansion at Newcastle. Before, however, it had been there very long the ladies of the house were terrified with a sudden alteration in the visage, and even in the dress of this admired picture. The