OF

SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

MR. JOHN CHAWORTH MUSTERS.

MR. JOHN CHAWORTH MUSTERS, the present Master of the Quorn, was born in the year 1838, at Wiverton Manor, near Bingham, a convenient hunting-box, still used by himself and his relations, on the south side of the Trent. His father, Mr. John Musters, was an officer in the 10th Hussars, and died in the year 1842. The subject of our Memoir was the grandson of the celebrated sportsman and athlete Mr. John Musters, of Colwich Hall, near Nottingham, of whose performances no student of sporting literature can be ignorant. He could fish, shoot, ride, hunt hounds, dance, fight, leap, swim, play tennis or cricket, against the best professors or amateurs in such performances. Though standing about six feet in height, he walked erect under a cord in the drawing-room of Belvoir Castle and then leapt over it. His power over hounds was unrivalled. The scene in which his route to a neighbouring house, where he was to sleep, was discovered by the hounds as they were being travelled thither has been the subject of many pictures; and a thousand amusing anecdotes, still current in Nottinghamshire, preserve the memory of his skill, not only in hunting the hounds but in satisfying the ignorant criticism of the field, adapting to fox-hunting purposes the celebrated dictum, Populus vult decifi decifiatur. His grandson, the present Mr. Musters, was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where, in 1857, he began to keep a pack of beagles, not forgetting to pay due attention to the practical instructions of Anstruther Thompson in the noble science, who was then hunting the Bicester country, and whose genial appeals to all that was sportsmanlike in an undergraduate field, did more to preserve order than the violent language sometimes employed, to check the untempered zeal of the rising generation of fox-hunters. Some will remember the spare youth, very unlike the present portly Master of the Quorn, more distinguished for his resolute riding, than for the grandeur of sporting get up, so much affected at the University. Retiring early from the intellectual excitement of Christ Church and

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Canterbury Quad, he soon became Master of a pack of foxhounds. These were bought of Ambrose Philip, Esq., of Leicestershire; and on November 30th, 1861, he killed his first fox, after a good fifty minutes, in the neighbourhood of his own residence, Annesley Park. Next season, having engaged the veteran Ben Boultroyd as first whip, and having drafted the dwarf fox-hounds, he began afresh with hounds purchased at Mr. Drake's sale, and some drafts from Mr. Parry, and the Puckeridge, and some young hounds from the Holderness; since which time the entry has been chiefly composed of hounds bred by himself.

Were a visitor at Annesley or Colwich to inspect the pictures which preserve the style of hunting as it was, not only in Mr. Musters' grandfather's, but even his great-grandfather's time,-for he, too, was a Master of Hounds-they might discover a wide interval between the fox-hunting of the last century and modern parades at Kirkby Gate, in the nineteenth century; but we will venture to assert, that those who are privileged to enjoy a winter at Melton will find as genuine a sportsman in Mr. John Chaworth Musters, as ever delighted a Nimrod, a Beckford, or a Somerville, and one equally well calculated to teach the trade to any who may visit the metropolis of fox-hunting, with a view to becoming, in due course of time, useful Masters of Hounds on their own estates in the provinces.

Mr. Musters is the grandson of the Miss Chaworth, the admired of the poet Lord Byron; and for further particulars respecting Mr. Musters, and The Quorns, we refer our readers to the following article in our Magazine.

THE QUORN AND ITS NEW MASTER.

Ar last, it appears that there is the right man in the right place '— a Master at the head of the Quorn establishment who knows how to handle his own hounds. Great as this desideratum is, it is not, however, likely to be appreciated by the majority of Meltonians, who hunt only for the sake of riding, utterly regardless of what hounds may be doing, so long as they are kept going; but the advantages of a Master thoroughly acquainted with the business part of his profession, over an inexperienced man, are very obvious, as one stands in the position of a tutor, the other as pupil, to be initiated into the science of fox-hunting. The first is, de jure et de facto, commander-in-chief over his whole staff. He can say, sic volo sic jubeo; the other, although ostensibly Master, is in reality the servant of servants-fearful of issuing orders which may be disregarded or ridiculed. With the field also, the Master who can hunt his own hounds carries more weight, and exercises greater control over them than any professional huntsman, however talented. As an instance of this, on the first public meeting of the Quorn

hounds this season, when the world and his wife were out, a very large assemblage of equestrians of all kinds, and from all places within a certain time by rail or road, the Master placed his fieldnot a very easy one to manage-on the brow of Gartree Hill, above the first covert to be drawn, leaving the lower side open for the fox to have a fair start; neither would he throw his hounds into it until his requirements had been complied with. Could any professional huntsman have exercised such authority? We trow not.

Unfortunately for himself and the country, the preceding Master of the Quorn knew little, and cared less about the business part of fox-hunting, the management of his establishment having been intrusted to one for his last season who went with the tide, and possessed not the knowledge or inclination to swim against it. We allude, of course, to the late Marquis of Hastings, now so recently cut down, as a fair flower nipped in the bud, and over whose untimely fate every man who has a heart to feel must shed a tear. That accursed mania for betting on racing events has consigned him, when entering upon life, to the narrow confines of the grave. A youth of fairer promise, or of brighter prospects, never entered upon this terrestrial scene. God grant that he has changed it for a brighter one! There are very few young men of moderate means ever ruined by keeping foxhounds only; and if they should be, the process must be gradual; but thousands there have been, and we fear still will be, bereft of all they possessed in one or two seasons by betting transactions on the Turf, and maintaining an expensive racing establishment; besides which, the two amusements are utterly at variance as to health-giving occupation: the first imparting strength and vigour to mind and body; the last rife with the most depressing influences upon both. An old friend of ours, who flourished for many years upon the Turf, being a cautious and careful book-maker, used to say that, save for his hunting, his racing would soon have 'run him to ground.' The cheery meets at the covert-side seemed to make amends for the cheerless, anxious meetings on Newmarket Heath, Epsom, Ascot, and Doncaster, as he entered con amore into the spirit of the chase, and no man could beat him across country in the most trying run with foxhounds. So far all went well for

several successive seasons; but at last the mania for betting and racing superseded his love for hunting, and the wear and tear of mind upon a constitution never physically strong told their oftrepeated tale-his head gave way before continual excitement, and his last days were spent in a lunatic asylum. A short time before this calamity occurred, I met him, looking haggard and careworn, and remarking upon his altered appearance, he said, 'How can I 'look well, old fellow? I never go to bed like you do; and if I did, 'I could not sleep.'

'Never go to bed! then how do you spend the night?'

'At parties of some kind-from one to the other until dawn of 'day; then home for a shave and cup of coffee; lounge on the sofa 'an hour or two to read my letters and papers; off again on the pig

'skin or wheels, for racing or hunting fixtures; dine at my club or elsewhere; night spent as usual.'

Such was the closing scene of a man of rank, formed for society, and one of the most agreeable, cheerful companions we ever knew. More than that, he had a heart to feel for others' woes, since a more kind and compassionate being never existed. Had the late lamented young nobleman stuck to his hunters instead of his racers, he might still have been in the land of the living. Whatever may be asserted as the immediate cause of death, it is quite conclusive than an overstrained brain will destroy the powers of the corporeal system.

There are, in every hunting-field, some genuine sportsmen who will support and assist the Huntsman in his praiseworthy attempts to show sport; but their number is small-very insignificant in comparison with the nonconformists, who are only looking out for a good start, apparently utterly indifferent whether they head back the fox or not; clamorous against the Huntsman if he fails to give them the run they are so industriously, though perhaps ignorantly, adopting the most certain means to prevent. Fox-hunting has become the most fashionable of all winter recreations and pastimesthe game of all games for country-houses, from the first of November to the last day in April; but notwithstanding its deserved popularity, everybody appears to think that fox-hunting is the only game which is as natural to mankind as whooping to owl-kind; and they plume themselves upon their imitation of this bird of wisdom, by uttering the most discordant shrieks when a fox presents himself to their view. Owls have more sense than to scream when they behold their prey. We have been, and are still, called a nation of fox-hunters, because the hunting of the fox is almost, I might say, peculiarly a British sport-no other country on the face of the earth can lay claim to such a distinction. There have of late years been fox-hunting establishments set going in France, Italy, and other continental states-even in Russia, that coldest of all European climates; but fox-hunting is not the passion, or national amusement of these people. It has been introduced by Britishers-English, Irish, or Scotch; and when unsupported by them, generally falls to the ground. Our Gallic neighbours over the water seem to understand something about horse-racing; it suits their excitable natures, and they adopt it as an agreeable amusement pour passer le temps; but I should like to see a veritable Frenchman hunting a pack of foxhounds, with French assistants only.

From this digression, we will return to the first Quorn fixture of this season, with their new Master, who soon convinced his Field that the precautionary measures he had adopted would result in a beneficial manner to themselves. A fox was found in the lower end of the covert, and seeing no impediment to his course, broke away, with the pack in close attendance, and gave them the coveted burst, quite fast enough for all, and too fast for many horses-without, however, losing his brush. Their second fox afforded them a good run, going over a splend d line of country, abounding in large grass