Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/134

 superior degree; 4, Being the owner, or keeper, of a forest, park, chase, or warren.

But though shooting partridges and grouse might be very well, fox-hunting was the amusement befitting a gentleman. A Prime Minister, if he could not ride to hounds, was looked down upon as not quite a gentleman, according to the proper standard. Even Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington was not quite up to their mark in horsemanship. Their talk was of horses and dogs, fox-hunting, horse-racing, and tandem-driving. The walls of their rooms were covered with prints such as might be considered congenial to their cultivated minds; with portraits of celebrated racers and hunters, and dogs remarkable for their courage or sagacity, particularly when such courage and sagacity had been exhibited like those of the dog Billy, of rat-catching reputation. With those young men, though kings and lords were not as other men, of the earth earthy, but had a sort of divinity hedging them round about, so that their chaff was better than other folks' corn; yet even